APUSH Chapter 41, 42

Describe the factors that led to Bill Clinton’s election in 1992.

Describe the factors that led to Bill Clinton’s election in 1992.

-claimed to be a “new” Democrat

-formed the Democratic Leadership Council to point the party away from its traditional anti business, dovish, champion-of-the-underdog orientation and toward pro-growth, strong defense and anti crime policies

-campaigned vigorously on promises to stimulate the economy, reform the welfare system, and overhaul the nation’s health-care apparatus

-he was viewed as energetic and phenomenally articulate

-Bush tried to claim credit for ending the Cold War and stressed his leadership role in the Persian Gulf War, but as the economy dipped into recession more voters were swayed toward the Democratic candidate, ignoring past pride in foreign policy

-campaign slogan was “It’s the economy, stupid”

-overall really just because the economy was like bad or something

Describe the agenda of the Gingrich Republicans when they controlled Congress in 1994.

-seized control due to Clinton’s failed initiatives, and widespread anti-government sentiment

-Contract with America: offered to voters, it promised an all-out assault on budget deficits and radical reductions in welfare programs.

-wave of conservatism flew across the country, granting the Republicans control of both chambers of the federal Congress.

-Welfare Reform Bill: made deep cuts in welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment. Also tightly restricted welfare benefits for legal and illegal immigrants alike, reflecting a rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment as the numbers of newcomers climbed toward an all-time high.

-some felt they went too far; for example the speaker of the house suggested that the children of welfare families should be sent to orphanages

-this ultra conservatism is ultimately what caused the Republicans to lose in the 1996 election (that and a newly healthy economy)

Successes of Clinton Administration

-sound economic policies encouraged growth and trade in a rapidly globalizing post-Cold War world

-had a peaceful and prosperous presidency

Clinton proved to be a largely moderate Democrat. The economy was strong, the budget was balanced, and he cautioned people from expected big-government from being the do-all and give-all to everyone.

Failures of the Clinton Administration

-Welfare Reform Bill (see Gingrich Republicans)

-due to no basis of foreign policy now that anti-communism was not the framework, Clinton was pretty amateurish with his foreign policy

• dispatched troops to Somalia as part of a peace keeping mission, but after a dozen got killed he quietly withdrew them without having accomplished any clearly defined goal

• did nothing when catastrophic ethnic violence in Rwanda broke out, resulting in the deaths of half a million people

• struggle to define a policy in respect to China, but eventually passed a bill which made Asia a full-fledged trading partner with the US

• near the end of his presidency, he wanted to leave a legacy as an international peace-maker; tried to establish self-rule for Palestinians in Israel (both major leaders died within a few years of the meeting that decided this), sought to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Korean peninsula,and traveled to India and Pakistan in hopes of reducing the rivalry between the two nuclear powers of southern Asia

-did more to consolidate than to reverse the Reagan-Bush revolution against New Deal liberalism that for half a century had provided the compass for the Democratic party and the nation

-created more anti-government sentiment bc of his scandals in office

the Monica Lewinski situation created great cynicism in politics, he negotiated a deal with the Lewinski prosecutor where he'd gave immunity in exchange for a fine and law license suspension, and his last-minute executive pardons gave the appearance of rewarding political donors.

Scandals of the Clinton Administration

-scandals before his presidency followed him; accused of philandering to illegal financial transactions

-Allegations of corruption stemmed from a real estate deal called Whitewater when he was Gov. of Arkansas, but no indictment ever materialized

-DURING his presidency, it was revealed in 1998 that Clinton had engaged in a sexual affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and then blatantly lied about it when testifying under oath in another woman’s civil suit accusing him of sexual harassment. This situation was called the Lewinsky affair. Due to this issue, the Whitewater event was more thoroughly investigated and it reported 11 possible grounds for impeachment.

-The Republicans passed two articles of impeachment against the president (perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice) and the Demos where like nooooo sexual misconduct doesn’t count as “high crimes and misdemeanors”

-ultimately he was impeached

MIddle Eastern Wars at the Turn of the 21st Century: Afghanistan

In response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Bush identified the principal enemy as Osama bin Laden and requested that the Taliban handed him over. When they refused, Bush ordered a massive military campaign against Afghanistan.

America invaded Afghanistan less than two months after the 9/11 attacks. Afghanistan was under the control of the Taliban, which supported the mastermind on the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden escaped to neighboring Pakistan, and the Taliban was overthrown, but fighting remains to this day.

