The Reagan Revolution

TIME magazine is talking bunch of nonsense on Ronald Reagan and his “revolution”. I guess it makes sense “mainstream” publications to “concentrate” on “central” characters. I will quote Toffler’s Powershift book on this one:

Shortly after Ronald Reagan was elected to the American presidency, Lee Atwater, one of his chief aides (later successively to George Bush’s campaign manager and chairman of the Republican National Commitee), met with friends for lunch at the White House. His candor at that table was remarkable.

“You will hear a lot in the coming months about the Reagan Revolution”, he said. “The headlines will be full of the tremendous changes Reagan plans to introduce. Don’t believe them.

Reagan does want to make a lot of changes. But the reality is, he won’t be able to. Jimmy Carter pushed the ‘system’ five degrees in one direction. If we here work very hard and are extremely lucky, Reagan may be able to push it five degrees in opposite direction. That’s what the Reagan Revolution is all about”.

Despite a media focus on individual politicians, Atwater’s remark underlines the degree to which even the most popular and highly placed leader is a captive of the ‘system’. This system, of course, is not capitalism or socialism, but bureucratism.