party – It took only 16 years

it took only 16 years, with the election of ronald reagan, for the movement and party to merge during those years, conservatives hammered away at institutional structures, denouncing the established ones for their treacherous liberalism, and building alternatives, in the form of well-funded right-wing foundations, think tanks, business lobbies, legal groups, magazines, publishers, professorships when reagan won the presidency in 1980, the products of this “counter-establishment” (from the title of sidney blumenthal’s book on the subject) were ready to take power