APUSH Review Test # 5

The LBJ Brand on the Presidency

President Johnson convinced Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning racial discrimination in most private facilities open to the public.  It strengthened the federal government's power to end segregation in schools and other public places.  It also created the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to eliminate discrimination in hiring (race, national origin, gender).

In 1965, President Johnson issued an executive order requiring all federal contractors to take "affirmative action" against discrimination. 

Johnson started a "War on Poverty."  His domestic program, called the "Great Society", was a set of New Dealish economic and welfare measures tried to reduce poverty and racial discrimination.

Johnson Battles Goldwater in 1964

The Democrats nominated Lyndon Johnson to run for president for the election of 1964.  The Republicans chose Senator Barry Goldwater.  Goldwater attacked the federal income tax, the Social Security System, the Tennessee Valley Authority, civil rights legislation, the nuclear test-ban treaty, and the Great Society.

On August 2th and August 4th, two U.S. ships were allegedly fired upon.  Johnson called the attack "unprovoked" and moved to make political gains out of the incident. He used the event to get Congress to pass the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. This basically let the president use unrestricted force (at his discretion) in Southeast Asia. 

Lyndon Johnson overwhelmingly won the election of 1964.

The Great Society Congress

Congress passed many bills in support of the Great Society plan. In the War on Poverty, Congress gave more money to the Office of Economic Opportunity and it created two new cabinet offices:  the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  The National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities was designed to raise the level of American cultural life.

In regards to the Great Society plan, LBJ's big four legislative achievements were: aid to education, medical care for the elderly and poor, immigration reform, and a new voting rights bill.  Johnson gave educational aid to students, not schools.  In 1965, Congress created Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.  The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the quota system that had been in place since 1921.  It also doubled the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country annually.  The sources of immigration shifted from Europe to Latin America and Asia. Conservatives said that poverty could not be fixed by the Great Society programs, but the poverty rate did decline in the following decade.

Battling for Black Rights

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government more power to enforce school-desegregation orders and to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations and employment.

President Johnson realized the problem that few blacks were registered to vote.  The 24^th Amendment, passed in 1964, abolished the poll tax in federal elections. In response to racial violence across the South, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which sought to prohibit minorities from being disenfranchised (through poll taxes, literacy tests, etc).

Black Power

Days after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, a bloody riot erupted in Watts, a black ghetto in Los Angeles.  The Watts explosion marked increasing militant confrontation in the black struggle. 

Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister who rallied black separatism. In 1965, he was shot and killed by a rival Nation of Islam.

Racially-motivated violence continued to spread as the militant Black Panther party emerged. It openly carried weapons in the streets of Oakland, California.  Stokely Carmichael preached the doctrine of Black Power, which emphasized racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural parties.

 On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee.  Black voter registration eventually increased, and by the late 1960s, several hundred blacks held elected positions in the South.

Vietnam Vexations

By the middle of March 1965, "Operation Rolling Thunder" had begun. This involved regular bombing attacks against North Vietnam. LBJ believed that an orderly escalation of American force in Vietnam would defeat the enemy.

The conflict in Vietnam became very Americanized. Pro-war hawks argued that if the United Sates left Vietnam, other nations would doubt America's word and succumb to communism.  By 1968, Johnson had put more than 500,000 troops in Southeast Asia, and the annual cost for the war was over $30 billion.

In June 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt's airforce, starting the Six-Day War. Following the war, Israel gained the territories of the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

Antiwar demonstrations increased significantly as more and more American soldiers died in the Vietnam War. Senator William Fulbright held a series of televised hearings in 1966 and 1967 in which he convinced the public that it had been deceived about the causes and "winnability" of the war.

When Defense Secretary McNamara expressed discomfort about the war, he was quietly removed from office.

By early 1968, the Vietnam War had become the longest and most unpopular foreign war in the nation's history. The government failed to justify the war. Casualties exceeded 100,000, and more bombs had been dropped in Vietnam than in World War II.

In 1967, Johnson ordered the CIA to spy on domestic antiwar activists.  He also encouraged the FBI to use its counterintelligence program, code-named "Cointelpro," to investigate members of the peace movement.

Vietnam Topples Johnson

In January 1968, the Viet Cong (VC) attacked 27 key South Vietnamese cities, including Saigon.  The Tet Offensive ended in a military defeat for the VC, but it caused the American public to demand an immediate end to the war. President Johnson began to doubt the wisdom of continuing to send troops to Vietnam.

Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy entered the race for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.

On March 31, 1968, President Johnson stated that he would freeze American troop levels and gradually shift more responsibility to the South Vietnamese.  Bombings would also be scaled down.  He also declared that he would not be a candidate for the presidency in 1968.

The Presidential Sweepstakes of 1968

On June 5, 1968, Robert Kennedy was shot and killed by an Arab immigrant resentful of the Kennedy's pro-Israel views. 

