1980s Foster

Shifts in America

  • Sun belt vs. Rust belt 

  • South = democrat

  • North = republican 

  • The Rust Belt was the northeast and major cities, industrialized America 

  • These factories became rundown and and abandoned

  • The Rust Belt suffered from high unemployment, congestion, pollution, etc

  • So many workers migrated to the Sun Belt, referring to southern/southwest states 

  • True westerners developed a sense of frontier spirit and were proud of their land that their ancestors had settled on, AKA rugged individualism

  • Both westerners and southerners mostly opposed the size and power of the federal government

  • Westerners were once members of the silent majority, but this began to flip in the 70s into the 80s 

  • Sagebrush Rebellion of 1970s → widespread conservative protest from westerners against the strong government regulations 

  • By 1980, the sun belt population surpassed the rust belt 

  • Gentrification: when an urban area is revitalized by wealthier people moving in (yay it’s revitalized🙂, boo it’s now expensive🙁)

  • Suburban vs. Urban

  • Crime and riots of the 60s and 70s caused many Americans to move to the suburbs, causing urban blight (decay)

  • By the 1970s, the urban blight has become extreme

  • By the 1980s, however, people start flocking back into the cities and do a full 180

  • High inflation and high taxes of the 70s were threatening the middle class

  • In 1978, Proposition 13 was passed in CA → conservative activists called for property tax cuts 

  • Anti-tax movements began to spread across the country and became a national issue

  • Religious Right

  • Many Americans felt our society had lost touch with transitional values

  • Bible belt population

  • US happenings over the last couple decades (ex: Roe v. Wade) were shocking for certain conservatives

  • Bible belt people thought that the feminist movement threatened the traditional family setup and that student protests showed disrespect towards authority 

  • Largest group was the evangelical Protestant Christians 

  • Televangelists were considered saviors for these people: Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Marion “Pat” Robertson 

  • “Moral Majority-” used television and mail campaigns to register new conservative voters 

  • These televangelists gain millions of followers and were getting paid by them → ended up participating in scandals, child pornography, etc 

Ronald Reagan:

  • He was an actor in Hollywood, but only really had one notable movie where he co-starred with a chimpanzee 

  • Previous governor of CA and handled things conservative then, too

  • Lost against Ford in the primaries 4 years before

  • Reagan crushes Carter in in the election of 1980

Note for 1980: The Miracle on Ice occurred: a hockey game where a very newly put together US team of college players defeated the well-trained Soviet Union team- they were the only NHL team that had defeated the Soviets and created the Cold War personified 

  • At this point in time, Americans were worried with the economy and were worried that we look weak internationally 

  • Reagan claimed the US needed to believe in themselves again and the government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem (ended up shrinking the size of the fed government) 

  • Promised to cut taxes and increase defense spending 

  • Iran hostages were released on January 20, the day of Reagan’s inauguration → this wasn’t a coincidence 

  • At the same time, the republicans gained power in the Senate, which is important for Reagan’s presidency 

Reaganomics:

  • Reagan proposed cutting programs to decrease deficit spending → welfare, food stamps, school lunch program, Medicare, student loans, etc

  • These were expensive liberal programs

  • Democrats wouldn’t let this slide 

  • He knew Congress would never cut enough to balance the budget, so he resorted to focusing on cutting taxes and increasing defense/military spending



  • Reagan believed in supply-side economics

  • Said we should cut corporate income tax, in turn giving more money to corporations 

  • Then these corporations will expand their businesses, hire more workers, pay them more, the workers will have more money to spend more, etc 

  • Said we should also cut taxes for the wealthy, they’ll invest in the stock market, generating more revenue, etc 

  • Trickle-down economics

  • Monetarism

  • Purposeful inflation caused by too much money in circulation 

  • The solution was to raise interest rates 

  • Milton Freedman: father of monetarism 

  • Reagan is therefore using both monetary and fiscal policy 

  • While these ideas seem sound, the criticisms were that this process was slow and the wealth gap increased (the rich got richer) 

  • Congress passed a 25% tax decrease (this is massive)

  • Deregulation performed by Reagan: 

  • Issued an executive order eliminating price controls on oil and gas (gas prices decreased as a result)

  • Airlines→ he opened up competition which led to more airlines and price wars. These price wars caused prices to drop 

  • Federal Communications Commission (FCC) → advocated for no regulations on cable 

  • James Watt (Secretary of the Interior) gets permission from Reagan opened public land for mining, drilling, and logging (this was very anti-environment)

  • Eased regulations on pollution, chemicals, and pesticides 

  • By 1984, the economy was healed/exploding! Yay Reagan! 

