Chapter 26 Outline:

President Nixon

• Nixon’s presidency linked the eras of liberalism under Kennedy and Johnson to the conservatism of the Reagan era.

  • Nixon was the first president from CA; his victory signaled the growing power of the conservative Sunbelt in national politics.

• Despite conservatism being viewed as a forgotten relic of the past, the 1950s and 60s witnessed a conservative rebirth.

  • Formerly Democratic voters against both black civil rights progress and anti-war demonstrations propelled Nixon into the White House.

  • However, the conservatives didn’t like Nixon any more than his predecessors

    • Nixon echoed the conservative ideology (condemnation of student protesters and his calls for law and order)

    • Although, during office, Nixon expanded the welfare state and moved to improve US relations with China and the USSR

      • Nixon did not stop the social change (viewed as moral decay by conservatives), instead allowing them to persist

Nixon’s Domestic Policies

• Nixon won the presidency by a very narrow margin and moved toward political centrism on many issues.

  • Nixon worked to solidify his support among Republicans while also reaching out to Democrats who were on the verge of switching ideologies.

  • Nixon had no interest in battling Congress (still under Democratic control), on domestic issues → much like Eisenhower, Nixon accepted and expanded the Great Society

• Nixon’s New Federalism offered federal “block grants” to states to spend as they saw fit, rather than specific purposes dictated by the federal government → applauded by conservatives

  • At the same time, Nixon’s administration created a bunch of new federal agencies

    • EPA oversaw programs to combat water and air pollution, cleaned up hazardous wastes, and required “environmental impact” statements from any project that received federal funding

    • OSHA sent inspectors into workplaces throughout the country

    • National Transportation Safety Board instructed automobile makers on how to make their cars safer

• Nixon put a lot of spending into social services and pro-environment initiatives

  • abolished the Office of Economic Opportunity which had coordinated LBJ’s War on Poverty

    • but signed congressional measures that expanded the food stamp program and allowed for SS benefits to be adjusted in accordance with inflation

  • Endangered Species Act prohibited spending federal funds on any project that may cause the extinction of an animal species.

  • Clean Air Act set air quality standards for carbon monoxide and other chemicals released by cars and factories → dramatic decline in pollution

Nixon and Welfare

• Nixon proposed a Family Assistance Plan (“negative income tax”), that would replace AFDC by having the federal government guarantee a minimum income for all Americans.

  • The AFDC provided limited assistance to poor families who met local eligibility requirements

    • despite being a ND program meant to cater to the white poor, welfare had come to disproportionately serve black families

  • The spike in those that qualified for AFDC aid in the 1960s due to relaxed eligibility and the increased amount of single mothers led to conservatives to attack welfare recipients as freeloaders

• Nixon’s plan would fail in congress as conservatives found it too radical, and Democrats believed the proposed aid was inadequate

Nixon and Race

• To consolidate support in the white South, Nixon nominated two conservative southern jurists who were pro-segregation, both being rejected by the Senate.

  • On the other hand, because the courts finally lost patience with the South delaying integration, racial integration finally came to public schools in the South.

• Nixon’s administration opened the Office of Minority Business Enterprise to fund black capitalist initiatives\

  • Nixon even courted some black power advocates

• For a time, Nixon’s administration also pursued affirmative action programs to ensure more job opportunities for minorities.

  • Nixon saw the plan as a way of fighting inflation by weakening the power of building trade unions

  • By causing dissent and a split demographic within unions, he could weaken their power which was good for big business and their republican allies

• Trade unions of skilled workers strongly opposed Nixon’s Philadelphia Plan (AA)

  • After construction workers attacked antiwar demonstrated in NYC, Nixon decided he might be able to swing blue-collar voters to his side → abandoning the Philadelphia Plan in favor of one that only encouraged efforts to hire minority workers

The Burger Court and Busing

• After Earl Warren retired as chief justice, Nixon appointed Warren Burger.

  • Burger was an avid critic of his predecessor and his willingness to expand old rights and create new ones by overturning acts of Congress and state legislation.

