#The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

[deadpresidents]

Have you ever read Nixonland by Rick Perlstein?

YES, I have, and it's fantastic. Nixonland is just one part of Rick Perlstein's excellent history of the rise of the modern Conservative movement and the Republican Party as it was basically transformed in opposition to LBJ's Great Society. All of the books are incredible, deeply-researched, and -- best of all -- extremely readable. I wholeheartedly recommend each of these books by Rick Perlstein: •Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Reaganland: America's Right Turn, 1976-1980 (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Incidentally, Reaganland is worth buying just for the cover photograph featuring Jimmy Carter giving Ronald Reagan the most amazing side-eye ever while they were in the limousine on Reagan's Inauguration Day:

[freddiegoesmetal]

There is a medieval political maxim that "the king has two bodies." A "body natural," that is to say — the real one that he carts around day to day, like any ordinary mortal — and a "body politic" — his symbolic presence as head of state. A president also has two bodies. The symbolic one grows on the TV screen, emanating a two-hundred-year-old nation's authority, of the safe, solid power of the free world, tangible evidence of the continued smooth functioning of the superpower.

Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

The Brain Washing of My Dad (Family Non-Fiction Film) | Real Stories

Jen Senko, a documentary filmmaker, looks at the rise of right-wing media through the lens of her WWII vet father who changed from a life-long, nonpolitical Democrat to an angry, right-wing fanatic after his discovery of talk radio on a lengthened commute to work.

In trying to understand how this happened, she not only finds this to be a phenomenon, but also uncovers some of the forces behind it: a plan by Roger Ailes under Nixon to create a media for the GOP; the Lewis Powell Memo, urging business leaders to influence institutions of public opinion – especially the universities – the media and the courts; and under Reagan, the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine – all of which helped to change the entire country's direction and culture, misinformed millions, divided families and even the country itself.

From The Brain Washing of My Dad (2015)

___________________________________

9:35 The 1960’s: The Right is Pronounced Dead

Reagan

10:00 Claire Conner author of “Wrapped in the flag: What I learned growing up in America’s Radical Right, how I escaped, and why my story matters today.”

The John Birch Society

10:40 Ike

11:18 David Brock author of “The Republican Noise Machine. Right Wing media and how it corrupts democracy” author of “Confessions of a Right-Wing hit man”

Accuracy in Media – Reed Irvine

12:15 1970 – Meet Roger Ailes The Memo: A Plan for putting the GOP on TV news

12:26 Craig Unger Journalist and author during interview with Bill Moyers, PBS

12:45 Gabriel Sherman author of “The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the brilliant, bombastic Roger Ailes built Fox News – and divided a country”

15:35 Reese Schonfeld Founding President and CEO of CNN

16:46 Richard Nixon – The Politics of Division

16:50 Rick Perlstein Historian and journalist author of “Nixonland: the rise of a president and the fracturing of America”

17:11 George Lakoff author of “Don’t Think of and Elephant!: the essential guide for progressives”

17:58 The Southern Strategy

18:20 Noam Chomsky Professor Emeritus, Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT

19:38 Conservative Populism

20:00 1971 The Confidential Lewis Powell Memo

20:22 Thom Hartman #1 Progressive Radio Talk Show Host in the U.S.

20:40 Jeff Cohen Associate Professor of Journalism, Ithaca College co-author of “The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error”

21:30 Noam Chomsky author of “OCCUPY: Reflections on Class War, Rebellion, and Repression”

23:00 Some Effects of the Lewis Powell Memo

Confidential Memorandum August 23, 1971 Attack on American Free Enterprise System https://archive.org/details/PowellMemorandum-AttackOnAmericanFreeEnterpriseSystem

23:06 The Grover Norquist Wednesday morning meetings

Grover Norquist: The Soul of the New Machine in Mother Jones https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/01/grover-norquist-soul-new-machine/

