Transcript Document

Chapter 30
The Conservative
Ascendancy
1974-1991
The Overextended Society
The Overextended Society
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Post-war prosperity had kept conservatives at bay.
Then, in the 1970s, economic growth stopped and
Americans faced a combination of inflation and
rising unemployment: “stagflation.”
After emerging from World War II as the most
prosperous nation in the world and retaining this
status through the 1960s, the country suddenly
found itself falling behind Western Europe and
Japan.
Meanwhile, presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy
Carter promised little and, as far as many voters
were concerned, delivered less.
MAP 30.1 World’s Leading Oil Producers
The Troubled Economy
 The
energy crisis was the most vivid sign of a
troubled economy.
 Dependence on imported oil had steadily
grown.
 President Nixon ordered oil conservation
measures.
 Soaring energy prices led to rapid, sustained
inflation.
 Steel and auto making faced stiff competition
and declining market shares.
FIGURE 30.1 Decline of U.S.
Oil Consumption, 1975–81
FIGURE 30.2 Union Membership, 1940–90
The Endangered Environment
 By
1973 activists held the first Earth Day to
popularize their concerns.
 The linking of cancer at Love Canal to toxic
waste raised U.S. concern over pollution.
 Growing interest in the concept of ecology led
Americans to lobby for renewable energy
sources, protecting endangered species, and
reducing pollution.
 Despite public outcries, government officials
frequently responded to other pressures.
“Lean Years Presidents”: Ford and
Carter
 Gerald

Ford succeeded Richard Nixon’s
After pardoning Nixon, Ford lost the nation’s
trust.
 Democratic

Jimmy Carter
Carter defeated Ford
 Moderate
image, outsider status, and a pledge to
restore trust
 Pro conservative policies like deregulation,
increased military spending, but proved an
ineffective and uninspiring leader.
 Inflation, interest rates soared, Carter unable to
help economy
The Limits of Global Power
 In April
1975 Saigon fell and Vietnam was
reunited under a Communist government.
 Carter pledged a new approach to foreign
policy and began to distance the U.S. from
right wing regimes.
 In his greatest success, Carter brokered the
Camp David Accords and an Israeli-Egyptian
peace treaty but failed to resolve the
Palestinian issue.
The Limits of Global Power
 The
1978 treaty returning the Canal to
Panamanian control was a highlight of
Carter’s new morality in foreign policy.
 Carter also normalized relations with
Communist China, but alienated
conservatives by abandoning Nationalist
Taiwan.
President Carter signs the Middle East Peace Treaty
with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin
The Limits of Global Power
 A brief
thaw in the Cold War with the signing
of SALT II was temporary, as the Soviets
invaded Afghanistan in December 1978.
 Carter cut off grain shipments to Russia and
supported Afghan resistance with arms, but
no direct involvement.
The Iran Hostage Crisis
 In
1978 Islamic radicals overthrew America’s
longtime client, the shah of Iran
 Carter’s decision to allow the deposed shah
of Iran to enter the country for medical
treatment backfired as Iranian students seized
the American embassy and held its personnel
hostage.
 He tried diplomacy and at the same time an
ill-fated rescue operation. Both failed.
Iranians demonstrate outside the
U.S. Embassy in Tehran, raising a
poster with a caricature of
President Carter. The Iran hostage
crisis, which began November 8,
1979, when a mob of Iranians
seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran,
contributed to Carter’s defeat at
the polls the following year. Fiftytwo embassy employees were held
hostage for 444 days.
The Iran Hostage Crisis
 As
the hostage crisis dragged on and energy
prices soared, Carter seemed increasingly
inept.
 Only after Reagan’s inauguration were the
hostages released.
The New Right
Phyllis Schlafly rallied her supporters in Springfield,
Illinois, to demonstrate against the Equal Rights
Amendment
The Inaugurations of Carter and Reagan
The New Right
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Economic and foreign policy failures mobilized
“the politics of resentment.”
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Many whites resented higher taxes to fund programs
for minorities, the poor while slowing economic
development, doing nothing for middle class, poor
whites
Economic and foreign policy failures mobilized
“the politics of resentment.”