    • Burger was expected to lead the justices in a conservative direction, but he surprised many of his supporters by consolidating and expanding on many of the decisions of his predecessor. ‘

• Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Ed, the justices unanimously approved a lower court’s decision that required extensive transportation of students to achieve school integration

  • led to hundreds of cases across the nation in which judges ordered busing as a tool to achieve integration

  • integration faced opposition in the form of many white parents were determined to keep their children in neighborhood schools and others moved their children into the suburbs or enrolled them into private academies to avoid integration

• The busing issue helped to consolidate white hostility to the idea that the government was “too powerful”

  • After seeing the vehement protest against their ways of forcing integration, the SC soon abandoned this aggressive rhetoric.

  • The SC would later rule that the Constitution did not require equality of school funding in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez

    • Milliken v. Bradley, justices overturned a lower court order that required Detroit’s primarily white suburbs to desegregate and integrate with the city’s heavily minority school system.

• By the 1990s. public schools in the North were considerably more segregated than those in the South

The Court and Affirmative Action

• Affirmative action caused opposition and many whites came to view it was reverse discrimination

  • Griggs v. Duke Power Company, the Court ruled that even racially neutral job requirements such as a written exam were illegal if they operated to exclude a disproportionate number of non-white applicants and were not directly related to job performance/

• The justices of the Court proved increasingly hostile to government affirmative action policies

  • Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Court overturns an admission program which set aside a portion of their class for minority students.

    • Court declared that while fixed affirmative action quotas weren’t constitutional, race COULD be used as one factor in admission decisions → AA continues at most colleges and universities and persists as the standard for AA today

The Rights of the Disabled

• Increased activism demanding equal opportunities and treatment for people with disabilities resulted in the unanimous passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

  • prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability in federal programs or receiving federal financial assistance, and in employment practices of federal contractors.

  • represented a dramatic departure from the “science “ of eugenics that encouraged government action to “improve” the American population and the sterilization of those who were “less fit”

• In 1977, disability activists organized a sit-in that forced the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to issue regulations to put the law into effect.

  • Over time, public and private buildings have been redesigned to improve access for people with physical disabilities and drawing inspiration from the Civil Rights movement, discrimination against disabled people has been banned

The Continuing Sexual Revolution

• To the alarm of conservatives, during the 1970s, the sexual revolution morphed from being associated with the counterculture to becoming the social mainstream.

  • premarital sex exploded and the number of divorces soared

• As a result of women’s changing aspirations and the availability of birth control + legal abortions, the American birthrate plummeted.

• Under the Nixon administration, women ventured into areas from they had long been excluded

  • In 1972, Congress approved Title IX, which banned gender discrimination in higher education and passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which required that married women be given access to credit in their own name.

• The # of women in the workforce continued to rise, motivated by various aims such as seeking careers in professions and skilled jobs previously open only to men.

  • Others felt the need to bolster their family income as the economy faltered → flooded the traditional, low-wage, “pink-collar” sector, working as cashiers, secretaries, and telephone operators

• The LGBTQ movement expanded greatly during the 1970s, much to the concern of the conservatives.

  • The movements began to elect local officials and persuaded many states to decriminalize same-sex relations + pass antidiscrimination laws

  • The LGBTQ movement also encouraged gay men and lesbians to “come out of the closet”

  • The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental diseases, showing how it was becoming an increasingly accepted part of society

Nixon and Detente

• Conservatives also viewed Nixon’s foreign policy as dangerously “soft” on communism.

  • Nixon and Henry Kissinger, (national security adviser and Sec of State) continued their predecessors’ policy of attempting to undermine governments deemed to be dangerous to American strategic or economic interests.

    • Nixon funded pro-American dictatorial regimes in Iran, the Philippines and South Africa.

• Despite Nixon launching his political career as a staunch anticommunist, during his time in presidency, him and Kissinger were more lenient and took a realistic approach.

  • they were more interested in power than ideology and preferred international stability against relentless conflict.

    • Nixon hoped that if relations with the USSR improved, the Russians would influence North Vietnam to agree to an end to the Vietnam War

• Nixon realized China didn’t have the exact ideology of the Soviet Union and had its own interests and ambitions to be a world power.