Middle Eastern Wars at the Turn of the 21st Century: Iraq

The Bush administration had warned since his second day of office that it would not tolerate Iraq’s continued defiance of the UN”s weapons inspections, but the 9/11 attacks focused on Iraq with vengeance. Weeks after Sept. 11, bush claimed that Iraq, Iran and NK constituted an axis of evil that gravely meanced American Security. Bush accused the Iraqi regime of all manner of wrongdoing: oppressing its own people, frustrating the weapons inspectors, developing nuclear,chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and supporting terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. It was later revealed that Iraq had no connections to Al Qaeda and 9/11.

Saddam Hussain was accused of having stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. President George W Bush convinced the congress to declare war on the dictator in 2003. Within a few weeks the dictator was overthrown but an insurgent war started that lasted until 2011.

Similarities and Differences between the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq

Similarities:

-Both were fueled from wants for vengeance post 9/11

-Unpopular at home (not winning public support)

-Thousands of innocent lives were lost

-FOCUS WAS ON BUILDING A DEMOCRACY

Differences:

-Afghanistan was 20 years, Iraq was ~1 year

-Iraq was a preventative war, the government was thought to have WMDs

-Afghanistan war was because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, attack and overthrow Taliban to get to Osama Bin Laden

Describe the factors that caused the “Great Recession of 2008”

-The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

-The recession resulted from a combination of tax cuts, spending increases, and the devastating effects of a banking crisis in the subprime mortgage market.

-The recession contributed to rising income inequality and prompted a debate about the role of the federal government in regulating private industry.

Unemployment under the Obama Administration

-American Relief and Recovery Act: contained nearly a trillion dollars of tax cuts, as well as new spending for jobs, infrastructure projects and relief to state and local governments

Health Care under the Obama Administration

-Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: also known as “Obamacare” mandated all Americans to purchase health insurance starting in 2014, required states to establish “exchanges” whereby individuals and small businesses could purchase health-care insurance at competitive rate, prohibited insurers from denying coverage to anyone with a pre existing medical condition and allowed children up to the age of twenty-six to remain covered by their parent’s health plans.

Financial Regulation under the Obama Administration

-Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act: pointed the way to a major overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory system. The act aimed to curb the risky, high-flying practices that had contributed to the debacle of 2008 with new controls on banks, investment houses, and stock markets, and with new truth-in-lending rules to protect consumers.

Describe how the changing demographics were impacting politics by 2011.

-Women and African Americans (people of color in general/minorities) were more unified and getting more involved in politics/social issues

-can’t win an election without appealing to all groups

Ross Perot

A bantamweight, jug-eared Texas billionaire who harped incessnatly on the problem of the federal deficit and made a boost of the fact that he had never held any public office. Reflecting pervasive economic unease and the virulence of the throw-the-bums-out national mood, nearly 20% of voters cast their ballot for him in the 1992 election (against Bush + Clinton).

“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

Wanting to repeal the discriminatory policy of the ban of gays and lesbians entering the armed services, Clinton settled with this policy. It quietly accepted gay and lesbian soldiers and sailors without officially acknowledging their presence in the military. The original discriminatory act was repealed in 2010.

Oklahoma City

Representative of the anti-government mood at the time, the bombing here destroyed a federal office building in 1995, taking 168 lives in retribution for a 1993 standoff in Waco Texas between federal agents and a fundamentalist sect known as the Branch Davidians. This bombing and other events like it brought to light a lurid and secretive underground of paramilitary private “militias” composed of alienated citizens armed to the teeth and ultra suspicious of all government.

NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)

Clinton showed political support for this in his first term, creating in 1993 a free-trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada and the United States. In doing so, he bucked the opposition of protectionists in his own party, especially labor leaders fearful of losing jobs to low-wage Mexican workers.

WTO (World Trade Organization)

Clinton vigorously promoted the creation of this in 1994. It was another step toward a global free-trade system. It was a successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and a cherished goal of free-trade advocates since the end of the Second World War. When holding a meeting of the WTO in Seattle, protesters filled the streets railing against what they viewed as human and environmental cots of economic “globalization”.

“Compassionate Conservatism”

A political philosophy that stresses using traditionally conservative techniques and concepts in order to improve the general welfare of society. Utilized by George W. Bush.

Kyoto Treaty

Also known as the Kyoto Protocol. 1997, an agreement of 55 industrial nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2% each year (USA did not sign under GW Bush)

The Patriot Act

legislation passed in 2001 to improve the abilities of U.S. law enforcement to detect and deter terrorism. passed after 9/11

No Child Left Behind

Used to push his re-election, Bush championed this act. It mandated sanctions against schools that failed to meet federal performance standards.