Right Wing – Strength in numbers

24:30 The Daily Show – Health care

25:00 Think Tanks

26:00 Thomas Medvetz Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego

26:42 The Reagan Revolution The Beginning of the ‘Smaller Government’ Mantra

27:00 Trickle down economics, “The only thing I have seen trickle down is meanness”

28:00 Rick Perlstein author of “The Invisible Bridge: The fall of Nixon and the rise of Reagan”

28:42 Claire Conner author of “Wrapped in the flag”

30:45 Supply-Side Economics

40:00 “Champion of the Overdog”

Top Ten Limbaugh Lies 10. There are more Native Americans alive today than when Columbus arrived. 9. The government is going to have the right to get into your bank account with the health care bill and make transfers without you knowing it. 8. Egyptian husbands will soon be able to have sex with their dead wives – for up to six hours after their death. 7. President Barack Obama shut down NASA space flights and turned the agency “Into a Muslim outreach department.” 6. The U.S. has more forestland than it did in 1787. 5. President Obama wants to mandate circumcision. 4. There’s no conclusive proof that nicotine’s addictive… and the same thing with cigarettes causing emphysema, lung cancer and heart disease. 3. If the ice caps melted, the oceans level wouldn’t rise 2. Styrofoam is biodegradable. 1. I’m not making this stuff up, folks!

45:00 Rush Limbaugh paid $35million per year, partly paid by the Heritage Foundation

The 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act

October 1996 Fox News Launched

49:30 Gabriel Sherman

50:40 Rick Perlstein

51:10 Edward S. Herman Professor Emeritus of Finance, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

51:55 David Brock author of “The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes turned a network into a propaganda machine”

53:48 Eric Boehlert Senior Fellow, Media Matters for America

54:07 Fox News median audience is 69 years old

55:19 Matthew Saccaro Freelance writer, “I was a teenage Fox News robot”

Brainwashing by Stealth

59:00 Dr Kathleen Taylor Neuroscientist, Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford author of “Brainwashing”

59:54 George Lakoff author of “Don’t Think of and Elephant!: the essential guide for progressives”

1:00:28 “You can’t win because it does not make any difference how many facts you put out there. It is all about the emotion of anger and hate and fear”

1:00:45 Dr Kathleen Taylor: “Five important factors in the belief change:

Isolation

Control

Uncertainty

Repetition

Use of strong emotions

“It often seemed that my dad was addicted to these angry emotions. He couldn’t wait to shut himself off and listen to Rush Limbaugh for three hours and get all pissed off.”

Addicted to Anger?

1:01:12 John Montgomery, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor, Psychology Department, SUNY, New Platz

1:02:00 TACTICS Tactic 1: Lie and Skew Tactic 2: Create Confusion and Doubt: The Noise Machine! Tactic 3: Blame and Divide Tactic 4: Brand and Label Tactic 5: Language and Framing Tactic 6: Fear Mongering and the Use of Emotion Tactic 7: Bullying and Shaming 1. shuts the guest up 2. fake outrage Tactic 8: In Your Face! It’s everywhere and it’s overkill Tactic 9: Non-verbal Manipulation Tactic 10:

1:16:21 What has this onslaught of right-wing media wrought?

________________________________

[zwischenstadt]

“The New York Times kept rolling out exposes- for instance, reporting that the California-based organization known as VIVA, or “Voices in Vital America” (originally formed, with the intention of harassing campus antiwar activists, as the “Victory in Vietnam Association”), had earned $3,693,661 in 1972, “almost entirely” from sales of POW bracelets, which it marked up for a 400 percent profit, and that it hoped “sales of the bracelets with the names of those still missing may pick up now.”  NBC ran an expose from the South Vietnamese prison island of Con Son.  Anchorman John Chancellor began by reminding viewers that North Vietnam had always offered to release American prisoners in exchange for prisoners held by South Vietnam, and that still, a month after the peace settlement, “the South Vietnamese are holding about 100,000 political prisoners.”  He appeared stricken by the cruel absurdity of the facts he was forced to relate.  The reporter in the field, who had long hair, interviewed two American hospital workers in South Vietnam who said that if prisoners didn’t give the right answers to interrogators they “reached under the ribs and cracked the rib,” and presented before the cameras a feeble old woman, a former Con Son prisoner, her eyes swollen shut, being hand-fed like a baby because she could not eat by herself.  Time’s correspondent described the released prisoners he had seen as “grotesque sculptures of scarred flesh and gnarled limbs.  They move like crabs, skitters across the floor on buttocks and palms.”