  • Kissinger and Nixon’s visits to China helped to finally allow the integration of the communist China to be internationally recognized + sparked increased trade between China and America

• After going to Beijing, Nixon visited the Soviet Union and negotiated SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) which froze both country’s arsenal of ICBMs/nukes

  • The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty banned the development of systems designed to intercept incoming missiles so that neither side would be tempted to attack the other w/out fearing widespread retaliation

• Nixon’s presidency and talks with Brezhnev marked a new era of “peaceful coexistence” w/ detente (cooperation) over hostility

Vietnam and Watergate

Nixon and Vietnam

• During Nixon’s campaign for president in 1968, he declared to voters he had a “secret plan” to end the war.

  • After taking office, he announced Vietnamization under which American troops would gradually be withdrawn while the load was increasingly taken up by South Vietnamese soldiers.

  • However, Vietnamization was ineffective, neither limiting the war nor the anti-war movement.

• Hoping to cut North Vietnamese supply lines, Nixon ordered the invasion of neutral Cambodia in 1970, destabilizing the nation.

• As the war escalated, anti-war movements spread throughout college campuses, because of the ending of student exemption from the draft

  • After the killings at Kent State, the student-led anti-war movement climaxed.

• At the same time, troop morale was plummeting in Vietnam.

  • Due to college students receiving exemptions for most of the war, the army was composed primarily of working-class whites and racial minorities.

• Cultural shifts at home were mirrored by the troops in Vietnam

  • soldiers experimented with drugs, openly wore peace and Black Power symbols, refused orders, and assaulted unpopular superiors.

  • thousands of soldiers deserted and many Vietnam vets held antiwar demonstrations

  • increasing numbers of high-ranking military authorities saw the need to leave Vietnam

• My Lai Massacre

  • NYT publishes a story detailing how American troops killed 350 South Vietnamese civilians

  • undermined public support for the war

• Pentagon Papers

  • NYT publishes a classified paper detailing how American involvement in Vietnam could be traced back to WWII and how American presidents misled the public about it

  • In a landmark decision, the SC rejected Nixon’s request for an injunction to halt publication

  • The War Powers Act was passed by Congress in 1973 to reassert congressional control over foreign policy, requiring the president to seek congressional approval for usage of American troops overseas

The End of the Vietnam War

• In early 1973, Nixon finally negotiates a settlement in Vietnam

  • Paris peace agreement withdrew the final American troops from Vietnam.

  • the government of South Vietnam was left intact, however many North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers were in control of a lot of southern territory

  • American bombings and the draft ended, shifting back to a volunteer based armed forces

• In 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a final military offensive to annex the South, leading to the Southern Vietnamese government collapsing without US intervention.

• Being the only war the US has lost, Vietnam was a military, political, and social disaster

  • Thousands of Americans lives and millions of Vietnamese were dead

  • War funds were diverted from Americans’ domestic needs.

  • Vietnam undermined Americans’ confidence in their own institutions and challenged long-standing beliefs about the nation’s ideology and purpose

  • Supporters blamed critics at home for undermining a winnable war and others saw Vietnam as a lesson of reluctance for committing troops overseas (Vietnam Syndrome)

• Robert McNamara (secretary of defense) published a memoir two decades after the war ended saying that the policy in Vietnam was “terribly wrong”

  • epitomized the idea that the US had overstepped its boundaries in meddling in a foreign country’s affairs

The 1972 Election

• Democrat candidate George McGovern was chosen to challenge Nixon in 72’

  • In the wake of Hubert Humphrey’s nomination in 1968, the Democratic party’s ranks greatly diversified, but rifts began to form

    • Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman to seek the presidency.

    • George Wallace rallied the party’s southern and blue-collar base with racism and a populist appeal.

• The broad Democratic middle was uncomfortable with McGovern as a candidate, leading to many to stay home or vote for Nixon who won in a landslide.

