Reply #54: Exactly

[loyalsister]

He is also a an intellectual who can actually remember the historical landscape. Imagine a couple in their late 20s (he would have been a teenager). They catch a smell of reaganomics and the antigovernment propaganda. They "work for a living" as opposed to the welfare queens and want to strike it rich. They get in on thinking the wife should stay home. He gets a "better" corporate job. They get to move into a bigger house in one of those shiney new subdivisions.

They join a country club drive a nice car and cheerfully wear their designer clothes thinking that it is morning in America.

People did think it was better at the time. That doesn't mean it was, of course. But we can't sit here and rewite everyone else's experience. And the results won't do that either. If some people have come out feeling good, it is not going to change what they felt about it.
His point is that when people have an agreement about a sense of the world or the direction of the country they are ready for change. Reagan was able to identify that and he was able to lead people in a direction suited to HIS ideology. Thus, he was successful in that goal.

The idea to do that might be a good one. The idea to be optimistic and positive about it might be a good one.