Presidency of Ronald Reagan in the context of "New Deal Coalition"

The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, big city machines, racial and religious minorities (especially Jews, Catholics, and African Americans), white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic Party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and wealthy Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and won both the White House and both congressional houses with a mandate, surviving the splits that created two splinter parties.

The coalition made the Democratic Party the majority party nationally for decades. From 1933 to 1968, Democrats only lost control of the White House when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 and was then reelected in 1956 due to his broad popularity. The Democrats typically controlled both Houses of Congress before the 1990s. The coalition began to weaken with the collapse of big city machines after 1940, the steady decline of labor unions after 1970, the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, the turn of northern white ethnics and southern whites toward conservatism on racial issues, and the rise of neoliberalism under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, with its opposition to regulation.

The Heritage Foundation (or simply Heritage) is an American right-wing think tank based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1973, it took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies, including its Mandate for Leadership.

The Heritage Foundation has had significant influence in U.S. public policy making, and has historically been ranked among the most influential public policy organizations in the United States. In 2010, it founded a sister organization, Heritage Action, an influential activist force in conservative and Republican politics.

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A member of the Republican Party, he became an important figure in the American conservative movement. The period encompassing his presidency is known as the Reagan era.

Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and was hired the next year as a sports broadcaster in Iowa. In 1937, he moved to California where he became a well-known film actor. During his acting career, Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild twice from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960. In the 1950s, he hosted General Electric Theater and worked as a motivational speaker for General Electric. During the 1964 presidential election, Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech launched his rise as a leading conservative figure. After being elected governor of California in 1966, he raised state taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus and implemented crackdowns on university protests. Following his loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination and then obtained a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election.

The Christian right are Christian political factions characterized by their strong support of socially conservative and traditionalist policies. Christian conservatives seek to influence politics and public policy with their interpretation of the teachings of Christianity.

In the United States, the Christian right (otherwise known as the New Christian Right or the Religious Right) is an informal coalition which was formed around a core of conservative Evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics. The Christian right draws additional support from politically conservative mainline Protestants, Orthodox Jews, and Mormons. The movement in American politics became a dominant feature of U.S. conservatism from the late 1970s onwards. The Christian right gained powerful influence within the Republican Party during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Its influence draws from grassroots activism as well as from focus on social issues and the ability to motivate the electorate around those issues.

Martin Stuart Feldstein (/ˈfɛldstaɪn/ FELD-styne; November 25, 1939 – June 11, 2019) was an American economist. He was the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and the president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served as president and chief executive officer of the bureau from 1978 to 2008 (with the exception of 1982 to 1984). From 1982 to 1984, Feldstein served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and as chief economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan (where his deficit hawk views clashed with the Reagan administration's large military expenditure policies). Feldstein was also a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body the Group of Thirty from 2003.

John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American jurist who has served since 2005 as the 17th chief justice of the United States. Though primarily an institutionalist, he has been described as having a moderate conservative judicial philosophy. Regarded as a swing vote in some cases, Roberts has presided over an ideological shift toward conservative jurisprudence on the high court, in which he has authored key opinions.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Roberts was raised Catholic in Northwest Indiana and studied at Harvard University, initially intending to become a historian. He graduated in three years with highest distinction, then attended Harvard Law School, where he was the managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Roberts later served as a law clerk for Judge Henry Friendly and Justice William Rehnquist and held positions in the Department of Justice from 1989 to 1993 during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Roberts then built a leading appellate practice, arguing 39 cases before the Supreme Court.

The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) was the agency responsible for administering most of the war on poverty programs created as part of United States president Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda. It was established in 1964 as an independent agency and renamed the Community Services Administration (CSA) in 1974.

The Richard Nixon administration attempted to dismantle the agency in 1973. However, this effort was not wholly successful. It would ultimately then be dismantled in 1981 by the Ronald Reagan administration, as it was moved into the Department of Health and Human Services and renamed the Office of Community Services, with most of its programs continuing to operate.