  • marked the end of democratic loyalty of white southerners and northern white working-class voters

Watergate

• Nixon was an extremely unsecure man, viewing every critic as a threat to national security and developed an “enemies list” including figures who criticized his administration.

  • demonstrated in Nixon officials raid on Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatry office after he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press.

• 5 former employees of Nixon’s re-election campaign staged a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate

  • it is theorized that the men intended to install listening devices

  • despite happening during election season there was minimal impact on Nixon’s popularity

• However, by 1973, investigative journalism had converted that people close to the president had ordered the burglary and cover up White House involvement

  • Subsequent congressional hearings revealed a pattern of wiretapping, break-ins and attempts to sabotage political opposition.

• After learning that Nixon had made tape recordings of conservations in his office, Archibald Cox, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Watergate demand copies

  • Nixon proposed allowing Senator John C. Stennis (MS) to review the tapes rather than releasing them

  • After Cox refused, Nixon fired him leading to his attorney general, Elliot Richardson resigning in protest. (Saturday Night Massacre)

  • The Saturday Night Massacre further undermined Nixon’s credibility

  • The SC unanimously ordered Nixon to provide the tapes → president is not above the law

Nixon’s Fall

• As the scandal unfolded it became clear that Nixon had been involved in Watergate by authorizing payments to the burglars to remain silent + commit perjury.

  • After Nixon ordered the FBI to halt its investigation, the House Judiciary Committee recommended that Nixon be impeached for conspiracy to obstruct justice leading to his resignation.

• Nixon was a prime example of the abuse of political power

• Despite all of the evidence, Nixon maintained his innocence and even tried mitigating the reputational damage by saying that previous presidents had also been guilty of lying and committing illegal acts

  • Although it didn’t excuse his behavior, Nixon had a point

  • Senate hearings exposed how the FBI had spied on millions of Americans and tried to disrupt the civil rights movement.

  • CIA conducted secret operations to overthrow foreign governments and tried to assassinate foreign leaders.

• In conjunction with the slew of Scandals during the Nixon administration, the Church Committee heavily undermined Americans’ faith in their own government

  • Congress responds by enacting new restrictions on the power of FBI and CIA to spy on American citizens or conduct international operations without the knowledge of lawmakers.

  • Congress also strengthened the Freedom of Information Act, allowing scholars, jounralists, and ordinary citizens to gain access to millions of pages of records of federal agencies.

• Liberals, who had despised Nixon, celebrated his downfall but they didn’t realize that the upheaval surrounding Watergate undermined the foundations of liberalism itself.

  • Liberalism rested on the belief in the ability of the federal government to solve social problems and promote both the public good + individual freedom

  • Nixon’s fall and the Church Committee revelations convinced many Americans that conservatives were correct when they said that federal power had to be limited to protect American liberty.

  • Liberalism suffered another blow after being unable to fight the economic crisis beginning in late 1973.

The End of the Golden Age

The Decline of Manufacturing

• Postwar economic expansion and consumer prosperity ended in the 70s → slow growth + high inflation

  • The federal government had grown complacent with American prosperity and they had devoted little attention to the negative economic consequences of the Cold War

  • To strengthen its allies, the US promoted the industrial reconstruction of Japan and Germany and the emergence of new manufacturing powerhouses like South Korea and Taiwan.

    • American companies were encouraged to invest overseas and increased foreign imports

      • Imports of foreign steel led to growing problems for the domestic steel industry → increasingly difficult for American goods to be sold overseas

• Increasing foreign exports created competition for domestic manufacturing and led to a fall in American manufacturing power.

• Nixon took the US dollar off of the gold standard → world’s currencies would “float” in relation to one another

  • Nixon hoped that lowering the dollar’s value in terms of the German mark and Japanese yen would promote exports by making American goods cheaper overseas and reduce foreign imports b/c foreign products would be more expensive after currency shift.

  • However, the end of fixed currency rates created instability in the world economy

Stagflation

• Nixon’s economic policies temporarily halted inflation and reduced imports

  • However, due to a war between Israel Egypt and Syria, Middle Eastern Arab states retaliated Western support for Israel by quadrupling oil prices and suspending oil exports to the US

    • the oil embargo led to long lines at American gas stations and showed the chokehold that these oil supplier nations had on the American economy.