Describe the economic revolutions occurring at the turn of the 21st century.

-the development of the internet and companies such as Microsoft aided in communication around the world; rise of the “information age”

-Sciences developed and there were many breakthroughs on the research of DNA

-there was a widening income gap mostly caused by these factors:

• an intensifying global economic competition

• the shrinkage in high-paying manufacturing jobs for semi-skilled and unskilled workers

• the greater economic rewards commanded by educated workers in high-tech industries

• the decline of unions

• the growth of part-time temporary work

• the rising ride of relatively low-skill immigrants

• the increasing tendency of educated couples to marry one another and both work, creating households with very high incomes

• educational opps. (schools in urban areas often underfunded and higher education prices soaring)

Describe the feminist, Second Wave Feminism, at the turn of the 21st Century.

-contrasting heavily to the 1950s, when only 20% of the workforce was made up of women, nearly half of the workforce was made up of women by the 1990s

-women continued to receive lower wages compared to men

-often concentrated in low-prestige, low-paying occupations

-their issues in the workplace was due to overt sexual discrimination and how women are held more to the burden of parent-hood to men

-jobs started to provide paternity leave in addition to maternity to leave for men

-Family Leave Bill of 1993: mandated job protection for working fathers as well as mothers who needed to take time off from work for family-related matters

Central Issues in The American Family

-divorce was more prominent; the old ideal of a family with two patterns, only one of whom who worked, was now a virtually useless way to picture the typical American household

-women started to get married later in life; early 30s rather than in their early to mid 20s

-single parents were becoming more common; they often struggled economically

-“parent-subistates” (day-care, schools, even television or electronics)

-typical american family was not evaporating, just evolving

Central Issues in Aging Americans

-older americans lobbied for government favors and achieved real gains for senior citizens

-a growth in medical payments for the old outstripped the growth of education expenditures for the young, causing more young people to live in poverty, a contrast of what it was in the 1960s when older generations were more likely to live in poverty

Central Issues in American Cities

-crime was a huge problem; violence, drug related crimes, murder, robberies, and rapes were extremely common

-there was a migration from city to suburbs in the 1990s, “suburbanization”

-suburbs around cities were becoming more racially and ethnically diverse

Central Issues in Minority Groups

-racial and ethnic tensions

-areas that are populated by majority people of color are often poor which result in them being surrounded by gang violence and drug related situations

-police brutality

-Los Angeles Riots = black skepticism of the system of justice

-systemic racism (being kept from voting polls)

-political assault against affirmative action made more obstacles for people of color to gain advanced training

Describe the new pattern of immigration in the 1990s. Describe the impact of these new immigrants on American society, economy or politics.

-Latin American and Mexican Immigrants were moving to the Sunbelt states (like Cali) in order to find agricultural work

-others came from Asia and the Middle Eastern Nations

-these immigrants often took lower paying jobs and were not “stealing” jobs as many believe they do; doing the work americans are unwilling to do

-their work has positively impacted the country’s economy

-anti-immigrant feelings grew

-legal and illegal immigration grew rapidly

What is meant by the phrase “postmodernism?” Provide examples to illustrate this concept.

-postmodernism generally refers to a distrust of rational, scientific descriptions of the self or the world and the insistence that human beliefs and realities are socially “constructed”. It stresses skepticism, relativity and multiplicity. Has influenced contemporary philosophy, social theory, art, architecture and literature.

Ex: architecture, music (mixing classical styles with modern - like sampling another song and rapping over it)

Describe the ways in the new media and impacted economics and traditional media formats.

-people used the internet for everything; from shopping, to communicating with others, to getting the news

-companies like Amazon grew

-reshaped the traditional corporate world; almost every company had a website

-the internet overtook cable, newspapers, and television

The DREAM Act

Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors: this rejected act would have provided a path to citizenship for undocumented youth who either finished college or served in the U.S. military

This act treats young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — some as babies — fairly by providing a permanent legislative solution that allows them to stay in the U.S.

Latinos

people of Latin-American origin living in the U.S

took up a lot of the population in southern states such as Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico; since there was so many of them their culture was more preserved than other immigrants who were forced to assimilate into american society

Cesar Chavez

An activist who advocated for better rights for Mexican Americans and one of the founders of the United Farm Workers. He helped inspire the Chicano movement. He called for a boycott of table grapes and staged a hunger strike which led to the recognition of the UFW by California grape growers.