How Born in the U.S.A. transformed Bruce Springsteen himself from a relatively apolitical performer from an avowedly working-class background to a passionate advocate for the rights of the disenfranchised— all thanks to Ronald Reagan.

In 1984, President Reagan was running for his second term. Early on, his team had decided that the president’s core supporters would vote for him no matter what. The reelection campaign would therefore be more about wooing moderate and independent voters than about shoring up the committed Republican base. It would be about images rather than issues and would attempt to co-opt as much of mainstream U.S. culture as it could. If rock ‘n’ roll had been anathema to an earlier Republicans like former vice president Spiro Agnew—or even to then-current, musically clueless Secretary of the Interior James Watt—it was perfectly fine with most of the Reagan re-election team, particularly if the music in question could be viewed as inspirational. “If we allow any Democrat to claim optimism or idealism as his issue,” one adviser noted very early in the campaign’s planning, “we will lose the election.”