• Due to the rapid growth of demand for fuel for cars and factories, the US imported nearly a third of its oil by the time of the oil embargo

  • to promote energy conservation, Congress lowered speed limits and reduced heat and lighting in public buildings

• The energy crisis drew attention to domestic energy resources (oil, coal, natural gas) leading to growth in energy production despite the rest of the economy being stagnated

• However, rising oil prices worldwide created stagflation → unemployment and inflation rates had nearly doubled

  • also led to American shifting to using foreign cars which were more energy efficient

The Beleaguered Social Compact

• The economic crisis led to corporations who were faced with declining profits and increasing competition overseas to eliminate well-paying manufacturing jobs through automation and shifting production to low-wage areas of the US and overseas.

  • Devastating job losses in old industrial hubs, poverty rates increased and small industrial towns became neglected and overcrowded

• Some manufacturing centers experienced a rebranding into finance, information, and entertainment hubs.

  • Example: NYC’s World Trade Center symbolized the grandeur of the new NYC, but its construction led to hundreds of small electronics, printing, and other manufacturing jobs to be lost

• Jobs, investment, and population were increasingly flowing into the nonunion, low-wage states of the Sunbelt

  • cities in the Sunbelt pursued a different vision of development

  • businesses and houses sprung up along highways and gated communities became a popular motif to promote a lifestyle of security and privacy that relied on cars, not public transport

Labor on the Defensive

• Labors continued to decline during the 70s

• NYC Fiscal Crisis:

  • the city was deep in debt and unable to market its bonds and on the verge of bankruptcy

  • city reduced its workforce, severely cut school, park, and subway budgets and ended free tuition at the City University.

    • despite being a center for unionism, work-class New Yorkers had no choice but to absorb job losses and a drastic decline in public services

• The weakening of unions and continued shift of the economy from manufacturing to service employment had an adverse effect on typical Americans.

  • real wages had fell

The Ford and Carter Administrations

• Ford’s decision to pardon Nixon was widely unpopular and his administration as a whole was relatively insignificant

• Ford and his chief economic adviser (Alan Greenspan) believed that Americans spent too much on consumption and saved too little, leaving business with insufficient money for investment

  • called for cutting taxes on business and decreasing government regulation of the economy

  • Congress did not want to accept these Republican policies

• To Combat inflation, Ford urged Americans to reduce expenditures and wear WIN buttons to bring awareness of inflation.

  • despite inflation falling, unemployment continued to soar

• Helsinki Accords (continuation of Nixon’s detente) inspired movements for greater freedom within the communist countries of Eastern Europe.

• In 1976, Carter narrowly defeated Ford in the presidential election.

  • Carter was a peanut farmer who was relatively unknown outside his state when he ran for the Democratic nomination.

    • Carter took advantage of his “outsider” status in the wake of the scandals of the federal government by separating himself from scummy politicians

  • Carter utilized his Baptist faith and his promise of “I’ll never lie to you” to resonate with the American people

• Carter was similar to Progressives of the early 20th century and desired to make government more efficient, and boosting the morale in politics.

  • Unlike the progressives, he embraced the aspirations of black Americans, appointing an unprecedented amount to important positions.

Carter and the Economic Crisis

• The Democratic Party, specifically the New Democrats (who represented affluent urban and suburban districts) viewed issues like race relations, gender equality, the environment, and improving politics as a whole more important than the economy

  • Despite democratic control of Congress, Carter often opposed it

• Carter viewed inflation, not unemployment as the country’s main economic issue

  • To combat inflation, carter promoted spending cuts on domestic programs

  • in the hope that competition would reduce prices, Carter enacted deregulation in the airline and trucking industries

  • Carter also introduced tax cuts for wealthier Americans in the hope that it would stimulate investment and encourage economic growth.

  • Carter also oversaw the repealing of usury laws (laws that limit maximum interest rates)

  • Carter supported the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates to curb economic activity until both wages and prices fell (which was traditionally a Republican policy)

• Despite all of Carter’s work, oil prices kept rising due to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and inflation did not decline.

