Chapter 29

Politics and American Opinion was Moving Right

• a result of Carter administration’s losses

  • evangelicals

    • Moral Majority

  • former Dixiecrats became Republicans

Reagan elected in 1980

• free market economy

  • decreased New Deal and Great Society principles

    • some survived

  • criticism of Reagan included that he was pro-corporation and wealthy

    • anti-labor

    • The Reagan Doctrine: increased military spending at home and for allies, federal deficit

    • decreased social service spending

    • mass incarceration

    • delayed response to AIDS

    • promoted anti-communist stance in Latin America

      • Iran-Contra

  • Created START talks, Star Wars

  • Reaganomics

    • supply-side, trickle-down economics

      • cutting taxes to encourage investment

      • should trickle-down by creating jobs with better pay

Gorbachev

• came to power in the SU in 1985

  • perestroika, glastnost

  • worked “well” with Reagan

• saw the fall of the SU in 1991

  • US remained world’s only superpower