How Reagan Made Us the Armaggedon Generation

Angry Planet

Matthew Gault

War, Politics, Conflict, Government, History, News

4.3 • 882 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2020

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

America is perhaps more conservative today than it’s ever been. For some on the right, Obama, Biden and Clinton look like socialists. For people on the left, they look like moderate republicans. There’s a reason for both of those views that’s steeped in America’s recent past. U.S. culture was shaped by a suave and smooth talking President who promised we could be a beacon of hope for the world and a shining city on a hill.

Here to talk about what happened is Rick Perlstein. Perlstein is a returning guest and the author of the new book Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980. The book is, among other things, the story of how a Southern Evangelical Democrat paved the way for a divorced actor from California to ascend to the presidency and shape America’s destiny.

Recorded 9/10/20
How voters go from voting for Johnson to voting for Nixon
America’s moral reckoning, from Vietnam to Watergate
What Star Wars tells us about America today
Stable government under a crook vs unstable government under an honest man
Call of Duty: Cold War and the hero worship of Reagan
Jimmy Carter as the redeemer of America’s sins
The nightly hostage wrap up
How the Camp David Accords set the Middle East against Carter
Afghanistan as a stop on the Hippie trail
When Carter cancelled the Olympics
Nuclear debates
Rick’s Reagan impersonation
How the press and politicians misread the moment

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Love this podcast support this show through the a cast supporter feature
0:05.1	It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now.
0:26.7	The Afghanistan thing is seen as a Soviet expansionist move. And it was just mind-blowing to me to read
0:30.2	Zevigno Brzinsky, who was the very hard line, hawkish Cold War National Security Advisor Jimmy Carter had.
0:34.8	Speaking about ambiguity, his Secretary of State was basically like, you know, almost like a pacifist
0:39.5	in a lot of ways, Cyrus Vance.
0:41.7	Zivigme Brizinski was absolutely convinced that this was, they were establishing a beach
0:45.8	head to invade Iran and take over the oil fields in Saudi Arabia.
0:52.1	And you know, this was such a terrifying prospect that Jimmy Carter
0:56.3	was a presented an option to bomb the passages between Iran and Afghanistan with
1:01.2	nuclear weapons, right? But again, very Manician and immediately
1:06.4	public opinion shifts away from this kind of more detente-based human rights-based
1:12.3	foreign policy.
1:13.7	And next thing, know, Jimmy Carter is promising a 20% increase
1:18.5	in America's defense budget if he wins a second term.
1:25.0	There's Reaganland right there. There's Reaganland right there.
1:27.0	There are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.
1:35.0	One day all of the facts in about 30 years time will be published.
1:44.0	When genocide has been cut out in his country almost with impunity and when it is near
1:56.6	to completion people talk about intervention.
2:00.3	They will be met with fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Hello, welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Matthew Bond. And I'm Jason Field.
2:31.0	America is perhaps more conservative today than it's ever been.
	...

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