• Carter was also a heavy supporter of nuclear energy to reduce America’s dependence on oil.

  • However, the disaster of Three Mile Island (radioactive fallout) promoted skepticism about the safety of nuclear energy and reinforced fears surrounding the industry → halted expansion.

• Carter’s “crisis of confidence speech” that blamed the American people themselves and their “mistaken idea of freedom” as “self-indulgence and consumption” furthered tanked his popularity

The Emergence of Human Rights Politics

• Promoting human rights became a central part of American foreign policy under Carter for the first time.

  • Carter was influenced by the popularity of groups such as Amnesty International who pressured America to promote human rights Abroad.

• Carter’s administration also cut off aid to a brutal military dictatorship governing Argentina, that was so anticommunist that it had launched a “dirty war” against its citizens to curb its spread

• Carter believed that in the post-Vietnam era, promoting human rights should be prioritized over the fear of communism that led to America support violent dictators.

• Carter brokered the Camp David Accords to settle a political dispute between Egypt and Israel

• Carter also improved American relations with Latin America by transferring the Panama Canal to local control

• Carter also resisted calls for intervention after the overthrow of a US-allied dictator in Nicaragua.

• Carter also signed SALT II with the Soviets to reduce the number of missiles, bombers and nuclear warheads

• Both conservative Cold Warriors and foreign policy “realists” criticized Carter’s emphasis on human rights

  • Carter criticized American arms sales to the rest of the world, but with thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in corporate profits at stake, he did nothing to curtail them

• Despite Carter’s emphasis on human rights, the US still continued to support allies who committed human rights violations such as Guatemala, Philippines, South Korea and Iran.

The Iran Crisis and Afghanistan

• In 1979 a popular revolution inspired by Muslim cleric Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the shah and declared Iran an Islamic republic.

  • marked the ideological shift in the Middle East from socialism and Arab nationalism to religious fundamentalism.

• After Carter allowed the deposed shah to seek medical treatment in the US, Khomeini’s followers invaded the American embassy and seized 66 hostages.

  • The Iran Hostage Crisis made Carter seem helpless and inept → rapid fall in popularity

• Another crisis in 1979 that undermined Soviet-American relations was when the USSR sent thousands of troops into Afghanistan to support a friendly government threatened by Islamic rebellion.

  • similar to Vietnam, eventually it became an unwinnable conflict marked with casualties that weakened Soviet authority. But initially, it seemed like another example of declining American influence.

• Carter Doctrine

  • US would use military force, if necessary, to protect its interests in the Persian Gulf.

  • embargo on grain exports to the USSR and organized a Western boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

  • Withdrew from SALT II due to Senate advice and dramatically increased American military spending.

  • Carter reverted to the principle of supporting any opponent of the Soviet Union → funneled aid to fundamentalist Muslims in Afghanistan who had fought a guerrilla war against the Soviets for a decade.

    • led to the Taliban coming to power, who were just as hostile to the US as they were to Afghanistan.

The Rising Tide of Conservatism

• Econ problems → heightened appeal of lower taxes, reduced government regulation and cuts in social spending to spur business investment.

• Fears about a decline in American power worldwide → renew Cold War

• Civil Rights + sexual revolutions → resentments that undermined the Democratic coalition

• Rising urban crime rates → reinforced demands for law and order and shamed courts for being too lenient towards criminals

• As a whole, the above causes all contributed to the rise in conservative support

• As the 1970s progressed, conservatives abandoned overt opposition to civil rights instead Americans became more in tune with appeals for freedom of association, local control, and resistance to federal power.

  • this language of individual freedom especially appealed to the growing, mostly white, suburban population fleeing the cities and their urban problems

    • suburbs were HEAVILY conservative

• Conservatives organized at the grassroots level, running candidates for office even when they clearly wouldn’t win, and worked to change policies of local institutions such as school boards, town councils, and planning commissions

  • all to subtly spread conservative ideals

• Neoconservatives

  • intellectuals who charged that the 1960s had produced a decline in moral standards + respect for authority.

