America's Right Turn Historian William Berman's America's Right Turn reads like a case study of separation between liberalism and conservatism in American politics. The backdrop against which the study in politics is set is the American economy. Berman contends that America's liberal welfare state politics, instituted by Franklin Roosevelt, were not effective in dealing with 1970s cultural and economic crises. He argues that this inefficacy created a shift in American mentality toward the conservative right. Thus, Ronald Reagan and George Bush enjoyed a twelve year reign of control that included tax cuts for the well-off and increases in milit