Jonathan Kaufman Traces 1980s Roots of Trump in New Book, Linking 2015 Gay-Marriage Win
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 21
Jonathan Kaufman Traces 1980s Roots of Trump in New Book, Linking 2015 Gay-Marriage Win
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 21
Summary
Jonathan Kaufman’s new book, “When America Roared,” argues the 1980s both remade and damaged the US, laying political and cultural foundations that still shape Donald Trump’s America.
Trump is one through-line: Kaufman says the president remains steeped in an 1980s aesthetic and worldview, even though New York elites mocked him in that decade and did not take him seriously.
Jack Welch, Karen Nussbaum, John Rogers and Evan Wolfson anchor the narrative, showing how corporate restructuring, labor activism, Black conservatism and a gay-marriage strategy first sketched in the 1980s reshaped later politics.
Mark Fowler, Reagan’s FCC chair, is cast as a pivotal but overlooked figure whose deregulation helped clear the way for Fox News, talk radio and the polarized media environment that benefits today’s right.
Kaufman says Republicans systematically changed business, media and courts after Reagan while Democrats still struggle with similar internal fights over ideology and how to counter that long-running project.