Politics & Power Quote by William L. Jenkins

“Revolutionized” is doing the heavy lifting here, and that’s the point. Jenkins isn’t just praising Reagan’s record; he’s staking a claim in an ongoing argument about what the Republican Party is supposed to be. In one tidy sentence, he frames the Reagan years as a foundational reset: not a presidency that governed well or badly, but one that rewired incentives, language, and expectations across American politics. The verb turns party evolution into destiny.

The subtext is both legitimizing and cautionary. By attributing today’s “political atmosphere” to Reagan, Jenkins offers a kind of political genealogy: whatever you like or hate about the present, trace it back to the 1980s. That move quietly absolves current actors of full responsibility while also daring them to live up to (or break from) a mythic standard. It’s a way of saying: this is the water we swim in; it was poured into the pool decades ago.

Context matters because Reagan’s two terms coincide with a conservative consolidation that went beyond policy: a new confidence in market-first rhetoric, a moralized framing of social issues, and an image of American strength as a cultural product, not just a strategic posture. Calling it a “revolution” nods to the coalition-building, the communications discipline, and the shift toward politics as narrative warfare.

Jenkins, as a politician, is also signaling affiliation. Invoking Reagan is a loyalty test and a branding shortcut: it summons optimism, toughness, and clarity, while sidestepping the messy details. The line works because it compresses a contested era into a usable legend.