Rick Perlstein, Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

When people talk about prisoners of war in Vietnam, as them- who’s?

[unprettyextra]

Just read: The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

[pneumostelos]

Avioes do Apartheid

Neurótico psicopata sociopata vendilhão da Pátria ameaça até expulsar dos locais mais desassistidos do Brasil 8.0001 médicos insubstituiveis internacionais e de primeira linha. Se iguala a qualquer chefe de morro que expulsa médicos do posto de saúde, mediante "indiretas" e "mandando recado. Interrompe assim um projeto que atendeu a 291 milhões de brasileiros em mais de 3.000 municípios, muitos dos quais não conseguiam ter atendimento antes.

Quem acha que um psicopata raso, neurótico, que despreza o mundo, que defende a farra dos fortes contra os fracos, o abuso dos poderosos contra os mais humildes. Que quer fuzilar a todos a céu aberto, e quer deixar a humanidade definhar à míngua. Quem acha que fará algo a favor deles?

Quem acha que deixará algo senão saque e devastação. Que fará algo diferente da centenária política paroquiana de acertos, trocas, favores, conchavos e compadrios - de que ele faz parte e da qual é refém há 30 anos. Deixou a razão.

Resumindo. A Fazenda, do Orwell. Versão fascista. Com má fé desde o início.

A pequena política paroquial, farsesca, bufa, mesquinha, fominha, imediatista, atrasada, cafona, brega, hipócrita, careta, intolerante, de intrigas e futricas ... foi erguida ao governo nacional. À Presidência e Congresso Nacional ornamentais, superados, desativados, desmontados, à sombra de uma Junta Judiciária sob tutela militar (trabalhando para potência estrangeira, suas facções e suas multinacionais). Que mede e avalia a si mesma pelas negociatas feitas e distribuidas. Que saqueia primeiro a verba da saúde, depois a da educação, da merenda, do projeto social, da água, da obra de esgoto - com aflição e quase ressentimento. Como se fosse justificativa e vindicação.

A mesma da época de Adhemar de Barros. Com malas de dinheiro, com tudo. Variando ligeiramente, talvez, apenas nas fontes que as enchem. Que se ocupa de suas intrigazinhas e pequenas vigarices. Que encobre e justifica a grilagem dos grandes. E que atende às instruções do usineiro, do coroné, da multinacional, da mineradora.

Não há outro nome para isso que não seja guerra de classes - das "ricas" contra todo o resto. Para elas "não existe sociedade". Só bandos. Bandido se ressente de sociedade, e de tudo o que representa. De tudo que permite ao coletivo se defender deles.

Os aviões do Apartheid. E coisa pior.

Sugiro não colocarem um muro no meio da sala, ou dentro do corredor. Traria graves transtornos documentais, viários e financeiros. Se bem que, em era de tecnologias financeiras Africanas.

