RAHHHH APUSH (UNIT 9) AP REVIEW

Immigration and Nationality Act/Hart-Celler Act

• 1965

• Passed due to the extraordinary inflow of immigrants

• Passed under LBJ; eliminated the 1924 quota system, which had favored Northern Europe

• Created a more equal playing field among nations and a slightly higher total limit on immigration

• Eased the entry of immigrants who possessed skills in high demand in the US

• Immediate family members of those legally resident in the US were admitted outside of the total numerical limit

• Benefitted Latin Americans the most– nationally, there were now more Latinos than African Americans

Immigration Reform and Control Act

• 1986

• Granted citizenship to many of those who had arrived outside the law’s numerical limits, provided incentives for employers not to hire undocumented immigrants, and increased surveillance along the Mexican border

Operation Rescue

• 1987

• Randall Terry founded Operation Rescue, which mounted protests outside abortion clinics and harassed their staff and clients

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

• 1989

• The SC upheld the authority of state governments to limit the use of public funds and facilities for abortions

Election of 1992

• Clinton elected

• Buchanan, a Republican, claimed that there was “a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America,” dubbing the current environment a “culture war”

• Clinton (Democrat) promised a tax cut for the middle class, universal health insurance, and a reduction of the huge Republican budget deficit– a combination of traditional social-welfare liberalism and fiscal conservatism

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA v. Casey

• 1992

• Court upheld a law requiring a twenty-four-hour waiting period prior to an abortion

North American Free Trade Agreement

• 1993

• Formed between the US, Canada, and Mexico to offset the economic clout of the European bloc

• Envisioned the eventual creation of a free-trade zone covering all of North America

Clinton budget plan

• 1993

• Secured a five-year budget package that would reduce the federal deficit by $500 billion

• Opposed by Republcans for raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals

• Democrats complained that it limited social spending

• Shared sacrifice led to shared rewards– the federal debt was paid down at a rate of $156 billion a year between 1999 and 2001

• The economy boomed again, thanks in part to the low interest rates stemming from deficit reduction

Clinton’s health insurance reform effort fails

• 1994

• Clinton hoped to provide a system of health care that would cover all Americans and reduce the burden of health-care costs on the larger economy

• Clinton's health-care task force– led by Hillary Clinton– proposed a system of “managed competition” where private insurance companies and market forces were to rein in health-care expenditures

• This plan would fall heavily on employers, and many smaller businesses campaigned against it

  • The health insurance industry and the AMA also complained

Republicans gain control of Congress

• 1994

• Conservatives still had a working majority– Republicans gained fifty-two seats in the HoR, giving them a majority

• Republicans also took control of the Senate and captured eleven governorships

• Forced Clinton to move to the right; he avoided expansive social-welfare proposals for the remainder of his presidency and sought Republican support for a centrist New Democrat program

Proposition 209

• 1996

• CA voters outlawed affirmative action in state employment and public education

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

• 1996

• Abolished the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, encouraged female recipients to remain on welfare rather than seek employment

• Clinton signed this to appease conservatives, infuriating liberals in the process

Clinton’s impeachment

• 1998— Clinton impeached in the House

  • The HoR narrowly approved two articles of impeachment

  • Only a minority of Americans supported the House

• Clinton denied having a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern

• Republicans concluded that Clinton had obstructed justice and that these actions were grounds for impeachment

• 1999– Clinton acquitted by Senate

  • Chastened by a lack of public support, Republicans in the Senate fell well short of the two-thirds majority they needed to remove the president

• Left Clinton unable to fashion a Democratic alternative to the Republicans’ domestic agenda

Defense of Marriage Act

• 1998

• Allowed states to refuse to recognize gay marriages or civil unions formed in other jurisdictions

WTO protests/Battle of Seattle

• 1999

• More than 50,000 protestors took to the streets of Seattle

• Protestors argued that the WTO failed to fulfill its mission of using global trade and investment as “the instruments for achieving equitable and sustainable development”

  • Also argued that the WTO failed to act on its acknowledgement of inequality among nations

• Protestors sought to call attention to who benefited from globalization and who did not

• Some joined the otherwise peaceful march and began breaking the windows of the chain stores they saw as symbols of global capitalism: Starbucks, Gap, and Old Navy

Election of 2000

• Bush, running on the Republican ticket, cast himself as a “uniter, not a divider” against Al Gore, Clinton’s vice president

