“Only… after a decade of studying Cold War conservatism, I saw those victories less as a beginning than as an end. Nearly as soon as Reagan left office, the conservative movement he represented began to rapidly evolve, skittering away from the policies, rhetoric, and even ideology that Reagan had brought into office. Republicans still had significant political power, and the 1990s were a conservative era, but with each passing year, conservatives looked less and less like Reagan, even as they invoked his name more and more.”