Neoli eralusmo, osteridadie e tunga econo-mico política. Segredos e revelações. ;) (Videos) No puxadinho ------------------------>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-YO5EROH-I ON CONTACT: A History of Neoliberalism, Part I Nov 10, 2018

David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at City University of New York and author of "A Brief History of Neoliberalism" argues with Chris Hedges that Neoliberalism, the manta of the global corporate elites, has created the worst income inequality in American history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb4ku4wN0Cw Rick Perlstein – Jimmy Carter and the Origins of the Democratic Party Cult of Austerity

Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs Oct 18, 2018

The Democratic Party's retreat from its New Deal and Great Society identity as a party eager to use the federal treasury to spend in the public interest to create a broadly shared prosperity is usually associated with the Clinton administration in the 1990s. It actually dates to the Carter administration. This talk will narrate this shift, and explained two political consequences that flowed from it: its failure to placate the Democratic Party's critics on the right, who consistently refused to recognize the shift, even as it attenuated the trust that had formerly reposed in the party among its traditional white working class constituencies.

RICK PERLSTEIN is the author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan [www.amazon.com/Invisible-Bridge-…gan/dp/1491534737]. Before that, he published Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2008)[www.amazon.com/Nixonland-Rise-Pr…ica/dp/074324303X], a New York Times bestseller picked as one of the best nonfiction books of the year by over a dozen publications, and Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus [www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Gold…sus/dp/1568584121], winner of the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. A contributing writer at The Nation, former chief national correspondent for the Village Voice, and a former online columnist for the New Republic and Rolling Stone, his journalism and essays have appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, and many other publications. Politico called him the “chronicler extraordinaire of American conservatism,” who “offers a hint of how interesting the political and intellectual dialogue might be if he could attract some mimics.” The Nation called him the “hyper caffeinated Herodotus of the American century.”

Listen to Mark Blyth and Rick further the conversation on The Rhodes Center Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Frhodescenter%2Frick-perlstein-jimmy-carter-origins-democratic-party-austerity

[kindlefirecollection]

Just Pinned to Get Kindle Fire: The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan http://ift.tt/2EZVleb

[right-about-now]

So I looked up on Wikipedia, the whole of human knowledge, what Asian Pacific Heritage is, just so I know who to include, and Wikipedia said India is included in that. Also, Australia, which seems wrong. Now, I’ve been looking for an excuse to run a graphic of Vijay Prashad, but I didn’t expect it would be during Asian Pacific Heritage Month.

So next week either I will make one of Paul Hogan or a Koala bear.

If you don’t know Vijay Prashad, you really should. He is an international public intellectual, who is really engaging when he speaks. He’s also written a number of books, including Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, and Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Stocks, Jails, Welfare. During the election, I intended to use a quote from him and for some reason, I forgot. So I will share it now:

When Americans say Benghazi, what they mean is Hillary Clinton’s attempt to become president.

If Hillary comes back, I might still use this quote.

Also, Vijay Prashad lives one town over from me. Someday I hope to meet him. I keep missing him speak when he does something local. Someday.

Solidarity is the core to any movement and there hasn’t been solidarity between the Democrats in years. As I mentioned before, I am reading Nixonland by Rick Perlstein and I am reading about the split in the Democratic party in 1968. Here is the problem: Historically the Democratic party is not the natural home of Labor and civil rights. There can be a debate about Economic justice.

When the Republican party was founded, it was the antithesis of what it is today, it was an abolitionist party who was for worker rights. That’s why it was the natural home for people like “Fightin’ Bob” LaFollett. Roosevelt was the first Democrat who really supported labor and Truman was the first to really work on civil rights. It wasn’t until the late 60s when the Democratic party was seen as the party of civil rights.

That is when racists like Nixon and Reagan started using dog whistles to attract racists to their party, running the last of the progressive Republicans out of the party.

This is also where we see how in the 60s, the Roosevelt coalition fell apart.

This was due to the anti-war movement and racism.

Solidarity was lost in the 60s and the Democrats moved to the right because they ran campaigns with issues. (I can’t wait to read “The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan” to learn about the 1984 election to understand the rise of the New Democrats better.) Instead, we got Bill Clinton whose greatest accomplishments as president was everything Republicans couldn’t pass, NAFTA, Welfare Reform, and the expansion of the Prison industrial complex with his Crime bill.