• Closely contested– very close vote

  • Democrats demanded hand recounts in several counties in FL

  • A month of tumult emerged, until the SC, splitting along conservative-liberal lines, ordered the recount stopped and let Bush’s victory stand

  • The Court reasoned that recounting ballots without a consistent standard to determine “voter intent” violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause

Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act

• 2001

• Slashed income taxes, extended  the earned income credit for the poor, and marked the estate tax to be phased out by 2010

• A second round of cuts in 2003 targeted dividend income and capital gains

• Bush’s cuts favored big estates and well-to-do owners of stocks and bonds, skewing the distribution of tax benefits upward

• Bush’s tax cuts plunged the federal government into debt– federal expenditures had jumped 33%, largely because of huge increases in health-care costs

• The national debt stood at over $8 trillion, and staggering SS and Medicare obligations were becoming due for retiring baby boomers

9/11

• 2001

• An outburst of patriotism swept the US in the wake of 9/11

• Bush proclaimed a “war on terror” and vowed to carry the battle to Al-Qaeda

• In 2001, while Afghan allies carried the ground war, American planes attacked the enemy, ousting the Taliban, destroying Al-Qaeda’s training camps, and killing/capturing many of its operatives

• Osama bin Laden avoided capture, escaping into Pakistan

USA PATRIOT Act

• 2001

• Granted the administration sweeping authority to monitor citizens and apprehend suspected terrorists

• Bush used the war on terror as the premise for a new policy of preventive war

• The Bush administration reserved for itself the right to act in “anticipatory self-defense”

• Bush proceeded to define Iran, North Korea, and Iraq as the “axis of evil”

Lawrence v. TX

• 2003

• The SC limited the power of states to prohibit private homosexual activity between consenting adults

US invades Iraq

• 2003

• The Bush administration saw in Iraq an opportunity to fulfill America’s mission to “democratize the world”

  • Believed that Iraqis would abandon the tyrant Hussein and embrace democracy if given the chance

  • Hoped that the democratizing effect would spread across the Middle East, toppling other unpopular regimes and stabilizing the region

• Ignoring further UN deliberations, American forces invaded Iraq

  • Opposed by France, Germany, Canada, Mexico, and Turkey

• Resulted in anti-American demonstrations in the Arab world– Iraqis of all striped viewed the US as invaders

• The war shattered the infrastructure of Iraq’s cities, leaving them without reliable supplies of electricity and water

• The US soon found itself under attack by Sunnis and Shiites; Al Qaeda supporters flocked in from the Middle East to do battle with the Americans as well

• At this point, the US had spent upward of $100 billion, with more than 1,000 Americans dead and 20,000 wounded; Bush feared the consequences of pulling out so he committed to the war

SC decisions on affirmative action

• 2003

• The SC invalidated one affirmative action plan at UMichigan, but allowed racial preference policies that promoted a diverse student body

• Made diversity the law of the land, the constitutionally acceptable basis for affirmative action

Torture at Abu Ghraib

• Exposed in 2004

• American guards at Abu Ghraib prison abused and tortured suspected insurgents

• For Muslims, they offered final proof of American treachery

• The ghastly images shocked the world

Election of 2004

• Bush re-elected

• Kerry of MA ran as the Democratic nominee, but he was critiqued for having joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, leading to charges of him being weak and unpatriotic

Great Recession

• 2007

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average had lost half its total value, and major banks, insurance companies, and financial institutions were on the verge of collapse

• The entire automobile industry was near bankruptcy

• Millions of Americans lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate surged to 10%

Obama’s “first hundred days”

• 2008

• Pursued an agenda of an economic stimulus package to invigorate the economy, plans to draw down the war in Iraq and refocus American military efforts in Afghanistan, a reform of the nation’s health insurance system, and new federal laws to regulate Wall Street

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

• 2009

• An economic stimulus bill that provided $787 billion to state and local governments

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

• 2010

• The first major reform of the nation’s health-care system since Medicare

• Established nearly universal health insurance by providing subsidies and compelling larger businesses to offer coverage to employees

Windsor v. US

• 2013

• The SC declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional

Shooting of Michael Brown

• 2014

• The murder of Brown led to weeks of demonstrations across the country; many groups and leaders called for police reform and a renewed struggle against racism

• BLM emerged from this time, promoting an agenda of police reform, economic justice, political empowerment, and black community control

