The use of legalistic strategies to advance the rights of minorities divided liberals from the working-class constituencies that once made up the heart of the New Deal majority. Advocating ideals of individualism, social mobility, and self-realization that come closest to fulfillment in the professional classes, liberals defended the underdog in an upper-class accent. Their well-meaning efforts to help black people, women, gays, and other victims of legal discrimination smacked of paternalism. Their confidence in the rectitude of their own intentions, in their moral standing as protectors of beleaguered minorities, verged on self-righteousness. Their faith in administrative expertise offended those who put their faith in common sense. The cumulative effect of their highly organized altruism was to generate a "backlash against the theoreticians and bureaucrats in national government," as George Wallace put it. By 1968, when Wallace's strong showing among working-class voters in the North foreshadowed a new political alignment, Americans were "fed up," in his words, "with strutting pseudo-intellectuals lording over them, writing guidelines, ... telling them they have not got sense enough to know what is best for their children or sense enough to run their own schools and hospitals and local domestic institutions."

Twelve years later, the working-class revolt against liberalism helped to bring the new right to power under Reagan. But Reagan's defense of "traditional values," it turned out, did not amount to much. A self-proclaimed conservative, Reagan had no more use than people on the left for "naysayers" and "prophets of doom," as he called them. When he denounced those who falsely claimed that America suffered from a spiritual "malaise," he echoed the main theme of Ted Kennedy's unsuccessful campaign in the 1980 primaries. If Reagan succeeded where Kennedy failed, perhaps it was because he managed to create the impression that moral regeneration could be achieved painlessly through the power of positive thinking, whereas Kennedy relied on the usual array of federal programs.

The "traditional values" celebrated by Reagan—boosterism, rugged individualism, a willingness to resort to force (against weaker opponents)

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