Hubert H. Humphrey, vice president of Johnson, won the Democratic nomination. Humphrey supported the increased use of force in Vietnam.

The Republicans nominated Richard Nixon for president and Spiro T. Agnew for vice president.  The Republican platform called for a victory in Vietnam and a strong anticrime policy.

The American Independent party, headed by George C. Wallace, called for the of segregation of blacks.

The Republican and Democrat candidates supported the Vietnam War in the election of 1968.

Despite winning most major cities and about 95% of the black vote, the Democrats lost the election; Richard Nixon won the election of 1968.

No president since Lincoln had done more for civil rights than LBJ.  The Vietnam War sucked tax dollars away from LBJ's Great Society programs, though.

LBJ was persuaded by his advisors that an easy victory in Vietnam could be achieved by massive aerial bombing and large troop commitments. He did not want to continue to escalate the fighting, though, and this offended the war "hawks." His refusal to end the war also offended the war "doves."

The Cultural Upheaval of the 1960s

In 1960s in America, a negative attitude toward all kinds of authority took hold. The Free Speech Movement was one of the first organized protests against established authority. It took place at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. Leader Mario Savio condemned the impersonal university "machine." 

From the 1950s to the 1970s, educated people became more secular and uneducated people became more religious.

Protests against government took place around the world, including France, China, and Czechoslovakia.

The 1960s also witnessed a "sexual revolution."  The introduction of the birth control pill made unwanted pregnancies easy to avoid.  By the 1960s, gay men and lesbians were increasingly emerging and demanding sexual tolerance. The Stonewall Rebellion was a series of riots that emerged when off-duty police officers attacked gay men. Worries in the 1980s of AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases slowed the sexual revolution.

By the end of the 1960s, students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had created an underground terrorist group called the Weathermen.

The upheavals of the 1960s could be attributed to the three Ps:  the youthful population bulge, protest against racism and the Vietnam War, and the apparent permanence of prosperity.

Nixon "Vietnamizes" the War

President Nixon brought knowledge and expertise in foreign affairs to the presidency. Nixon started a policy called "Vietnamization," which was to withdraw 540,000 U.S. troops from South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese, with American money, weapons, training, and advice, would then gradually take over the war. Nixon did not want to end the war; he wanted to win it by other means.

Nixon Doctrine: the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but in the future, Asians and other countries would have to fight their own wars without the support of large numbers of American troops.

On November 3, 1969, Nixon delivered a televised speech to the "silent majority," who presumably supported the war; he hoped to gain supporters.

Cambodianizing the Vietnam War

Cambodia, which was officially neutral in the war, bordered South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese had been using Cambodia as a springboard for troops, weapons, and supplies. On April 29, 1970, President Nixon ordered American forces to attack the enemy in Cambodia. Protests erupted at Kent State University, in which the National Guard shot 4 students. Nixon withdrew the troops from Cambodia on June 29, 1970, although the bitterness between the "hawks" and the "doves" increased.

In 1971, the 26^th Amendment was passed, lowering the voting age to 18.

Pentagon Papers: a leaked, top-secret Pentagon study that documented the deceptions of the previous presidential administrations, in regards to the Vietnam War.

Nixon's Détente with Beijing (Peking) and Moscow

The two great communist powers, the Soviet Union and China, disagreed over their interpretations of Marxism.  Nixon and his national security advisor, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, used the Chinese-Soviet tension to play off one country against the other. Nixon and Kissinger wanted to get the Soviet Union and China to pressure North Vietnam into peace.

In 1972, Nixon visited China and paved the way for improved relations between the United States and Beijing.  In May 1972, Nixon traveled to Moscow and negotiated détente, or relaxed tensions between the Soviet Union and China. The United States agreed to sell the Soviets at least $750 million worth of wheat, corn, and other cereals. Two agreements also slowed the arms race between America and the Soviets: 1) An anti-ballistic missile (AMB) treaty limited the U.S. and the Soviet Union to two clusters of defensive missiles. 2) SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) froze the numbers of long-range nuclear missiles for 5 years.

A New Team on the Supreme Bench

Earl Warren was appointed as a Justice to the Supreme Court in 1953 and he made many controversial rulings:

Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) struck down a state law that banned the use of contraceptives, even by married couples, creating a "right to privacy."

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) ruled that all criminals were entitled to legal counsel, even if they were unable to afford it.

Escobedo (1964) and Miranda (1966) ruled that those who were arrested had to the "right to remain silent." (Miranda warning)

Engel v. Vitale (1962) and School District of Abington Township vs. Schempp (1963) ruled that public schools could not require prayers or Bible reading.

Reynolds vs. Sims (1964) ruled that the state legislatures would be required to be reapportioned according to population.

In an attempt to end the liberal rulings, President Nixon set Warren E. Burger to replace the retiring Earl Warren in 1969.  The Supreme Court had four new Nixon-appointed members by the end of 1971.

