Hey all, this is a political story set in the not too distant future.
Prologue1980 was a year of great anxiety for many Americans. Inflation and unemployment were both high, dual economic dynamics that threatened the livelihoods of millions. Wages had, for the most part, not kept pace with the high rate of inflation. Rising interest rates were causing many to declare bankruptcy. The economic downturn was endangering the hard-won gains of the American middle class.
Furthermore, it didn’t help that the United States federal government, once seen as a savior of last resort for many Americans during the Great Depression years, had grown to a regulatory leviathan that a large number of people, particularly those who had moved into the middle and upper classes, perceived as an unwelcome intruder into their lives. What was the point of all those welfare programs, when they were being abused by so many people? Who benefited, at whose expense?
“Why should my tax dollars go to welfare cheats and slackers? I worked hard for my money!” grumbled James O’Connell, a Detroit machinist, in a letter to his Congressman in June. “My parents came from poverty, I’m not elite, and I’ve been a lifelong Democrat-until now. From now on I am voting for the Republicans, because they stand up for the working middle class.”
O’Connell was just one example of many, of a new emergent middle class in the suburbs of cities all over the country. These Americans had been loyal Democrats for so long, and for what? To hear President Carter scold them for consuming too much? To see their party become corrupted by radical feminists, apologists for the “social plight” of “urban blacks”, and do-gooder environmentalists? To hear Lyndon Johnson lie about Vietnam, and then see thugs riot at the Convention in Chicago? To see the American flag desecrated, abortion legalized, and school children bused against their parents’ wills? Though the reality was more complicated, the perception of a growing number of people: Democrats and Republicans, Protestant and Catholic, male and female, blue collar and white collar; was that their party had been corrupted by radical liberal forces that threatened the very foundations of American life with their social experiments in public policy.
Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, however, offered these people hope in 1980. With his simple but clear message of a smaller government, a return to conservative cultural values, and a renewed projection of American strength abroad against Communism, the optimistic Californian was becoming, in the upcoming election, the favorite of a great number of Americans, including many Democrats. With Reagan promising to unleash the power of the private sector, to cut taxes and welfare spending and stimulate the economy, many Americans were willing to take their chances with the aging actor-and the Republican Party.
While all this political drama was taking place on the national stage, on a more local level, life remained relatively quiet, especially in places like the town of Touloun, Illinois. In this tiny community, not too far from Ronald Reagan’s birthplace, a young couple was starting a family. This family would grow to include a boy, who would become, as it turns out, a much more influential person than his parents could ever have imagined.
