The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 marked the most important turning point in politics since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election in 1932. Reagan’s victory established conservatism’s dominance in the Republican Party, while Democrats searched for votes by moving toward the right. The United States was not alone in this political shift. Conservatives rose to power in Britain with the election of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and they led governments in Germany, Canada, and Sweden, while socialist and social democratic governments elsewhere trimmed their welfare states.

The Reagan administration embraced the conservative Christian values of the New Right, but it left its most important mark on the economy: victory over inflation, deregulation of industry, enormous tax cuts, and a staggering federal budget deficit. Popular culture celebrated financial success, but poverty increased and economic inequality grew. Although the Reagan era did not see a policy revolution comparable to that of the New Deal, it dealt a sharp blow to the liberalism that had informed American politics since the 1930s.