Dangerous Disaffection - Henry Olsen - National Review Online

Dangerous Disaffection - Henry Olsen - National Review Online: "Reagan’s rhetoric always made the typical American feel valued and special. It did not emphasize the great entrepreneurs and captains of industry, although Reagan understood how setting them free would benefit America. Instead, he focused in speech after speech on ordinary people who did extraordinary things — the “boys of Pointe-du-Hoc,” the Lenny Skutnicks. It’s a rhetorical approach built on genuine sympathy for the average person.

His vision of a new Republican party included the educated and the uneducated, the working class as well as the upper class. He explained how working-class Democrats and independents could make common cause with traditional Republican supporters to forge a new majority founded on conservative principles, a strategy that carried him to a landslide.
That majority can be reconstructed. Blue-collar whites believe the president and the Democrats do not have their best interests at heart. They want to make common cause with conservatives to save our country. They just need to know that they will be safe on the Republican ship if they come aboard. "