Must read: Reagan: The Great White Redeemer

"With the death of Reconstruction, the great American leap into social modernity was aborted. What followed was not only a descent into Jim Crow hell for Black folks, but the arrested development of the United States as a civilized society. For the next 60 years, American politics was dominated by a national corporate oligarchy and a one-party apartheid political order in the South, armed with congressional veto power over federal social legislation. For three generations, until the Great Depression of the 1930s made the conversation unavoidable, American rulers more or less successfully suppressed the mere discussion of a social contract between capital and labor and among citizens. How could it have been otherwise, since white America had rejected the equality clause of Reconstruction’s proposed contract with Black America?. . .
A quarter century later, the Reaganite momentum shows no signs of having exhausted itself. As journalist Joe Davidson puts it:

During his two terms in office, Reagan captured, solidified and came to personify America’s move to the political right. His greatest legacy is as leader of that swing in the American political spectrum. That shift made “liberal” a dirty word and Democrats cower. What had been conservative became moderate. What was moderate was pushed to the left wing. The shift was so pronounced and profound that black America giddily embraced Bill Clinton despite his promotion of programs, criminal justice and welfare policies in particular, that would have been called racist and reactionary under Reagan. . . .

Persons not enthralled at the pageantry of Reagan’s sendoff wonder, what is this national display really about?
It is white Americans deeply engaged in the rituals of self-worship – a heresy and abomination that usually portends great violence in the fires of “Redemption.” "