Why Was Ronald Reagan Referred To As A Revolution

Ronald Reagan won the United States presidency in 1980 and sought to change American’s attitudes towards their country, their government, and the world (Mindtap, Middle East Crises, 12.4). The Reagan Revolution was truly revolutionary because Reagan’s conservative political ideology transformed the framework of politics which continues to influence it to this day. This can be seen through the analyzation of the circumstances surrounding the rise in conservatism in American politics and the many instances of why Reagan’s presidency was referred to as a revolution. After the 1970s, many of Americans were unhappy with America’s economy, society, and politics. The economy stopped climbing after 1972 when unemployment and inflation skyrocketed.

On top of it all, the United States was defeated in 1975 in the Vietnam War that lasted fifteen years and lost more than 50,000 lives seemingly for nothing (Mindtap, Cold War Crises, 12.3). By the end of the 1970s, the extreme disappointment with American life had opened up the opportunity for a life changing moment in American history. Americans were ready to try something radically different from Roosevelt’s New Deal Order in the 1930’s, which structured politics up to that point in time, that seem to have failed. This as well as the personal charisma Reagan had helped as he talked of a promising ideology vision to fundamentally change American politics. He led a time of conservative domination of American politics and society that would last for decades to come. Another reason to the success of Reagan’s

Reagan promised to end the “Vietnam Syndrome” by restoring America’s, as well as the military’s itself, confidence in the military (Thompson, 198-199). In his first term, Reagan held a strong militant stance against communism calling for the buildup in American armed forces and nuclear weaponry in the event that there was ever a Soviet attack. Reagan’s greatest diplomatic success came from leading the United States to a victory in the Cold War. However, it was when he took a more flexible stance, in his second term of presidency, in his relations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who was seeking a more civil policy (Crash Course, Reagan Revolution). Reagan achieved victory through compromise not combat, by helping Gorbachev to gradually break down communism from within, granting people greater political and economic freedoms (Mindtap, Middle East Crises,