Chapter Eight - The Great Undoing

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Great Undoing

HE DIDN’T RUN to build something.

He ran to reverse it.

The Reagan Revolution wasn’t new. It was demolition.
A rollback of the New Deal, the Great Society, and every policy that had dared to suggest the government should care if you were hungry.

This wasn’t governance.
It was erasure.

The theory was simple.

Cut taxes for the rich, they invest more, economy grows, and benefits “trickle down.”

That never happened.

But what did happen was the top tax rate dropping from 70% to 28%, corporate taxes falling, capital gains taxes falling, and billionaires blooming like weeds.

Meanwhile, wages stagnated, inequality exploded, and debt soared.

And when the poor asked what happened?

Reagan said they just weren’t working hard enough.

One of his first major moves was firing 11,000 striking air traffic controllers.

Not bargaining.
Not mediating.
Firing.

It sent a message so loud the entire labor movement heard it:
“You’re next.”

Union power cratered.
CEOs cheered.
Worker protections began vanishing like benefits at a shareholders’ meeting.

Reagan didn’t believe in red tape.
He believed in green lights. For banks, oil companies, and monopolies.

He gutted environmental rules.
Weakened the SEC.
Let corporations merge, slash, offload, and exploit with minimal oversight.

If the New Deal built a safety net, Reagan set it on fire and sold the ashes as job creators.

Every cut was justified with a smile and a story.
Every cruelty wrapped in economic theory.

But the goal was never balance.
It was sabotage.

Shrink the government.
Kill its ability to help people.
Then point to the wreckage and say:

“See? Told you it doesn’t work.”

And the worst part?

It worked.