Nixon on the Home Front

Nixon expanded the Great Society programs by increasing funding for Medicare, Medicaid, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).  He also created the Supplemental Security Income (SSI), giving benefits to the poor aged, blind, and disabled.

Nixon's Philadelphia Plan of 1969 required construction-trade unions to establish quotas for hiring black employees.  This plan changed the definition of "affirmative action" to include preferable treatment on groups, not individuals; the Supreme Court's ruling on Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) upheld this.  Whites protested this decision, calling it "reverse discrimination."

Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA), and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). These agencies gave the federal government more control over businesses.

In 1962, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring exposed the harmful effects of pesticides.

The Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 both aimed at protecting and preserving the environment.

Worried about inflation, Nixon imposed a 90-day wage freeze and then took the nation off the gold standard (devaluing the dollar). This ended the "Bretton Woods" system of international currency stabilization, which was the agreement that each country would tie its monetary exchange rate to gold.

Nixon's southern strategy helped him win the Southern vote. This strategy consisted of opposing civil rights for African-Americans.

The Nixon Landslide of 1972

In the spring of 1972, the North Vietnamese burst through the demilitarized zone separating the two Vietnams.  Nixon ordered massive bombing attacks on strategic centers, halting the North Vietnamese offensive.

Senator George McGovern won the 1972 Democratic nomination.  He based his campaign on pulling out of Vietnam in 90 days.  President Nixon, though, won the election of 1972 in a landslide.

Nixon ordered a two-week bombing campaign of North Vietnam in an attempt to force the North Vietnamese to the peace table.

On January 23, 1973, North Vietnamese negotiators agreed to a cease-fire agreement.  This agreement was really just a disguised American retreat.

The Secret Bombing of Cambodia and the War Powers Act

Despite assurances to the American public that Cambodia's neutrality was being respected, it was discovered that secret bombing raids on North Vietnamese forces in Cambodia had taken place since March of 1969; this caused the public to question trust of the government.  Nixon ended the bombings in June 1973.

Cambodia was taken over by the cruel dictator Pol Pot, who later committed genocide of over 2 million people over a span of a few years.

In November 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Act. It required the president to tell Congress within 48 hours about all commitments of U.S. troops to foreign conflicts.  A new feeling of "New Isolationism" that discouraged U.S. troops from being used in other countries' wars began to take hold.

The Arab Oil Embargo and the Energy Crisis

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Syria and Egypt tried to regain the territory that they had lost to Israel during the Six-Day War. American support helped Israel win the war, but it caused the Arab nations (OPEC) to impose an oil embargo on the United States.  To conserve oil, a speed limit of 55 MPH was imposed. An oil pipeline in Alaska was approved in 1974 and other forms of energy were researched.

The embargo caused an economic recession in America and several other countries.

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) lifted the embargo in 1974, but it quadrupled the price of oil.

Watergate and the Unmaking of a President

On June 17, 1972, five men working for the Republican Committee for the Re-election of the President were caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel and bugging Democrats' rooms. After the Watergate Scandal, it was discovered that the Nixon administration was involved in many other cases of corruption and "dirty tricks."

Many prominent members of the President's administration resigned. Vice President Spiro Agnew was also forced to resign for taking bribes. Congress replaced Agnew with Gerald Ford.

A select Senate committee, headed by Senator Sam Erving, led an investigation into the corruption. Nixon claimed no knowledge of the illegal activities, but John Dean III, a former White House lawyer, testified about how Nixon tried to cover up the Watergate Scandal.

On October 20, 1973 ("Saturday Night Massacre"), Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the prosecutor of the Watergate Scandal case who had issued a subpoena of the tapes.  The attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned because they did not want to fire Cox.

When conversations involving the Watergate Scandal were discovered on tapes, President Nixon refused to hand them over to Congress, despite denying any participation in the scandal. On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled that President Nixon had to submit all tapes to Congress.  On August 5, 1974, Nixon released the three tapes that held the most damaging information. One of the tapes ("smoking gun" tape) proved that Nixon had played an active part of the attempted cover-up of the Watergate Scandal.

On August 8, 1974, Nixon resigned due to pressures from his own party.

Sources of Stagnation

The growth of the American economy slowed down in the 1970s. More women and teens were entering the works force; these groups typically made less money than males. Deteriorating machinery and new regulations also hindered growth. The Vietnam War and on the Great Society program also contributed to inflation.

Countries like Japan and Germany started to dominate industries that had traditionally been led by the Americans (steel, automobiles, and consumer electronics).

The First Unelected President

Gerald Ford became the first unelected president.

President Ford's popularity and respect sank when he issued a full pardon of Nixon, thus setting off accusations of a "buddy deal."

In July 1975, Ford signed the Helsinki accords, which recognized Soviet boundaries and helped to ease tensions between the two nations.

Defeat in Vietnam

Early in 1975, the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam.  President Ford request aid for South Vietnam, but was rejected by Congress.  South Vietnam quickly fell.  The last Americans were evacuated on April 29, 1975.

