America was strong again. He says that "Reagan was perfectly suited for the role of master entertainer and for fulfilling a public need for reassurance" (139).
Reagan in his mythmaking role helped divert the attention of the public away from unpleasant realities, such as the growing inequality between rich and poor, the decline of public infrastructure and services, especially for the less fortunate and those who lived in inner cities, and growing budget deficits which the Reagan revolution's supply side economics (i.e. tax cuts coupled with large increases in defense spending) helped produce. However, Johnson does not entirely agree with Reagan's critics such as Clark Clifford, who labelled him an 'amiable dunce.' The author cites various sources for the proposition that Reagan delegated more than was wise and was ill-served by many of his appointees, but he also reports that "he was a strong president, not a weak one . . . [who] greatly expanded the powers of the presidency and the executive branch," especially in foreign policy where he "bent Congress to his will" (457). He says of Reagan that "in the areas he cared about, he was a useful simplifier who knew what he wanted and how to get it" and was "stubbornly determined to
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