  • Millions of new jobs were created and median income increased! 

  • Except, with trickle-down economics, the rich get richer and the environment is being destroyed 

Attempted Assassination: 

  • John Hinckley Jr. 

  • In Washington DC, Reagan and his squad were returning to his limo

  • Many shots were fired, and one of the agents jumped in front of Reagan and died taking a bullet for him

  • Reagan was injured but quickly healed 

More Reagan:

  • Nominated Sandra Day O’Connor (conservative) as Supreme Court Justice

  • Appealing to feminist movement 

  • Warren Burger retired in 1986  

  • William Rehnquist takes over

  • Reagan appointed Antonin Scalia to replace Rehnquist as associate justice 

  • Congress blocks Reagan’s appointment of another conservative person due to being “too conservative”


Election of 1984:

  • Reagan and George HW Bush ate it up! 

Post-Election of 84!




Reasons why the USSR collapsed:

  • Reagan was building up our military like crayyy, which costs crazy amounts of money, and because of the Arms Race they had to do the same, in turn costing them an insane amount of money as well 

  • They invaded Afghanistan, thought they would easily defeat them but were proven wrong

  • Afghanistan is to the USSR what Vietnam is to the US

  • We helped support Afghanistan discreetly 


The Cold War Ends:

  • Soviet economy was suffering from years of inefficient central planning and massive spending in the arms race

  • Gorbachev introduced:

  • Perestroika: a restructuring of the economy that allowed some private enterprise and profit motive

  • Glasnost: “openness” - allowed more freedom of speech and religion, like discussion of politics 


  • 1989: peaceful revolutions in Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria

  • 1989: Berlin Wall gates open 



1980s Culture: 

  • Bold, neon colors

  • Movies:

  • Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, ET, 16 Candles 

  • Steven Spielberg and John Hughes were behind many of the big movies in the 80s 

  • TV:

  • The Simpsons, Family Ties (where Michael J. Fox started), The Cosby Show, Full House, Cheers, Night Court 

  • A new type of show emerges: prime time soap opera (Dallas) that were geared towards families 

  • Fads:

  • Atari: video game crash of the 80s, lead to the survival of new nintendo 

  • Rubix cube

  • Arcades - you’d go to the mall and it became a social gathering point

  • Cabbage Patch Dolls 

  • Walkman: revolutionary because it was now portable and you can listen to your choice of music, which contributed to the generation gaps 

  • Boombox

  • Compact disc/CD then sort of replaced the walkman by the mid-80s 

  • Wrestling becomes huge 

  • Cabbage Patch Dolls: first time where the toy truly exploded and people fought/“beat the living snot out of each other” for them 

  • We started mimicking celebrities and their looks, ex Madonna 


  • Lifestyles of the rich and famous (also the title of a TV show):

  • Yuppies 

  • Baby boomers finished college and began careers

  • By mid 1990s the top 5% earned more than 21% of nations income (the 95% left fought over the 79% left) 

  • Showing off wealth


  • New form of retail:

  • Discount retailing (Walmart, Target, Kmart) 

  • NOT like costco, BJs, etc

  • Cable TV:

  • Prior to cable, regular cable was not 24/7

  • Specialized channels 

  • 1975: Ted Turner created WTBS- first superstation 

  • Certain channels started reporting on stuff that wasn’t necessarily relevant to fill the 24 hours 

  • CNN (news), MTV (music), ESPN (sports)

  • BET: for black people, by black people

  • Music:

  • Electronic music

  • Hair bands: Poison, Motley Crew, Guns & Roses

  • Rap: African American music from the inner cities

  • Charity events → Live Aid: live concert all day in both London and Philly to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia 

  • Social Challenges:

  • Nancy Reagan: War on Drugs

  • Alcohol and drunk driving → MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving, made legal drinking age 21 across the board)

  • Drugs and crime in the inner city 

  • AIDS:

  1. Started in homosexual community (Reagan called it the “gay disease” and caused backlash to the gay community)

  2. Spread through bodily fluids, especially blood

  • Major disasters and first three space program points