There was the faux solidarity of the Obama ascendancy. It wasn’t so much “Solidarity” as much as it is different groups voting the same way.

Obama wanted to be the great unifier and when you peer beneath the surface, you can see he wasn’t.

Now we do have some people who actually talk solidarity, like Medea Benjamin, but we don’t see a politician to do so. Bernie Sanders essentially told the #BlackLivesMatter movement to wait, he’ll get to them, creating a riff between him and people of color. This, with the reinforcement of white supremacy, outright racism (The attack of Marissa Janae Johnson after she interrupted Bernie in Seattle), and misogyny (Killer Mike’s rewriting of what happened in Seattle) has disrupted the solidarity needed to win.

Bernie Sanders’ lack of leadership to end the racism and to create genuine solidarity is why he lost the primary. Because Clinton was so bad at campaigning she lost to Trump; we need to find our solidarity. We also need someone who is genuinely progressive and who can actually build coalitions. We need somebody who understands that the reasons for the uprising in Egypt are the same as the uprising in Wisconsin, and who can bring that solidarity needed to win.

I’m certain that, intellectually, Bernie Sanders understood this, but his actions speak otherwise, and Clinton doesn’t understand the word “Solidarity.” This is why we need new leadership. This is why, unless Elizabeth Warren runs for President in 2020, and unless the Democrats figure this simple idea of Solidarity, we are likely to lose the next two elections. To paraphrase Thomas Geoghegan, the idea of solidarity is scandalous.

Maybe now we should actually do something to change that.

I see a 5-legged chair of the Democratic party if the party ever wants to win. 1) Labor, if it wants to survive MUST show solidarity with the Fight for $15, 2) Civil Rights, which the Dreamers and #BlackLivesMatter have done a good job showing Solidarity with each other, 3) Economic Justice movement, which needs to learn that just because the Venn diagram of social and economic justice movements have a lot of overlap, that means that they have to support and center people of color if they want to build that coalition. Right now, because of the white supremacy in our society, the civil rights movement doesn’t trust the economic justice movement, 4) Anti-war movement, which I am not overly familiar with other leaders of the movement beyond Medea Benjamin, who does a great job of showing solidarity, 5) The environmental movement which I have no critique of with solidarity because I haven’t delved into it as much. I will say, the Venn diagram of these movements, the environmental movement overlaps with the other 4 nicely. Solar, wind, Geothermal, and battery production are all jobs of the future, communities of color tend to be the dumping grounds of pollution, with the expansion of the economy of non-exportable jobs, there can be better economic justice, and since oil is almost a conflict mineral (Minerals are solids and inorganic, coal is organic and oil is a liquid) and we fight wars for oil, we should switch to renewable sources for that alone. Plus, climate change is the reason why the conflict in Syria started.

These five legs are not natural coalitions, however, with better leadership they can be. That is the coalition the Democratic party must build upon in order to win. Sadly, neither Bernie Sanders or Tom Perez has figured this out in their solidarity tour. 

We need to fix this. We need to actually put these people in a room in a town hall-style event to start finding that solidarity. Then the cream will rise to the top and we can start seeing who the next democratic leaders will be. Because what we are doing right now isn’t working and it hasn’t worked for a long time. We need change in this country, and the place to start is with Solidarity. Until then, we can’t move forward.

If you like this, please support it.

[coverspy]

The Invisible Bridge, Rick Perlstein (M, 30s, khakis, black jacket, Bose headphones, A train)

[deadpresidents]

If I had to read 1 book about every President from Nixon to Trump (or even Biden), which should I read?

•RICHARD NIXON

Nixon is a really tough one because there are so many great biographies about Nixon, as well as books that either focus specifically on his Presidency -- like President Nixon: Alone in the White House by Richard Reeves (BOOK | KINDLE) -- or on the overall political climate of his era, like Rick Perlstein's books, particularly Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (BOOK | KINDLE) and The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (BOOK | KINDLE).