The estimated cost to America was $188 billion, with 56,000 dead and 300,000 wounded.  America had lost face in the eyes of foreigners, lost its own self-esteem, lost confidence in its military power, and lost much of the economic strength that had made possible its global leadership after WWII.

Feminist Victories and Defeats

In 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments, prohibiting sex discrimination in any federally assisted educational program. Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) amendment to the Constitution, although it was never ratified by enough states. This amendment would have prohibited laws that discriminated based on sex.

In Roe vs. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court invalidated laws banning abortion.

The Seventies in Black and White

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled in Milliken v. Bradley that desegregation plans could not require students to move across school-district lines.  This reinforced the "white flight".

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled in University of California v. Bakke that Allan Bakke that universities could not favor applicants based on the quality of race. The Supreme Court's only black justice, Thurgood Marshall, warned that the denial of racial preferences might erase the progress gained by the civil rights movement.

In United States vs. Wheeler (1978), the Supreme Court ruled that Native American tribes had limited sovereignty.

The Bicentennial Campaign

In the election of 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter beat Republican Gerald Ford to win the presidency.  Carter promised to never lie to the American public.

Carter was inexperienced in dealing with the politics of Washington.

Carter's Humanitarian Diplomacy

President Carter mediated peace talks between Israel and Egypt. On September 17, 1978, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel signed peace accords at Camp David. Israel agreed to withdraw from territory it had gained in the 1967 war as long as Egypt respected Israel's territories.

President Carter pledged to return the Panama Canal to Panama by the year 2000 and resume full diplomatic relations with China in 1979.

Economic and Energy Woes

The rate of inflation had been steadily rising, and by 1979, it was at 13%.  Americans learned that they were no longer economically isolated from the world.

To reduce America's costly dependence on foreign oil, Carter called for legislation to improve energy conservation. The legislation didn't get much public support.

In 1979, Iran's shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, who had been installed by America in 1953 and had ruled Iran as a dictator, was overthrown and succeeded by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 

Iranian fundamentalists were very opposed Western customs, and because of this, Iran stopped exporting oil. OPEC also raised oil prices and caused another oil crisis.

In July 1979, Carter retreated to Camp David and met with hundreds of advisors to come up with a solution to America's problems. On July 15, 1979, Carter gave his malaise speech in which he chastised the American people for their obsession of material goods, stunning the nation.  A few days later, he fired four cabinet secretaries.

The Turn Toward the Market

"Neoconservatives" grew in numbers as a result of the economic downturn. They fought for free-market capitalism and a return to traditional familial roles.

Foreign Affairs and the Iranian Imbroglio

In 1979, Carter signed the SALT II agreements with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, but the U.S. senate refused to ratify it.

On December 27, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which ended up turning into the Soviet Union's version of Vietnam. Because Afghanistan bordered Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan posed a threat to America's oil supplies.  President Carter placed an embargo on the Soviet Union and boycotted the Olympic Games in Moscow.  He also proposed a "Rapid Deployment Force" that could quickly respond to crises anywhere in the world.

On November 4, 1979, a group of anti-American Muslim militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took hostages, demanding that the U.S. return the exiled shah who had arrived in the U.S. two weeks earlier for cancer treatments.

To resolve the Iranian Hostage Crisis, Carter first tried economic sanctions on Iran; this did not work. He then tried a commando rescue mission, but that had to be aborted. 

The hostage crisis dragged on for most of Carter's term, and the hostages were not released until January 20, 1981 - the inauguration day of Ronald Reagan.

By the 1980s, the American population was aging and more people were living in the South and West. The led to the emergence of a new politically conservative movement.

The Election of Ronald Reagan, 1980

Ronald Reagan was a neoconservative who opposed a big government, supported the "common man's" rights, and opposed favoritism for minorities. He tried to spin the Democrats as a party who supported big government and only supported minorities. Like neoconservatives, he also supported free-market capitalism, supported anti-Soviet policies, opposed liberal welfare programs and affirmative-action policies, and he called for the reassertion of traditional values of individualism and the centrality of family.

Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly won the election of 1980, beating Democratic president Jimmy Carter.

The Reagan Revolution

The Iranian's released the hostages on Reagan's Inauguration Day, January 20, 1981, after 444 days of captivity.

Reagan assembled a conservative cabinet when he took office.

A major goal of Reagan was to reduce the size of the government by shrinking the federal budget and cutting taxes.  He proposed a new federal budget that called for cuts of $35 billion, mostly in social programs, including food stamps and federally-funded job-training centers. 

On March 6, 1981, Reagan was shot.  12 days later, Reagan recovered and returned to work.

The Battle of the Budget

Reagan called for substantial tax cuts, and in August 1981, Congress approved a set of tax reforms that lowered individual tax rates, reduced federal estate taxes, and created new tax-free saving plans for small investors.

