I also think a lot of work had to be done to get America ready for Reaganism - the competitive pains of which you speak were, after all, more than evident to US capital nearly a decade before. And anyway, the lesser of two evils might come to mean anything in times where there is absolutely no other thing, good or evil, on the horizon. That said, I'm in search of views here, and am happy for my speculations to be convincingly contradicted.
Society is divided into classes.
Of course, all of this is immaterial to non-Marxists.