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I, too, am a Tweener: too young to be a Boomer, too old to be an Xer. Reagan turned my politics 180 degrees. I'll thank him forever.

Following is an excerpt from a short story I wrote six years ago:

Around this time I was hearing about Ronald Reagan, who had transformed into a fascist right wing Republican whacko because he was working for General Electric, doing little radio snippets like that fool Paul Harvey, spouting out his commie hatred. This guy must be stopped, my buddies swore. He’s a Neanderthal Man, gushing about America this and the flag that. Funny, I remembered him as a pretty good governor of California. Reagan won election and took office in 1981, about the same time I started my own business. Working for others was chafing.

To me, suddenly, my buddies got downright mean regarding Reagan. The anger was shocking, coming from people who I knew to be politically clueless and normally detached. Seemingly from out of nowhere, a new hatred emerged for Republicans in general and Reagan in particular. He wasn't merely wrong or misguided, he was pure evil. Wow. How'd THAT happen?

Without much resistance, I feigned agreement with this new anger, but I was confused: was Reagan a foolish, stupid ex-actor or a devious evil right wing tyrant? Having grown up in a household that prided itself on calm political debate, I was disappointed in my peers. They spat anti-government invective in rapid fire, leaving no spaces open for the give and take of normal discourse. For a while, I confused this bulldozer delivery with ideological conviction, assuming only smart and informed persons would dare monopolize conversations in this manner.

Reagan held the Presidency for eight long years, and the establishment press ridiculed him mercilessly, as did virtually ALL of my friends. My friends were artists and musicians, and I see now that these groups think in a solid block much like blacks, Jews, actors and college professors. That is to say over 90% are liberal progressives. That I was existing in a political gulag never occurred to me. I was simply not exposed to a conservative viewpoint. Ever. I can recall no college debate because there was no alternate opinion imaginable. If there were sleeper conservatives around me, they kept their mouths shut ( smart move).

This herd mentality agreed with my personal outlook, because at that age I craved what every young person craves in all honesty: popularity . Popularity enough to attract the opposite sex. My work in marketing validated what I was discovering about myself. Fear of social ridicule is the engine that drives us all. How do you sell shoes, cosmetics, cars and magazines? Simply imply that they will put you in the popular clique. The more I practiced my craft, the more I was able to use the language of my generation as a bazooka to blast shame on the lame. The biggest bully and the most popular woman will fall in a whimpering heap if he/she is made fun of in the proper manner.

Thinking back to high school and college, our teachers would do anything in order to be popular among the students, to the point of idiocy. The moral relativism of our movement also generated a new educational standard: who's to say what's correct? Isn't all education merely indoctrination? What right does anyone have to critique any paper, music or art project? To my dismay, I didn't find this new relativism enjoyable, because I took my studies seriously. I put more effort into homework and class projects and so I expected better grades than those around me. Teachers had been trained, however, not to favor good work under the threat of being labeled insensitive to creators of bad work. There it was again: the threat of ridicule. I tried in vain to find exceptions to the rule.

The hairline cracks in my massive concrete ideology were disconcerting but not critical. I still believed in all the usual truths: democrat good / republican bad, worker good / employer bad, minority good / white bad, liberal good / conservative bad, socialism good / capitalism bad, long hair good / short hair bad, loud good / quiet bad, rock good / jazz bad, peace good / war bad, woman good / male bad, environment good / industry bad. It was almost too easy. No, it WAS too easy. I was beginning to get bored with the prevailing opinions of my world, but I shut up ( smart move).

When President Reagan was shot walking to his car, the network news did what it does in such circumstances: it pre-empts normal programming. I felt outraged that our leader had been shot by some nut, flashing back to the national outrage of the JFK killing. I felt that the Secret Service acted with incredible bravery, jumping into the trajectory of bullets without hesitation. I was alone with my own thoughts and reactions. I was in for a catharsis.

When I arrived at work the next day, I was anxious to trade reactions with my peers. I must admit to being completely unprepared for what I encountered: joy. My friends said things like "a few inches down and we'd be rid of Reagan for good" and " Why couldn't Hinckley have been a better aim?". I was stunned, afraid to contribute because I was afraid my voice would crack in disbelief. I had assumed that when events got REALLY heavy, liberals would shed partisan concerns and rally to the president at his bedside, relieved that he was alive. Celebration never occurred to me.