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It also elected Reagan, twice, took Congress back for the first time in 40 years and gave us probably the most conservative policy decade since the 1920s, elected both Bushes four times in total, and won the House nine times (I'll let you guys have 2016, although I think that really was still momentum from the Conservative Movement), the Senate ten times, and brought Republican control of state legislatures and governor's mansions to a numeric height unequaled in a century.
It's not so clear that failing to beat Obama meant it was 'non-viable', although I know that's the self serving story MAGA likes to tell itself.
Reagan did some great things, and genuinely had a vision for the future. He also left office more than a third of a century ago. Bush Sr. is notable pretty much only for beating up on a couple of tinpot dictators and largely failing on the domestic front. Bush Jr is notable for being completely eclipsed by his VP, embracing the idiot wing of the GOP, finishing up his daddies work in the most expensive fashion possible, and entangling the nation in a festering quagmire of a war that wouldnt succeed in its objective of killing one guy until the next president and genrally being an enormous suck of lives and treasure; domestically he passed a terrible education bill and a few minor tax cuts while overseeing the regulatory idiocy that led to the 2008 financial crisis.
None of this is worth celebrating- good riddance to it.
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And what did the Right get from all that, in terms of concrete outcomes? And I mean wins, not just "well, the left didn't get as much as they could have otherwise."
Why should the right be satisfied with "well, you didn't lose as quickly as you could have"?
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Failing to beat Obama after the 2008 financial crisis.
Did any 1st-world governing party except Merkel's CDU survive that? Post-2008 German politics is hilarious - the 60% or so of the electorate who want Merkel out keep trying to vote her out (including by punishing her coalition partners) but she keeps finding a new coalition partner willing to trash its relationship with its own voters for four years running the German foreign ministry.
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This is true, and the 80s were a real success. They also ended 34 years ago. It's notable that in your summary, your detailing of concrete outcomes stops there, in favor of detailing process "wins".
Because it allowed Blue Tribe political and cultural victories to snowball victories to the point that the term "Blue Tribe" became a necessary part of the lexicon. since the 80s, its wins were pyrrhic at best, to the point that the best option currently available to its constituents is to organize behind an analogue of 1990s-era Bill Clinton.
The movement you are eulogizing played a significant role in the destruction of America as a viable political entity. We will be paying for its mismanagement for decades to come.
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