I think they were circling a real idea but poorly worded: if you were a kid in the 80s, that stuff was surprising and parodied in many cases even if it ultimately won out. Now when people see the backdrop for some of the movies which came out around then, it doesn’t seem like a parody as much as a pretty linear projection. Gordon Gecko was the villain but you can find a lot of people and especially many politicians who now unironically support his beliefs.
So, yes, those positions existed back then but they weren’t culturally ascendent the way they were by the turn of the century.
I did not live through the 80's (not the whole decade at least), but I have seen Robocop which I thought was supposed to be a parody. Obviously Alec Baldwin's speech from "Glengarry Glen Ross" is iconic as well.
Even a recent re-watch of "Tommy Boy" really drove home how much of a toll Reagonomics took on the industrial midwest. I never really understood why the man was so revered, but I guess he put on a good act that people bought into.