But I'm going to cheat and pick the three-volume series by Stephen Ambrose: •Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962 (BOOK | KINDLE) •Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972 (BOOK | KINDLE) •Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990 (BOOK | KINDLE)

•GERALD FORD

It hasn't been released yet, but you'll have to take my word that nothing comes close to Richard Norton Smith's forthcoming book, An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (BOOK | KINDLE). If you can't wait until April, I'd suggest checking out Barry Werth's 31 Days: Gerald Ford, the Nixon Pardon and a Government in Crisis (BOOK | KINDLE). It's not a full-fledged biography, but it's a captivating look at Ford' first month in the White House following the resignation of President Nixon. Donald Rumsfeld's When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency (BOOK | KINDLE) also deserves an honorable mention.

•JIMMY CARTER

His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life by Jonathan Alter (BOOK | KINDLE)

•RONALD REAGAN

Edmund Morris’s Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (BOOK | KINDLE) is very divisive because of the controversial storytelling technique that Morris used to structure the biography, but I think the extent of his research and depth of detail overpowers any criticism about his writing choices. For those who would prefer a more traditional single-volume biography, you can’t go wrong with Reagan: The Life by H.W. Brands (BOOK | KINDLE).

•GEORGE H.W. BUSH

I can say, without any hesitation, that Jon Meacham’s Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (BOOK | KINDLE) is the best, single-volume biography ever written about any American President. In fact, in my opinion, it might be the best, single-volume biography ever written about anybody anywhere at any time.

•BILL CLINTON

I don’t think that anyone has written what I would consider the definitive overall biography of Bill Clinton’s life and Presidency yet. The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House by John F. Harris (BOOK | KINDLE) is excellent but focused, obviously, just on Clinton’s Presidency. I look forward to someone eventually writing THE biography of Bill Clinton.

•GEORGE W. BUSH

Much like President #42, I think we’re still waiting for the definitive, all-encompassing biography of 43. There are two excellent books about his years in the White House that I strongly recommend: Robert Draper’s Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush (BOOK | KINDLE), and Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House (BOOK | KINDLE) by Peter Baker, who has long been one of my favorite reporters about the modern Presidency.

•BARACK OBAMA

Like his two immediate predecessors, we’re still waiting for a complete biography about Obama’s entire life and political career. But David J. Garrow’s Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (BOOK | KINDLE) comes closest. It is meticulously researched and incredibly detailed -- the book is nearly 1,500 pages long and only takes us up through Obama’s election as President in 2008. But it is undoubtedly the definitive book about Obama’s early life and political rise -- there’s nothing else that comes even close.

•DONALD TRUMP

Unlike Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama, there is a full-fledged biography of Donald Trump that encompasses his life as well as his Presidency. Maggie Haberman worked on Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America (BOOK | KINDLE) during her years of reporting on Trump and published her biography of him last fall. Haberman has long been one of the best informed and most relentless reporters about Trump for much of the last decade, so her book is as close to definitive as one can get about a recent President.

•JOE BIDEN

It’s definitely too early for any complete biography about Biden so far. If you’re looking for something about him, I’d suggest Chris Whipple’s brand-new book, The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House (BOOK | KINDLE). And Gabriel Debenedetti’s The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama (BOOK | KINDLE) is a revealing look at their relationship from their brief time serving together in the Senate to the 2008 campaign where they started as opponents and then running mates, through their partnership in the Obama Administration and up to Biden’s 2020 victory and early days in the White House. 

[deadpresidents]

Ronald Reagan was an athlete of the imagination, a master at turning complexity and confusion and doubt into simplicity and stout-hearted certainty. Transforming his life, first in his own and then in others' eyes, into a model of frictionless ease -- and fashioning the world outside him into a stage on which to display it -- was how he managed to fly.

The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan by Rick Perlstein, Simon & Schuster (BOOK | KINDLE)