  • despite once being liberal, they had come to believe that even the best-intentioned government programs did more harm than good.

    • i.e. welfare had not only failed to alleviate poverty but also encouraged single motherhood and undermined work ethic

• Conservative “think tanks” created during the 1970s (Heritage Foundation and AEI) refined and spread these ideas

The Religious Right

• rise of religious fundamentalism expanded conservatism’s popular base

  • a return to traditional religious values appealed to a growing number of Americans (mostly conservative)

• The evangelical movement had been growing in strength during the 1960s

  • demanded the reversal of the ban on prayer in public schools, protecting pornography as free speech, and legalizing abortion.

• The Religious Right used modern tech, including mass mailing and televised programming to raise funds and spread their message.

• Christian conservatives were very concerned about the sexual revolution, which they saw as undermining traditional family values and promoting immorality.

  • they believed the 1960s had caused freedom to be out of control and fiercely opposed the LGBTQ movement.

The Battle over the Equal Rights Amendment

• “family values” had become center stage in conservative politics

  • originally proposed by Alice Paul in the 1920s, the ERA had been revived by second-wave feminists

  • the amendment had broad bipartisan support and was approved by Congress and then sent to the states for ratification but its aim to eliminate obstacles to the full participation of women in public life led to protests from those who claimed it discredited the role of wife and homemaker

• The debate over the ERA reflected a large division within women as a whole

  • to supporters the amendment offered a guarantee of women’s freedom in the public sphere

  • to foes, freedom for women resided in the divinely appointed roles of wife and mother

• Despite a majority of Americans, both male and female being in favor of the ERA, the mobilization of conservative women caused for the amendment’s ratification to fail.

The Abortion Controversy

• Opposition to the Roe v. Wade decision was widespread amongst Roman Catholics, eventually spreading to Protestants and social conservatives more generally.

  • “abortion is murder”

• Abortion drew a bitter, sometimes violent line through American politics

  • affecting things from battles over nominees to judicial position to demonstrations at family-planning and abortion clinics.

• In 1976, the anti-abortion movement has a victorious moment when Congress, over President Ford’s veto, ended federal funding for abortions for poor women through Medicaid.

The Tax Revolt

• Due to liberals being unable to create an effective policy to counteract deindustrialization and declining real wages, economic anxieties created a growing base of support for conservative economics.

  • Unlike the Depression, economic distress inspired critiques of government rather than business.

    • new environmental regulations led to calls for less government intervention in the economy

• Economic decline made people more receptive to tax cuts → social programs financially impossible

Conservatism in the West

• Many southerners had left their homes for southern California, bringing with them their evangelical Christian beliefs

  • many evangelicals were alienated by the Democratic Party and gravitated to the California Republican party, out of which emerged national leaders like Nixon and Reagan

• Conservatives sponsored and California voters approved Proposition 13, a ban on further increases in property taxes.

  • demonstrated that taxation could be a powerful political issue.

  • proved to be a blessing for businesses and home owners while reducing funds for schools, libraries, and other public services.

  • overall these cuts were supported and many other states soon followed California’s lead

• The Clean Air Act alarmed western coal operators and they believed Carter’s environmental policies were closing the public domain to exploitation → heavily supported Reagan

• Leaders in western states insisted that the states themselves be given the power to make decisions over issues like grazing rights, mining development, whether public lands should be closed to fishing and hunting, etc.

The Election of 1980

• Carter’s approval ratings had sunk to 21% (lower than Nixon during his resignation)

• There was a wave of conservatism rising throughout the Western Hemisphere

  • Thatcher ascended to become PM of Great Britain and in the US, Ronald Reagan’s campaign united American conservatism under a promise to end stagflation and restore the country’s worldwide dominance and self-confidence.

• Reagan masterfully appealed to “white backlash”

  • by beginning his campaign in Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 with a speech emphasizing states’ rights led to many white southerners assuming that Reagan would be opposed to federal intervention on behalf of civil rights.