Reagan supported "supply-side" economics: reducing taxes will enable businesses to produce more goods, which will lower prices, increase consumer spending, and create more jobs. Reagan believed that this would stimulate new investment, boost productivity, promote dramatic economic growth, and reduce the federal deficit. (Reaganomics)

In 1981-1982, the economy slipped into a recession as unemployment rose and banks closed. The anti-inflationary polices that caused the recession of 1982 had actually been created by the Federal Reserve Board in 1979, during Carter's presidency.

During the 1980s, income gaps widened between the rich and the poor.

By the mid-1980s, the economy had recovered. Economists speculated that the economy had recovered because of Reagan's massive military expenditures.  Reagan gave the Pentagon nearly $2 trillion in the 1980s. This massive expenditure led to an unbalanced federal budget and it substantially increased the national debt.

Reagan Renews the Cold War

Reagan's strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union was to initiate a new arms race and outspend the Soviets. He expected that the American economy could better support an expensive arms race than the Soviet Union's economy.

In March 1983, Reagan announced a missile-defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars.  The plan called for orbiting battle satellites in space that could fire laser beams to shoot down intercontinental missiles.

In 1981, the USSR declared martial law in Poland. In 1983, a Korean passenger airliner was shot down when it flew into Soviet airspace.  By the end of 1983, all arms-control negotiations were broken, and the Cold War was intensified.

Troubles Abroad

In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, seeking to destroy the guerilla bases from which Palestinian fighters attacked Israel.  Reagan sent peacekeeping troops, but after a suicide bomber killed 200 marines, he withdrew the force. 

In 1979, Reagan sent "military advisors" to El Salvador to support the pro-American government.  In October 1983, he sent forces to the island of Grenada, where a military coup had killed the prime minister and brought Marxists to power. 

Round Two for Reagan

Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly won the election of 1984, beating Democrat Walter Mondale and his female vice presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro.

Foreign policy issues dominated Reagan's second term. 

Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. He was committed to reforming the country with two policies: Glasnost sought to allow free speech and political freedom and Perestroika sought to adopt capitalistic economic policies. These two policies required the Soviet Union to reduce the size of its military and concentrate aid on its citizens.  This necessitated an end to the Cold War.  In December 1985, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, banning all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe. 

The Iran-Contra Imbroglio

Reagan was plagued by 2 problems: American hostages were held by Muslim extremists in Lebanon, and Nicaragua was run by a left-wing Sandinista government. To circumvent Congress's ban on sending arms to the Nicaraguan rebels who fought Sandinista, the Reagan administration secretly sold arms to Iran (who helped free hostages) and then diverted the money from the sales to the rebels.

In November 1986, news of the secret dealings broke and ignited a firestorm of controversy.  Reagan claimed he had no idea of the illicit activities.  Criminal indictments were brought against Oliver North, Admiral John Poindexter, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.  The Iran-contra affair cast a shadow over Reagan's record in foreign policy.

Reagan's Economic Legacy

Reagan's tax cuts and huge increases in military spending caused $200 billion in annual deficits, which added $2 trillion to the national debt during Reagan's administration. However, Reagan's large budget deficits helped make future social welfare programs seem economically infeasible. Thus, Reagan had achieved his goal of limiting the expansion of welfare programs.

In the early 1990s, median household income declined.

The Religious Right

In 1979, Reverend Jerry Falwell founded a political organization called the Moral Majority.  He preached against sexual permissiveness, abortion, feminism, and the spread of gay rights.  The organization became an aggressive political advocate of conservative causes.

Conservatism in the Courts

By the time he had left office, Reagan had appointed 3 conservative-minded judges, including Sandra Day O'Connor, the first women to become a Supreme Court Justice. 

Reagan sought to use the Supreme Court to fight affirmative action and abortion. 

Affirmative Action - In two cases in 1989 (Ward's Cove Packing v. Antonia and Martin v. Wilks), the Court made it more difficult to prove that an employer practiced racial discrimination in hiring. 

Abortion - In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court had prohibited states from making laws that interfered with a woman's right to an abortion during the early months of pregnancy.  In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court approved a Missouri law that imposed certain restrictions on abortion, signalling that a state could legislate in an area in which Roe had previously forbidden them to legislate.  In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court ruled that states could restrict access to abortion as long they did not place an "undue burden" on the woman.

Referendum on Reagansim in 1988

Corruption in the government gave Democrats political opportunities. 

On "Black Monday," October 19, 1987, the stock market dropped 508 points, which was the largest one-day decline in history. 

The Republicans nominated George H. W. Bush for the election of 1988.  The Democrats chose Michael Dukakis. Despite Reagan's recent problems in office, George H. W. Bush won the election.

George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War

In 1989, thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators protested in Tiananmen Square in China.  In June of 1989, China's autocratic rulers brutally crushed the movement.

In 1989, several communist regimes in Europe collapsed, including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Romania. In December 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, and the two Germanies were reunited in October 1990.