1978: Proposition 13
cut property taxes, government revenues for social
programs
 Old-style conservatives
 New Right.
 Evangelical or “born again” Protestants

Neoconservatism
 Turning
back the New Deal and Great Society
in the mid-1970s.

Neocons thought affirmative action and welfare
programs had gone too far to promote equality
of results.
 Vietnam

Neocons called for stronger stand against
communism and an activist foreign policy
 Heritage

failure
Foundation
Promoted neocon views and won increasing
popular support
The Religious Right
 By
the late 1970s, 50 million Americans
identified themselves as evangelicals.
 The Religious Right brought together social
conservatism and family values with political
activism
 Popular televangelists promoted the
evangelical message.
 Rev. Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority
in 1979 to lobby for action, and soon attracted
2 to 3 million members.
The Pro-Family Movement
 The
New Right successfully blocked
ratification of the ERA and rallied support for
efforts to make abortions illegal.
 Roe v. Wade (1973) limited state regulation of
abortion on grounds of “privacy.”
 Religious conservatives mobilized to oppose
Roe with protests and a growing National
Right to Life Committee.
 A small minority took violent action by
bombing dozens of abortion clinics
The Election of 1980
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As the election of 1980 approached,
unenthusiastic Democrats endorsed Carter for
another term.
The Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan, who
asked voters, “Are you better off now than you
were four years ago?”
While some questioned Reagan’s credentials and
competency, his attractive, confident and softspoken persona reassured many.
Reagan won 50.9 percent of the vote but an
overwhelming majority in the electoral college.
White working people continued their shift to the
Republicans but Reagan got little minority support
and benefitted from low voter turnout to win.
The Reagan Revolution
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, the fortieth president of the United States, was known for his ability to articulate
broad principles of government in a clear fashion. The most popular president since Dwight
Eisenhower, he built a strong coalition of supporters from long-term Republicans, disillusioned
Democrats, and evangelical Protestants.
The Reagan Revolution
 Reagan
became the most influential president
since FDR as he reshaped politics. Ironically,
Reagan had begun as a New Deal Democrat
who admired Roosevelt as an inspirational
leader. But by the time he entered the White
House in 1981, before his seventieth birthday,
Reagan had rejected the welfare state legacy
of the New Deal era.
 “In the present crisis…government is not the
solution to our problem, government is the
problem.”
The Great Communicator
 Ronald
Reagan credited his political success
to his earlier acting career.


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As leader of the Screen Actors’ Guild in the
1950s Reagan supported the hunt for
Hollywood subversives.
Hosting General Electric Theater on TV led him
in an increasingly conservative direction.
As governor of California from 1967 to 1975 he
cut state social spending and resisted student
and civil rights activism.
Reaganomics
 Based

on a supply-side economic theory:
A successful economy depended upon “the
proliferation of the rich”
 Economic

Largest tax cut in the nation’s history,
benefitting the rich and corporations
 Omnibus


Recovery Tax Act of 1981
Reconciliation Act of 1981
Deep cuts in social, cultural programs
Reagan increased the defense budget, leading
to massive deficits.
The Election of 1984


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In the 1984 election, Walter Mondale won the
Democratic nomination by concentrating on the
traditional Democratic constituencies.
Reagan countered Mondale’s criticisms by
claiming that the nation was strong, united, and
prosperous.
Although Mondale led in early polls, Reagan ran
on themes of “hope, optimism and growth” and
won in one of history’s biggest landslides.
Recession, Recovery, Fiscal Crisis
 Early
1980s: Recession
 Mid-1980s:

Economy grew and inflation was under control,
due to Fed money policies and lower energy
prices rather than supply side economics.
 Budget
deficits grew to an unprecedented
$2.7 trillion

U.S. world’s leading debtor
 Securities

industry scandals
1987: stock market crashed, ending the bull
market of the 1980s.
FIGURE 30.3 Federal Budget Deficit and National
Debt, 1970–98
Best of Times, Worst of Times
Best of Times, Worst of Times
Reagan: in America . . .“someone can always get
rich.”

Ivan Boesky, later indicted for criminal trading,
echoed Reagan, saying “greed is healthy.”
Reagan: in America . . .“someone can always get
rich.”