Oberfell v. Hodges

• 2015

• The SC ruled that states could not prohibit same-sex marriage under the Constitution

The Internet

• The technological advances of the 80s and 90s changed the character of everyday life for millions of Americans, linking them with a global information and media

• Advances in communications and personal technologies enhanced globalization

• Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET)-- formed the basis for the Internet; funded by the US Department of Defense and MIT

• The Internet was soon used by government scientists, academic specialists, and military contractors to exchange data, information, and email

• World Wide Web (1991)-- a collection of servers that allowed access to millions of documents, pictures, and other materials

NATO expands

• Many observers felt that extending the NATO alliance into Eastern Europe, right up to Russia’s western border, would damage US-Russian relations

• Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary were eager to become NATO members

• Clinton encouraged NATO admission for those countries

• By 2010, twelve new nations– most of them in Eastern Europe– had been admitted

  • Ten of them had been former members of the Warsaw Pact

• Led to hostility with Putin

World Trade Organization

• One of the principal institutions pushing unrestrained global trade

• Created from the GATT

• Had nearly 150 participating nations that regulated and formalized trade agreements with member states

European Union

• The nations of western Europe created the EU and moved toward the creation of a single federal state, somewhat like the US

• Included 28 countries and 500 million people, forming the third largest population in the world, accounting for a fifth of all global imports and exports

• The EU introduced the euro, which soon rivaled the dollar and the Japanese yen as a major international currency

Group of Eight (G8)

• Formed from the Group of Seven, which originated from the final decades of the Cold War

• Comprised of the US, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, and Russia

• Largely controlled the major international financial organizations

Multinational corporations (MNCs)

• MNCs made globalization possible through their proliferation

• In 1970, there were 7,000 corporations with offices and factories in multiple countries; by 2000, there were 63,000

• Most MNCs were based in the US, such as Walmart, Apple, and McDonald's

  • “McWorld” became a popular shorthand term for globalization

• Globalization was driven by a quest for new markets and cheaper sources of labor

  • Many American MNCs closed their factories in the US and outsourced manufacturing jobs to countries with cheap labor, such as Asia

Anti-immigration critics

• Buchanan and other Americans felt that their country was “undergoing the greatest invasion in its history”

• Many charged that multiculturalism sowed division and conferred preferential treatment on minority groups

  • Opposed affirmative action, which they accused of promoting “reverse discrimination”

Anti-abortion activists

• Fundamentalist Protestants had assumed leadership of the antiabortion movement, which became increasingly confrontational and politically powerful

• Protested outside abortion clinics

• Antiabortion activists also won state laws that limited public funding for abortions, required parental notification before minors could obtain abortions, and mandated waiting periods before any woman could undergo an abortion procedure

LGBTQ activists

• Increasingly demanded legal protections from discrimination in housing, education, and employment

• By the 90s, many cities and states had banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation

• Also pushed for legal rights for same-sex couples, such as the eligibility for workplace health-care coverage

• Reforms gradually included trans people

Bill Clinton

• Styled himself as a New Democrat who would bring the Reagan Democrats and middle-class voters back to the party

• An energetic, ambitious policy enthusiast who was well informed about the details of public policy

• Embodied many of the permissive social values conservatives critiqued– dodged the draft to avoid service in Vietnam, smoked marijuana, and cheated on his wife

Newt Gingrich of GA

• A Republican who coined the term “Contract with America”

• Called for significant tax cuts, reductions in welfare programs, anticrime initiatives, and cutbacks in federal regulations

Buchanan

• An avid Republican who delivered the “culture war” speech

Latin American immigrants

• American residents from Latin America and the Caribbean were best positioned to take advantage of the family provision of the Hart-Celler Act

• Millions of Mexicans came to the US to join their families, and US residents from El Salvador, Guatemala, and the DR now brought their families

• Many profoundly shaped the emerging global economy by sending substantial portions of their earnings back to family members in their home countries

Islamic fundamentalists

• The US had a tradition of interfering in the Middle East

  • Iran, supporting Israel in the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and a trade embargo with Iraq

• Islamic fundamentalists began building a movement based on fanatical opposition to Western imperialism and consumer culture

• Began targeting Americans

W. Bush administration

• Although Bush positioned himself as a moderate, his vice president, the uncompromising conservative Cheney, became virtually a copresident

• Karl Rove, Bush’s campaign advisor, argued that a permanent Republican majority could be built on the party’s conservative base

• Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, declared an “all-out war” on the democrats; he pushed Republicans to endorse a fierce partisanship

Tea Party

• A coalition of far-right groups; catalyzed Republican opposition to the president

• With Tea-Party backed Republicans leading the way, the GOP refused to consider virtually any Democratic legislation

China

• A nation of 1.3 billion people

• The world’s fastest-rising economic power; it quadrupled its GDP between 2000 and 2008

• Despite being governed by the CCP, China embraced capitalism, and its factories produced inexpensive products that Americans purchased

• To maintain a symbiotic relationship with the US, China deliberately kept its currency weak against the American dollar, ensuring that its exports remained cheap in the US

• As more goods are produced in China, the manufacturing base in the US continues to shrink, costing jobs

• China is the largest foreign debt holder aside from Japan; many believe that it is unwise to allow a single country to wield so much influence over the US currency supply

Yugoslavia

• The heavily Muslim province of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence, but its substantial Serbian population refused to live in a Muslim-run multiethnic state

• Milosevic, an uncompromising Serbian nationalist, launched a ruthless campaign of “ethnic cleansing” to create a Serbian state

• Clinton ordered a NATO-led bombing campaign and peacekeeping effort that ended the Serbs’ vicious expansionist drive

• A later crisis emerged in Kosovo, where the US intervened with air strikes and military forces to preserve Kosovo’s autonomy

• Seven independent nations emerged from the wreckage of Yugoslavia by 2008

Multiculturalism

• Suggested that Americans weren’t a single people into whom others melted, rather, they comprised a diverse set of ethnic and racial groups living and working together

• Stated that a shared set of public values held the multicultural society together, even as different groups maintained different cultures

The “third way”

• Named by Clinton, an attempt to navigate between the liberal and moderate Democrats

• Clinton aimed to satisfy the two different– and often antagonistic– political constituencies

Election of 1964

• The Conscience of a Conservative spurred a Republican grassroots movement in support of Goldwater

• A critical boost came in the spring, when conservatives outmaneuvered moderates at the state convention of the California Republican Party, enthusiastically endorsing Goldwater

• Spurred by Shlafly’s A Choice Not an Echo

• Goldwater’s strident tone and militarist foreign policy deterred a nation still mourning JFK and committed to liberalism

Hostage crisis

• 1979

• The background:

  • The US had long counted Iran as a faithful ally as a bulwark against Soviet expansion and a source of oil

  • The US helped prop up Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, using the CIA to help him reclaim power even after he had been ousted

  • After the Iranian Revolution, the shah fled, and Khomeini, a Shiite, took power

• When the US admitted the deposed shah into the US for cancer treatment, Iranian students seized the US embassy and took 66 Americans hostage, demanding that the shah be returned to Iran for trial

• Carter refused the kidnappers’ demands, suspending arms sales to Iran and freezing Iranian assets

• The whole incident was televised, paralyzing the Carter presidency

• The hostage crisis ended with the Iraq invasion of Iran, as Khomeini hoped to focus his nation’s attention on Iraq’s invasion

Iraq invasion of Iran

• 1980

• Iraq invaded due to a dispute over deep-water ports and to prevent the Shiite-led Iranian Revolution from spreading across the border into Sunni-run Iraq

Election of 1980

• Reagan elected

• Americans faced stagnant wages, high inflation, crippling mortgage rates, and an unemployment rate of nearly 8%

• Carter was blamed for his weak response to Soviet expansion and the Iranians’ seizure of American diplomats

• Reagan implied that he would take strong action to win the return of the hostages held in Iran

• Signaled his rejection of liberal policies by declaring his opposition to affirmative action and forced busing, promising to “get government off our backs”

• Reagan appealed to many Americans who felt financially insecure, emphasizing the hardships facing working and middle-class Americans

Economic Recovery Tax Act

• 1981

• A massive tax cut abiding by supply-side economics; reduced income taxes for most Americans by 23% over three years

• Slashed estate taxes, levies on inheritances, and trimmed the taxes paid by business corporations

• Overall, the ERTA cut the annual revenue of the federal government by $200 billion

• By the time Reagan left office, the total federal debt had tripled, rising from $930 billion to $2.8 trillion in 1989

Deregulation

• Began in 1981 with Reagan

• Advocates of Reaganomics asserted that excessive regulation by federal agencies impeded economic growth