In August 1991, a military coup attempted to preserve the communist system by trying to overthrow Gorbachev. In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the Soviet Union's president, as the Soviet Union had dissolved into its component parts, 15 republics loosely confederated in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), with Russia as the most powerful state. Boris Yelstin, the president of the Russian Republic, was the dominant leader of the CIS. The demise of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War.

Ethnic warfare broke out throughout the former Soviet Union. In 1991, the Chechen minority tried to declare its independence from Russia, but Yelstin sent in Russian troops.

As a result of reduced defense spending after the Cold War, America's economy suffered.

In 1990, the white regime in South Africa freed African leader Nelson Mandela, who had served 27 years in prison for conspiring for overthrow the government.  Four years later, he was elected as South Africa's president.  In 1990, free elections removed the leftist Sandinistas in Nicaragua from power.  In 1992, the civil war ended in El Salvador.

The Persian Gulf Crisis

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, seeking oil.  The United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and on August 3, it demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraq's troops.  After Hussein refused to comply by the mandatory date of January 15, 1991, the United States led a massive international military deployment, sending 539,000 troops to the Persian Gulf region.

On January 16, 1991, the U.S. and the U.N. launched a 37-day air war against Iraq.  Allied commander, American general Norman Schwarzkopf, planned to bombing the Iraqis and then send in ground troops and armor. On February 23, the land war, "Operation Desert Storm," began.  It only lasted 4 days, and Saddam Hussein was forced to sign a cease-fire on February 27. 

Because the allies had only agreed to liberate Kuwait, Bush decided not to invade Baghdad to overthrow Saddam. Thus, Saddam stayed in power.

Bush on the Home Front

President Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, prohibiting discrimination against citizens with physical or mental disabilities.  In 1992, he signed a major water projects bill that reformed the distribution of subsidized federal water in the West.  In 1990, Bush's Department of Education challenged the legality of college scholarships targeted for racial minorities.

In 1991, Bush nominated conservative African American Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. He opposed affirmative action. Thomas's nomination was approved by the Senate despite accusations from Anita Hill that Thomas had sexually harassed her.

By 1992, the unemployment rate had exceeded 7% and the federal budget deficit continued to grow. Bush was forced to increase taxes to generate revenue for the federal government.

Bill Clinton:  The First Baby-Boomer President

For the election of 1992, the Democrats chose Bill Clinton as their candidate (despite accusations of womanizing and draft evasion) and Albert Gore, Jr. as his running mate.  The Democrats tried a new approach, promoting growth, strong defense, and anticrime policies, while campaigning to stimulate the economy.

The Republicans dwelled on "family values" and re-nominated George H. W. Bush for the presidency and J. Danforth Quayle for the vice presidency.

Third party candidate, Ross Perot entered the race and ended up winning 19,237,247 votes, although he won no Electoral votes. 

Clinton won the election of 1992. Democrats also gained control of both the House and the Senate.

Presidency Clinton hired minorities and more women in Congress and his presidential cabinet. This included the first female attorney general, Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court

A False Start for Reform

Clinton called for accepting homosexuals in the armed forces, but he had to settle for a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that unofficially accepted gays and lesbians.

Clinton appointed his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to revamp the nation's health and medical care system.  When the plan was revealed in October 1993, critics blasted it as cumbersome, confusing, and stupid.  The previous image of Hillary as an equal political partner of her husband changed to a liability.

By 1998, Clinton 's policies had led to budget surplus and he had shrunk the federal deficit to its lowest levels in ten years. 

On February 26, 1993, a radical Muslim group bombed the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people.  On April 19, 1993, a standoff at Waco, Texas between the government and the Branch Davidian cult ended in a fire that killed 82 people. On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 169 people.

The Politics of Distrust

In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans on an attack of Clinton's liberal failures with a conservative "Contract with America."  That year, Republicans won eight more seats in the Senate and 53 more seats in the House, where Gingrich became the new Speaker of the House.

A conservative Congress passed the Welfare Reform Bill, which made cuts to welfare programs.

In 1995, the government shut down when Congress could not agree on a budget.

In the election of 1996, Clinton beat Republican Bob Dole.  Ross Perot, the third party candidate, again finished third.

Clinton Comes Back

During his second term, Clinton was more of a political moderate.

Racial Progress and Perils

Affirmative action was struck down in a court ruling in California.

Riots in Los Angeles broke out in 1992 when white police officers were acquitted in the beating of a black suspect.

Globalization and Its Discontents

The economy was booming in the late 1990s due to the Federal Reserve Board's low interest rates and the growth of Internet business.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed in 1993, and it created a free-trade zone between Mexico, Canda, and the United States. (It eliminated tariffs between the countries).

The World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1994, and it promoted trade between the participating countries. It was supported by Clinton.

Clinton fought for two domestic issues during his second term: the fight against tobacco companies and the fight for gun control.