Grimmer realities lay under the surface
greater inequality, a shrinking middle class, poverty
on the rise.
 After eight years of tax cuts, defense buildup,
growing budget deficits, and record trade
imbalances, the economic future looked uncertain at
best, especially for the middle class.
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A Two-Tiered Society
 While
the 1980s celebrated wealth and
moneymaking, the gap between rich and poor
widened.
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During the 1980s, the average weekly earnings
declined substantially.
Half the new jobs did not pay enough to keep a
family out of poverty.
Race sharply defined the gap between rich and
poor.
Supreme Court rulings limited affirmative action
and busing to integrate schools, limiting
minority opportunities but appealing to
conservatives.
TABLE 30.1 Percentage
Share of Aggregate Family
Income, 1980-92
TABLE 30.2 Share of Total Net Worth of American
Families
TABLE 30.3 Measures of
Average Earnings, 1980-92
(In 1990 Dollars)
TABLE 30.4 Number of Poor, Rate of Poverty and
Poverty Line, 1979-92
TABLE 30.5 Net New Job Creation by Wage Level,
1979-87
TABLE 30.6 Median Family Income and Ratio to
White, by Race, and Hispanic Origin, 1980-92 (in
1992 Dollars)
The Feminization of Poverty
 Women
experienced declining earning power
during this period.
 Divorce contributed significantly to female
poverty—new no-fault divorce laws and men
who failed to pay child support.
 A sharp rise in teenage pregnancy also
contributed.
 By 1980, half of black babies were born to
single parent mothers.
Sunbelt/Rustbelt
 The
Sunbelt from Florida to California
continued to benefit from defense industries
and retirees’ Social Security payments.
 Cities in the Sunbelt like Houston, Las Vegas
and Phoenix grew while Northeastern and
Midwestern cities stagnated or shrank.
 While Sunbelt states invested on police, roads
and suburban services, Rustbelt states lost
manufacturing jobs and family farms.
FIGURE 30.4 Growth of Sunbelt Cities, 1940–80
Epidemics: Drugs, AIDS,
Homelessness
 The
1980s saw new epidemics erupt.
 Cocaine and inner-city crack use spiraled,
unleashing a crime wave.