• Deregulation of prices in the trucking, airline, and railroad industries had begun under Carter, but Reagan expanded the mandate to include cutting back on government protections of consumers, workers, and the environment

  • Included the US Department of Labor, the EPA, and OSHA– these increased costs by protecting the rights of workers, mandating safety improvements, and requiring expensive equipment to limit the release of toxic chemicals into the environment

• Cut budgets by an average of 12%

• Staffed regulatory agencies with leaders who were opposed to the agencies’ missions

  • Resistance about cuts to the EPA led Reagan to increase its budget in his second term

National debt triples

• 1981-1989

• Although the federal budget deficit increased dramatically in large part due to military spending, Reagan pushed Congress through a five-year 1.2 trillion military spending program

• Abandoned detente and set about re-arming America; forced the USSR into an arms race

• In Reagan’s presidency, military spending accounted for one-fourth of all federal expenditures and a skyrocketing national debt

• By the time Reagan left office, the total federal debt had tripled, rising from $930 billion to $2.8 trillion in 1989

HIV/AIDS

• 1981

• Because many victims of the virus were gay men, Reagan, emboldened by New Right conservatives, hesitated in declaring a national health emergency

• Some of Reagan’s advisors asserted that this “gay disease” might even be God’s punishment of homosexuals

• Reagan’s administration took little action and prevented officials from revealing information about the disease

Economic depression

• 1981-1982

• High interest rates sent the economy into a recession that put 10 million Americans out of work and shuttered 17,000 businesses

• Unemployment neared 10%, the highest since the GD

• These troubles forced Reagan to negotiate a tax increase with Congress

Election of 1984

• Reagan re-elected

• Reagan emphasized the economic resurgence, promoting his tax policies and the nation’s new prosperity

• Reagan won in a landslide victory, campaigning with the slogan, “It’s Morning in America”

Return to prosperity

• 1985

• Decline:

  • Between 1945-1970, the US was the world’s leading exporter of agricultural products, manufactured goods, and investment capital

  • American manufacturers progressively lost market share, undercut by cheaper and better-designed products from West Germany and Japan, registering a negative balance of international payments

  • American businesses grappled with a worrisome decline in productivity, which only grew at 1% a year

  • Because of foreign competition, the number of high-paying, union-protected manufacturing jobs shrank

• The US economy grew at 2-3% per year between the late 80s and 90s due to the growth of the service sector

• The growth of the service sector would have long-term consequences for the global competitiveness of US industries and the value of the dollar

The computer revolution

• Pioneered by Gates, Paul Allen, Jobs, and Steve Wozniak

• With the development of the microprocessor in 1971, each generation of computers grew faster and smaller, with small microchips providing as much processing power as a WWII-era computer

• Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple Computers in SFO, producing small, individual computers

• Gates and Allen founded the Microsoft Corporation, whose MS-DOS and Windows operating systems soon dominated the software industry

• Significance: Government research and government funding played an enormous role in the development of the most important technology since television

Gorbachev takes power

• 1985

• Russian background:

  • Russia had industrialized from an agricultural society inefficiently– lacking the incentives of a market economy, most enterprises hoarded raw materials, employed too many, and did not develop new products

  • Russia’s economy fell further and further behind those of capitalist societies, and most Russians endured a low standard of living

  • The Russian invasion of Afghanistan was a major blunder– an unwinnable war with heavy financial costs, destroyed military morale, and a loss of political support

• Gorbachev recognized the need for internal economic reform and an end to the war in Afghanistan

• Introduced glasnot (openness) and perestroika (economic restructuring), which encouraged widespread criticism of the rigid institutions and authoritarian controls of the Communist regime

• Significance: Gorbachev and Reagan began meetings that led to a warm personal rapport; Reagan replaced many of his hardline advisors with policymakers who favored a renewal of detente

Iran-Contra scandal

• 1986

• Iran:

  • Reagan had previously denounced Iran as an “outlaw state,” but soon needed its help to free two dozen American hostages held by Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian Shiite group in Lebanon

  • Reagan sold arms to Iran without public or congressional knowledge

• Nicaragua

  • Reagan aimed to overthrow the democratically elected Sandinistas, whom he accused of threatening US business interests

  • Ordered the CIA to assist an armed opposition group called the Contras

  • Congress worried that the president and the executive branch was assuming war-making powers that the Constitution reserved to the legislature– Congress banned the CIA and all other agencies from providing any military support