The Feminist Revolution

By the 1990's, half of the work face was comprised of women.

Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which gave job protection to men and women who needed to take off of work due to family-related reasons.

Searching for a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy

Clinton struggled to develop an American foreign policy that wasn't centered around fighting communism.

Clinton sent troops to Somalia, but eventually withdrew them. Clinton initially criticized China for its human rights abuses, but he eventually supported China when he realized how important trade with China was to America.

Clinton committed American troops to NATO to keep the peace in the former Yugoslavia.

Clinton led the 1993 reconciliation meeting between Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Yasir Arafat at the White House.  Two years later, though, Rabin was assassinated, ending hopes for peace in the Middle East.

Scandal and Impeachment

In 1998, it was discovered that President Clinton had an affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky (Lewinsky Affair). Clinton lied about the affair under oath. The House Republicans passed two articles of impeachment against Clinton: perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice.

In 1999, the Senate voted to remove Clinton from office, but the Republicans failed to obtain the 2/3 majority that was required.

Clinton's Legacy and the 2000 Election

The American economy prospered during Clinton's era in large part because of the global economic expansion.

The Democrats nominal Albert Gore for president and Joseph Lieberman for vice president for the election of 2000. The Republicans nominated George W. Bush for president and Dick Cheney for vice president. Bush won nomination in large part because he was the son of former president George H. W. Bush.

Bush supported returning the federal budget surplus back to the people through tax cuts and through giving money to private institutions who would help the poor. Gore supported smaller tax cuts and strengthening Social Security.

The election was very close and the electoral votes of Florida would decide who won. For five weeks, it was uncertain who won Florida's ballots, some of which were defective or unreadable. The Supreme Court eventually ruled (on party lines) that Bush had won the presidency. Although Bush won more electoral votes, Bush lost the popular vote. (More people voted for Gore than for Bush.)

E Pluribus Plures

In the late 20th century, Americans began to stress the need to preserve and promote ethnic and racial cultures. As racial barriers were broken down, Americans were becoming more interracial.

Culture and Society at Century's End

More Americans were receiving college degrees, and this expanding population of educated people increased interest in liberal arts (reading, museums, music, etc). The American West became a popular literary focal point as more Americans moved west. Authors including Larry McMurtry, Raymond Carver, and Annie Dillard wrote Western-themed novels.

The number of popular authors and artists who were minorities (African-American, Asian-American, and women) also increased.

New York became the art capital of the world after World War II. The Ford Foundation and the federal government (National Endowment for the Arts in 1965) supported the arts.

Notable artists after WWII included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Film continued to grow as generations of younger filmmakers emerged (George Lucas, Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg, etc). Interest in architecture also increased after WWII due to the building boom.

Bush falsely claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He used this rationale to invade Iraq.

Bush Begins

Although he entered office promising to be a uniter between the Democrats and Republicans, President Bush was a very divisive president. He strongly opposed welfare programs opposed environmentalist policies. He rejected the Kyoto Treaty, which was an international treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He enacted large tax cuts that, along with upcoming wars, turned a federal budget surplus into a massive budget deficit.

Terrorism Comes to America

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and rural Pennsylvania. Al Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan and led by Osama bin Laden, was responsible for the attack.

In October 2001, Congress passed the Patriot Act, which expanded the government's ability to monitor citizens' communication, and it allowed immigrants suspected of terrorism to be deported. In 2002, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security which sought to protect the nation's borders. Hundreds of immigrants were put into jail without formal charges.

Guantanamo Detection Camp was created on the American military base in Cuba to hold captured Taliban fighters from Afghanistan.

The attacks on September 11th coincided with the beginning of an economic recession.

Bush Takes the Offensive Against Iraq

In January 2002, Bush created the "axis of evil," which included Iraq, North Korea, and Iran.

Hussein had been harassing and dodging U.N. weapons inspectors for years. (Inspectors were supposed to be allowed in the country after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.) Bush was determined to invade Iraq and overthrow its dictator, Saddam Hussein (finish the job that his dad had started). Bush made a variety of false claims in his case for war against Iraq: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; Iraq could be a democratic beacon for the Middle East; Iraq supported Al Qaeda.

The U.S. invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003. Britain was America's only major ally in the invasion. Hussein was quickly defeated.

On May 1, 2003, Bush made a speech in which he claimed that major combat operations in Iraq were complete.

Owning Iraq

Sectarian violence spread throughout Iraq as violence erupted between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Sunnis were the minority in Iraq that had power under Saddam. The Shia majority took over after Saddam was overthrown. In retaliation for being displaced from power, many Sunnis turned to bombings and political assassinations.

In April, 2004, it was discovered that Iraqi prisoners were being tortured in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.

Reelecting George W. Bush

For the election of 2004, the Republicans re-nominated Bush and the Democrats selected John F. Kerry.

Bush supported the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, which mandated sanctions against schools that failed to meet federal performance standards.