The Reagan administration declared a war on
drugs, but concentrated its resources on the
overseas supply and did little to control demand
at home.
In May 1987, members of the
Lesbian and Gay Community Services
in downtown Manhattan organized
ACT-UP. Protesting what they
perceived to be the Reagan
administration’s mismanagement of
the AIDS crisis, they used nonviolent
direct action, which often took the
form of dramatic acts of civil
disobedience. ACT-UP grew to more
than seventy chapters in the United
States and around the world.
Epidemics: Drugs, AIDS,
Homelessness
 In
1981, doctors identified a puzzling disease
initially found among gay men—AIDS.
Reagan ignored the issue and refused
research funding.
 An epidemic of homelessness grew during the
decade with 3 million mental patients, addicts,
veterans with PTSD and poor single mothers
and elderly on the streets.
Toward a New World Order
This photograph shows demonstrators defiantly
tearing down the Berlin Wall
In August 1961, the border between East and West Berlin was closed, and the Berlin Wall was
built to divide the city into two sections. After twenty-eight years, on November 9, 1989, the
government in East Germany lifted travel restrictions. This photograph shows demonstrators
defiantly tearing down the Berlin Wall, which for three decades had embodied the political
divisions of the Cold War.
Toward a New World Order
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
Reagan campaigned to restore America’s world
leadership, reviving Cold War patriotism and
championing American interventionism in the third
world, especially in the Caribbean and Central
America.
His infusion of funds into national security
programs would have enormous consequences
for the domestic economy, even while internal
changes within the Soviet Union made the entire
Cold War framework of U.S. foreign policy largely
irrelevant by the late 1980s.
The Evil Empire
 Reagan
made anti-communism the
centerpiece of his foreign policy, calling the
Soviet Union an “evil empire.”
 He called for a space-based “Star Wars”
missile defense system that many saw as an
effort to achieve a first-strike capability, but
critics claimed was unworkable and too
expensive.
 Attempts at meaningful arms control stalled
and Soviet-American relations deteriorated.
MAP 30.5 The United States in Central America,
1978–90
The Reagan Doctrine
 The
Reagan Doctrine recommitted America to
opposing communism by overt or covert
means.
 In Afghanistan, support for mujahedeen
contributed to the Soviet defeat.
 Reagan intervened in Grenada, E1 Salvador,
and waged a covert war against the
revolutionary government of Nicaragua even
after Congress banned such funding with the
Boland Amendment.
MAP 30.6 The United States in the Middle East in
the 1980s
The Middle East and the Iran-Contra
Scandal
 The
volatility of the Middle East influenced U.
S. foreign policy.
 In 1986, news broke of how the United States
traded arms to Iran in return for their
assistance in freeing hostages held by
terrorist groups. The money from the arms
sales was used to fund the Contras in
Nicaragua.
The Iran-Contra Scandal
 Oliver
North, who ran the enterprise,
acknowledged that he had told a web of lies
and destroyed evidence, all in the name of
patriotism.
 An investigating commission concluded that
Reagan had allowed a small, unsupervised
group to run the operation.
 In 1992, outgoing President George Bush,
whose involvement had been the target of
much speculation, pardoned several officials
who were scheduled to be tried.
Lt. Col. Oliver North,
who once described
the scheme to sell arms
to Iran to help the
Contras as a “neat
idea,” is shown
testifying in July 1987
before a joint
Congressional
committee formed to
investigate the IranContra affair.
The Collapse of Communism
 In
1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in
the Soviet Union and instituted a series of
political and economic reforms.
 Democratic movements swept across Eastern
Europe from Poland to Bulgaria.
 The 1989 fall of the Berlin wall led to the
collapse of East Germany and German
reunification by 1990.
 The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
 This ended the great superpower rivalry.
“A Kinder Gentler Nation”
A Kindler, Gentler Nation
 In
1988, Republican candidate George
Herbert Walker Bush hoped to ride on
Reagan’s coattails and also made strong
pledge to voters: “Read my lips: no new
taxes.” Winning the general election handily
over Massachusetts governor Michael
Dukakis with forty out of fifty states and 56
percent of the popular vote, he began to move
away from Reagan.
 In his inaugural address, Bush, promising a
“kinder, gentler nation.”
Reagan’s Successor:
George H. W. Bush
 Bush
carried over several policies from
Reagan’s administration including the war on
drugs.
 In 1989 Bush sent the military to depose and
arrest Panamanian leader Noriega and return
him to the U.S. for trial on charges of drug
trafficking and racketeering.
 Bush described himself as a
“compassionate” Republican in social policy,
but had a mixed record, supporting the ADA
but blocking other programs.
The Persian Gulf War
 Ideological
rivalry shifted to the Middle East.
 Iraq seized oil fields in Kuwait and the U.S.
responded swiftly.
 U.S. air strikes lasted 42 days, the ground war
100 hours and victory was swift.
 Saddam Hussein remained in power despite
CIA efforts to foment an uprising
 The war, however, intensified Muslim hatred
of the United States and inspired Osama bin
Laden to start al Qaeda, and anti-American
terror group.
The Economy and the Election of
1992

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

The Persian Gulf War swelled Bush’s popularity,
but an economic downturn soon dropped his
approval rating to just 51 percent.
He faced a formidable opponent in Bill Clinton, a
young, intelligent and charismatic “New
Democrat.”
Ross Perot’s third party candidacy called for a
businesslike approach to government and won
19% of the vote.
Clinton adopted many conservative themes and
took 43% of the popular vote and carried 32
states.
Conclusion
The Conservative Ascendancy,
1974–1991
 Building
on the trauma of Vietnam and
deepening anxiety over social and cultural
change, Ronald Reagan led an ideologicallycharged conservative resurgence that
rejected much of the legacy of the 1960s and
turned to Christian fundamentalism, family
values and economic individualism.
 Reagan’s military expenditures grew the
government. Many celebrated Reagan as a
return to what was best in America,
economically and culturally, the breakdown of
the safety net left many less secure.