  • Oliver North, a lieutenant colonel, defied that ban– with some degree of support from administration officials, including Reagan, North used the profits from the Iranian arms deal to assist the Contras

• The Iran-Contra affair came to public light, resulting in the prosecution of North and several other officials and weakening Reagan domestically

Rehnquist named chief justice

• 1986

• During his two terms, Reagan appointed 368 federal court judges– most of them conservative– and three SC justices

  • O’Connor and Kennedy turned out to be far less devoted to New Right conservatism than Reagan and his supporters imagined

• Reagan elevated Rehnquist to the position of chief justice

• Rehnquist led the Court’s conservatives to take an activist stance, limiting the reach of federal laws, ending court-ordered busing, and endorsing constitutional protection of property rights

• The presence of O’Connor led to a Court that pursued a central position on issues of individual liberties, abortion, affirmative action, and the rights of criminals

  • Scaled back, but did not usually overturn the liberal rulings of the Warren and Burger Courts

Election of 1988

• Bush elected

• Bush was Reagan’s vice president, though he was not beloved by conservatives

• Bush was very familiar with the government and had a long list of powerful allies

• Secured the presidential nomination largely because of his fierce loyalty to Reagan

• Bush nominated Quayle as his vice president, in hopes that he would secure the Christian “family values” vote

• Jesse Jackson became the first African American to challenge for a major-party nomination, winning eleven states in primary and caucus voting, although MA’s Dukakis emerged as the Democratic nominee

• Dukakis was unable to win back the constituencies Democrats had lost in the 70s

Velvet Revolutions

• 1989

• Gorbachev’s efforts revealed the flaws of the Soviet system

• The people of Eastern and Central Europe demanded the ouster of their Communist governments

• Russia did not intervene in independence movements, and a series of peaceful uprisings created a new political order throughout the region

Persian Gulf War

• 1990-1991

• When Iran was attacked by Iraq’s Hussein, Reagan supported Hussein with military intelligence and other aid

• Reagan hoped to maintain supplies of Iraqi oil, undermine Iran, and preserve a balance of power in the Middle East

• Hussein went to war to expand Iraq’s boundaries and oil supply, incorrectly believing that he still had the support of the US

• Hussein conquered Kuwait, threatening Saudi Arabia

• Bush sponsored a series of resolutions in the UN calling for Iraq to withdraw

• When Hussein refused, Bush prodded the UN to authorize the use of force, and the president organized a military coalition of  thirty-four nations

• The Republican-led HoR authorized American participation, and the Democratic-led Senate agreed by a close margin

• Bush won passage of UN Resolution 687, which imposed economic sanctions against Iraq unless it allowed unfettered inspection of its weapons systems, destroyed all biological and chemical arms, and unconditionally pledged not to develop nuclear weapons

• Shot up Bush’s approval rating

Dissolution of the USSR

• 1991

• Began with the Velvet Revolution; primarily fell as a result of internal weaknesses of the Communist economy

• Alarmed by the reforms, Soviet military leaders seized power in 1991 and arrested Gorbachev

• Widespread opposition thwarted their efforts to oust Gorbachev from office

• In the end, the USSR formally dissolved to make way for an eleven-member Commonwealth of Independent States

Richard Viguerie

• A Catholic conservative and antiabortion activists

• Applied new computer technology to political campaigning– took a list of 12,000 Goldwater contributors and used computerized mailing lists to solicit campaign funds, rally support for conservative causes, and get out the vote on election day

Barry Goldwater

• Came from the Sunbelt and believed in a libertarian spirit of limited government and great personal freedom

• Wrote The Conscience of a Conservative, which set forth an uncompromising conservatism that attacked the New Deal state as “absolutism”

• Argued that the Republican Party had been too accommodating to liberalism

• In Why Not Victory?, he criticized the containment policy, complaining it was a policy of “timidly refusing to draw our own lines against aggression”

Grassroots conservatives

• Winning the 1964 nomination for Goldwater required conservative activists to build their campaign from the bottom up

• Many organizations came from conservative strongholds in sunbelt metropolises such as Orange County, CA, and Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta

  • Included the John Birch Society, YAF, and the Liberty Lobby

Phyllis Shlafly

• Author of A Choice Not an Echo, which accused moderate Republicans of being Democrats in disguise