Bush supported a constitutional amendment for banning gay marriage and he opposed stem cell research.

Bush won the election of 2004.

Bush's Bruising Second Term

Bush appointed two new conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff was convicted of perjury in an investigation into who leaked the name of undercover CIA agent in retaliation against her antiwar husband.

Also in 2005, it was discovered that the government was illegally wiretapping American citizens' communications.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) responded poorly to help New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Anti-Republican sentiment helped Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate in the midterm elections of 2006.

By 2005, most of the American public opposed the war in Iraq. By 2008, Bush's approval rating was below 30%.

The Presidential Election of 2008

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton to win the Democrat's presidential nomination for the election of 2008. The Republicans nominated John McCain for president and Sarah Palin for vice president. McCain had extensive experience in government, while Palin had no experience and was not politically astute.

Another recession hit the American economy in 2008. It was caused by a bursting housing bubble and the private banking system's poor lending practices. Real estate prices and the stock market plummeted. The federal government responded by taking over the country's two biggest mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and by taking over the world's biggest insurance company, the American International Group (AIG). Congress also passed the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to keep the nation's banks and businesses afloat.

Obama won the election of 2008 by a large margin.

Obama in the White House

To jumpstart the economy, Obama supported the passage of the American Relief and Recovery Act. This was an economic stimulus bill that was comprised of tax cuts, spending for jobs programs, and funding for state and local governments.

The economy started to recover from the "Great Recession" by 2009.

Obama supported a healthcare reform bill in 2010 called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Most notably, this required all Americans to buy health insurance and prohibited health insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

In 2010, Obama signed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This overhauled the nation's financial regulatory system.

Back to Backlash

The "Tea Party" emerged in 2009 as a right-wing, ultra-Republican party. They vehemently opposed most of Obama's policies.

In 2010, Obama helped repeal the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy and he renewed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

New Directions in Foreign Policy

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.

By 2011, Obama had withdrawn all American combat troops from Iraq.

Afghan insurgents made Afghanistan very unstable and made it difficult for American troops to leave. American troops began leaving Afghanistan in 2011.

Osama bin Laden was killed by American forces in Pakistan in 2011.

The Politics of Inequality

"Occupy Wall Street" began in 2011 as small demonstrations by young people who were upset about income inequality.

Income inequality grew between 1968 and 2012. It was likely caused by: increasing global competition; reduction in high-paying manufacturing jobs; growth of the financial sector; growth of part-time work; influx in low-skill immigrants.

Battling for the White House in 2012

Mitt Romney was the GOP nominee in the presidential election of 2012. He promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the Wall Street Reform Act.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 in Citzens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations, unions, and advocacy groups could not be limited in how much money they spent on political campaigns. This ruling vastly increased the amount of money spent on campaigns.

Obama won the election of 2012.

Second-Term Stalemate

Despite losing the presidential election of 2012, congressional Republicans continued to oppose Obama's policies.

The GOP forced a government shutdown in 2013 when they prevented Congress from passing a budget.

Obama tried to pass the DREAM Act in 2010, but it was blocked by congressional Republicans. The bill would have given undocumented youths a path to citizenship if they had graduated from college or served in the U.S. armed forces.

The Immigration Impasse

Anti-immigration sentiment swept over America as people were concerned that the U.S. could not absorb the influx of immigrants. Studies showed that immigrants actually took jobs that Americans didn't want. Immigrants also paid more dollars in taxes than they received in welfare.

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. The Act had denied federal benefits to same-sex couples.

In 2013, it was revealed through government leaks that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been spying on Americans.

Gridlock Grinds On

In the midterm elections of 2014, Republicans expanded their majority in the House and took control of the Senate. Republicans gains were likely due to dissatisfactions with the status quo (people wanted change).

The emergence of social platforms like Facebook led to confirmation bias in politics.

Obama's Troubled Last Years

President Obama negotiated the Iran nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, which curbed Iran's development of nuclear weapons.

The Astonishing Election of 2016

Donald Trump won the republican nomination for president despite being a former Democrat, bragging about groping women, and generally disregarding facts that disagreed with his opinions.

Donald Trump (Republican) won the presidential election of 2016, defeating Hillary Clinton (Democrat). Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.

Russia interfered in the 2016 election, in an attempt to help Trump.

Trump in Power

Trump criticized fact-based news reporting as "fake news" if those sources reported negatively about him. Trump also made up derogatory nick-names for people who disagreed with him.

In 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cut the corporate tax rate. The act also capped the mortgage interest deduction, an apparent political retribution against Democrat states. The act will likely add $1 trillion to the national debt, an about-face for Republicans who shut down the government for several weeks during the Obama administration over the rising national debt.

The World Warily Watches Washington

After World War II, the United States was a global leader, building multinational institutions like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization. With an "America First" agenda, Trump sought to limit America's involvement in these institutions, putting at risk the peace and prosperity of the entire planet.

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