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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