Reaganism and the American Culture War | Slotkin's Analysis

The text analyzes Reaganism not as a simple return to conservatism, but as a 'mythical synthesis' combining Frontier individualism, faith in the market, and a religious vision of the USA. In the face of the 1970s crisis of stagflation and the loss of trust in New Deal experts, Ronald Reagan introduced a new grammar of freedom. Instead of the total liquidation of the state, he proposed a change in the normative hierarchy: government ceased to be the primary guarantor of progress and became an institution that should be subordinate to the citizen and the market. This rhetorical shift, based on the belief that government is the problem rather than the solution, laid the foundations for contemporary cultural and political divisions in the United States.