American Enterprise, Cato Institute, and Heritage foundation

• “Think tanks” founded by wealthy economic conservatives

• Issued policy proposals and attacked liberal legislation and the stranglehold of economic regulation they believed it represented

• Against “the despotic aspects of egalitarianism”

Religious Right

• Demanded strong government action to implement their faith-based agenda and despised the godless secularism of the Soviet state

• Believed that American society had become immoral

• A new generation of popular ministers gave the Religious Right a new strength– televangelists such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell

• Falwell’s Moral Majority claimed that it had registered two million new voters for the 1980 election

The New Right

• Developed a conservative message– religious and free-market conservatives joined with traditional anticommunist hard-liners alongside whites who opposed black civil rights, affirmative action, and busing

The Reagan coalition

• The core of the Republican Party remained the relatively affluent, white, Protestant voters who supported balanced budgets, opposed government activism, feared communism, and believed in a strong national defense

• Also concluded middle-class suburbanites and migrants from the Sunbelt states who endorsed the conservative agenda of combating crime and limiting social-welfare spending

  • Suburban traditions of privatization and racial homogeneity brought support to Republicans

• Joined by former Democrats who had slowly been moving toward the Republican Party

  • Many southern whites had lost confidence in the Democratic Party, largely because of its support for civil rights

  • Reagan Democrats– included blue-collar voters, Catholics who were alarmed by antiwar protests, rising welfare expenditures, and hostile feminist demands

• Called for a constitutional ban on abortion, voluntary prayer in public schools, and a mandatory death penalty for certain crimes

• Demanded an end to court-mandated busing and the ERA

• Did not support detente and weren’t fond of containment– hoped to defeat, not just contain, communism

Reagan Democrats

• Included blue-collar voters, Catholics who were alarmed by antiwar protests, rising welfare expenditures, and hostile feminist demands

  • Part of Nixon’s “silent majority”

• Lived in heavily industrialized midwestern states

Carter

• Advertised his outsider status and disdained professional politicians, making him the ideal post-Watergate president

• Had an idealistic vision of American leaders in world affairs– promoted human rights and peacemaking

• Took support away from repressive regimes in Argentina, Uruguay, and Ethiopia, although he still funded equally repressive US allies such as the Philippines

• Forged an enduring, although limited, peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict

  • Invited the Israeli prime minister and the Egyptian president to Camp David, where they crafted a “framework for peace” where Egypt recognized Israel and received back the Sinai Peninsula

• Deplored the “inordinate fear of communism,” but his efforts at improving relations with the USSR floundered; criticism of human rights violations in the USSR slowed arms reduction negotiations

• Later endorsed the perspective of war hawks when the USSR invaded Afghanistan; Carter called for increased defense spending and provided covert assistance to anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan

William F. Buckley

• The founder and editor of the conservative magazine National Review, which he used to critique liberal policy

Milton Friedman

• A Nobel Prize-winning economist and prominent conservative intellectual

• In Capitalism and Freedom (1962), he argued that “economic freedom is… an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom”

• His free-market ideology was taken up by wealthy conservatives who created groups such as American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, and Heritage Foundation

Guatemala

• Reagan supported CIA initiatives to roll back Soviet influence in the developing world by funding anticommunist movements

• In Guatemala, this led to brutal military rule

Nicaragua

• Reagan supported CIA initiatives to roll back Soviet influence in the developing world by funding anticommunist movements

• Reagan actively encouraged a coup against the left-wing Sandinista government

El Salvador

• Reagan supported CIA initiatives to roll back Soviet influence in the developing world by funding anticommunist movements

• The US-backed government maintained secret “death squads,” which murdered members of the opposition

Supply-side economics

• Aimed to increase the production and supply of goods

• Claimed that the best way to bolster investment was to reduce the taxes paid by corporations and wealthy Americans, who could then use these funds to expand production

• Argued that the resulting economic expansion would increase government revenues and offset the loss of tax dollars stemming from tax cuts

• Stockman, the architect of supply-side economics, publicly admitted that the theory was based on faith, not economics

  • Admitted that the figures had been manipulated

  • Acknowledged that the theory was based on the long-discredited idea of “trickle-down” economics

Clean Power Plan

• In 2015, Obama directed the EPA to adopt the Clean Power Plan to combat greenhouse gases

• Later blocked by the SC and further limited by Trump

Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

• Passed under Obama

• Added new regulations limiting the financial industry and new consumer protections