What factors contributed to Reagan's victory in 1984 and Bush's victory in 1988?
1 Answer
The conservative revolution.
Explanation:
In the 1980s America knew a counterrevolution against the previous evolutions of the past, which had brought the defense of minorities and the Welfare State.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan came with the credo " government isn't the solution, government is the problem", he therefore avocated a weakening of state intervention in the economy except in the defense industry.
He also had a different approach to racial issues and minority issues. Though Reagan was not an avowed racist, he was not an outspoken defendor of minority rights unlike his predecessors since JFK. This rejection of minority rights is sometimes referred to as "the white man's backlash".
Reagan and Bush enjoyed a massive shift of American society to the right. Republicans won the majority in both houses of Congress in 1994 for the first time since the fifties. In 1992 Bush lost only because of Ross Perot's candidacy which drained a tremendous amount of votes from the Republican Party.
Medias such as CNN or National Review highly contributed to the successes of the American Right
