Now, will Donald Trump return the loyalty?

The Roots of the New Trump Order

by Samuel G. Casolari


Ronald Reagan won a convincing popular and electoral victory in 1980. Campaigning for income tax cuts, smaller government, and a resolute stand against communism, Reagan earned a mandate to carry out his conservative vision. Part of his victory was owed to millions of culturally conservative, blue collar, non-college educated voters in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and elsewhere experiencing the first wave of economic dislocation and insecurity brought on by recession and inflation. These Reagan Democrats were not traditional Republican voters and certainly not the country club, chamber of commerce, and educated suburbanites that made up the Republican Party.

Two other forces emerged from Reagan’s victory, however. George Herbert Walker Bush swept into the vice presidency as Ronald Reagan’s running mate. After a political career that included two senate losses in Texas, two house victories in Texas, and a failed campaign for president in 1980, Ronald Reagan breathed new life into Bush as the new vice president. While in Arkansas meanwhile, the young governor, Bill Clinton, lost his reelection in a dramatic political upset. The Bush win in 1980 and the Clinton loss in 1980 would set in motion two forces that would dominate American politics for the next 36 years and ignore the Reagan Democrats at their peril.

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