The Reagan era — a time when the American Dream got a perm, Wall Street got high on its own supply, and compassion was drowned in a jacuzzi at Studio 54.

 This was the decade when *greed* wasn’t just good — it was federally endorsed. When your country told you that if you weren’t rich, healthy, or white with a good TV smile, you probably deserved whatever hell you were living through. AIDS? Ignore it. Crack epidemic? Criminalize it. Union workers? Fire ‘em. Trees? Cut ‘em. Poor people? Trickle something on them and call it economics.  Ronald Reagan sold optimism the way televangelists sell salvation: loud, rehearsed, and with a suspicious bank account offshore. “It’s morning in America,” he beamed, like some kind of demented cheerleader for a dying empire — while actual Americans were waking up to layoffs, homelessness, and lethal indifference.

 Don’t have healthcare? Bootstraps. Can’t afford college? Bootstraps. Your rent is half your income? Pull harder, baby.

 Meanwhile, Nanc...