Nixon appeal

Nixon’s appeal in 1972

• Once again appeal to the great silent majority

• Nixon and vice president spiro Agnew focused on permissiveness, photography, and patriotism.

• Nixon won by a landslide, with 60% of the popular vote] traditional rights had been reassured.

Nixon’s appeal and his attack on the silent majority

• He attacked what he saw as the excesses of LBJ great society programme.

• Expenditure up to $1.4 billion had not brought peace and stability in the UA.

• Advocated for new federalism – more power to given back to the starts.

Supported revenue sharing and the state can decide on their own priorities

Welfare and anti-poverty programmes

• Nixon said he wanted to save taxpayers money by eliminating the more wasteful.

• Polls in 1968, 84% Americans believed that there were too many people receiving welfare money and should be working.

• By 1970 1/3 Black children were on welfare

Nixon attacked the great society programme.

• He successfully shanked the OEO, closed fifty-nine Job Corps centres and cut federal housing programs.

• Entitled the family assistance plant FAP which could make welfare recipients to work, 2000 a year but it family refused to work support would be stopped. The plan would have made thirteen million more Americans eligible for federal aid, alienating conservatives.

•   Vetoed the 1971 Child Development Act. 0 This would provide free childcare to enable poor mothers to workk. Zeroro. he said it was too expensive and smacked of communism. work

• Although he increased federal expenditure on education, private healthcare, and social security and spent more on social programmes than Johnson.

School desegregation and affirmative action

• Americans opposed busing by eight. 1 and Nixon it as wrenching children from their familyfamilies

• He attempted to slow down school desegregation, but his appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices led to a ruling that eventually ended busing.

•   Nixon claimed to dislike affirmative action, but in practice hi, his administration gave minorities help.

• His promotion of affirmative action helped ensure its entrenchment in deferral government agencies and contractors for many years to come.

The environment

• Nixon produced impressive environmental legislation on endangered species (1969), clean air (1970) and coasts (1972), established the Environmental Protection Agency (1970) and created 642 parks.

• Nixon outdid the Great Society when the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 created the Environment Protection Agency. However, the Act was the work of Democrat-controlled Congress, not Nixon himself.

• In 1972, the Educational Standards Act laid down that colleges must set up affirmative action programmes to ensure equality of opportunity for women.

• In 1970, the Democrat-controlled Congress passed the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which increased social security benefits by linking them to the rate of inflation.

• Nixon wanted to portray himself as a consensus politician appealing to most voters. However, from 1969 to 1971, he had to deal with a Congress dominated by Democrats.

• Nixon also gained support through his ‘southern strategy.’ He deliberately attempted to appeal to white Democratic voters in the Old South. He opposed the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and wanted to modify the Housing Act of 1968,

• Nixon claimed credit for reducing violence and bringing stability back to the USA. In 1967, the CIA had launched Operation Chaos against radical groups. (egg black panthers)

• However, Nixon's first term suffered from economic problems. In 1971-74, the economy experienced the ‘Nixon Recession’.

• Massive federal spending on the Great Society and the Vietnam War had resulted in a large government deficit. Both inflation and unemployment rose. In 1971

• Tactics used by the Nixon campaign team were regarded with suspicion. Nixon’s election victory was short-lived. His campaign tactics led to the Watergate Scandal, which forced him to resign from office in August 1974. No other US president before or after Nixon has had to resign.