In addition to Blackraisin's post, there was a conspiracy theory gaining traction at the time that the U.S. was planning to merge with Canada and Mexico to forge a North American Union - which in turn was felt to be part of a greater plot by a secretive handful of elites to establish a totalitarian, unitarian government to rule the world. A lot of the gun legislation fed into fears that conservatives were being disarmed, free trade agreements were felt to be a betrayal of American workers, and Democrats at the time had the reputation for being less patriotic or "American" than their Republican counterparts. So Reagan got to be a hero who defeated the Soviets but Clinton was to be a traitor masquerading as one of "us," which was a recurring theme for those now terrified by President Obama as an issue aside from race (e.g. recall conspiracies that he was born in Kenya, is a practicing Muslim, is covertly aligned with advocates of Sharia, and so forth with an intention of destroying the United States to make way for something else). Reactionaries fear what awaits in the future. It's what gives them such urgency in trying to agitate for a return to how they believed things were like long ago.