• During his campaign, Reagan repeatedly condemned those taking advantage of welfare, school busing, and affirmative action → reversal of support for the ERA

• Reagan won the support of the Religious Right and conservative believers of “family values”

• Reagan won in a landslide, carrying Democratic strongholds

• Carter’s reputation improved after the White House

  • worked for Habitat for Humanity, constructing homes for poor families

  • negotiated a cease-fire between warring Muslim and Serb forces in Bosnia and arranged a peaceful transfer of power in Haiti

The Reagan Revolution

• Although Reagan was originally a New Deal Democrat and a union leader, he eventually rose to national prominence and gained the Republican nomination in 1980 with the diversified coalition he had assembled

Reagan and American Freedom

• Many of Reagan’s opponents underestimated him as he was content to outline broad policy themes and leave implementation up to others

• Reagan’s excellent public speaking coupled with his optimism and affability appealed to large numbers of Americans.

  • Reagan made conservatism seem progressive rather than an attempt to turn back the tide of progress.

• Despite his attacks on liberalism on issues from taxes to government spending, national security, crime, welfare, and “traditional values” he knew when the compromise to not fragment his coalition of supporters

Reagan’s Economic Policies

• Reagan proposed an “economic Bill of Rights” where he wanted to decrease union power, dismantle regulations and reduce taxes.

• Reagan decreased the top tax rate and the Tax Reform Act reduced the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans.

  • marked a divergence from the ideas of the early 20th century that used progressive tax systems to address economic inequality

• Reagan also cut back on environmental protection and workplace safety rules (big business loved him)

• Reagan’s economic policy relied on high interest rates to curb inflation and lower tax rates, especially for business and high-income Americans to stimulate private investment.

  • the policy assumed that cutting taxes would inspire all Americans to work harder since they would keep more of the money they earned.

  • also assumed that increase business profits would cause economic growth leading to everyone being happy (trickle down)

Reagan and Labor

• PATCO, the union of air traffic controllers began a strike in violation of federal law

  • Reagan fired them all and used the military to oversee the nation’s air traffic system until new controllers could be trained.

    • Reagan’s action inspired many private employers crack down on unions

      • the practice of hiring workers to permanently replace those who had gone on strike had become commonplace

• Reaganomics initially produced the most severe recession since the 1930s, however economic expansion followed the initial turmoil of the policy

  • downsized workforces, new technologies, and shifting production overseas increased profitability for companies.

  • inflation began declining and oil production drove down prices from the shortage in the 1970s.

  • By the end of Reagan’s presidency, real GDP had risen by 25% and unemployment was down to 5.5%

The Problem of Inequality

• Reagan’s policies, coupled with rising stock prices and deindustrialization caused wealth inequality to soar.

  • the principle of the wealthy keeping more money leading to trickle down benefits in the form of charity and public investments did not happen

  • instead, the wealthy spent their excess cash on luxury goods, real-estate speculations, and corporate buyouts

• middle class income stagnated and lower-class income declined.

• falling investment in public housing, release of mental patients from state hospitals, and cuts in welfare led to homeless people being common on the streets of big cities

• minority workers were hit hard by the decline of the labor movement

  • just as Jim Crow had finally ended in many workplaces and unions, hundreds of thousands of black workers lost their jobs when factories closed.

  • the 1980s saw black males fall farther than any other group in the population in terms of wages and jobs

The Second Gilded Age

• Buying out companies generated more profits than running them and enriched the wealthy by causing economic turmoil for the working-class

• The deregulation of savings and loan associations allowed banks to invest in unsound real-estate ventures and corporate mergers → losses piled up and the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporations (which insured depositors’ accounts) faced bankruptcy.

  • After Reagan left office, the federal government bailed out the savings and loans institutions at the expense of taxpayer dollars

• Despite promises that Reaganonomics would increase government revenue by stimulating economic activity, large increases in military funding led to large budget deficits

  • Despite this, Reagan remained extremely popular, taking credit for economic expansion while blaming congressional leaders for the federal deficit.

• Reagan won in a landslide in 1984.

Reagan and Immigration Reform

• Large numbers of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, attracted by strong demand for low-wage labor flowed into the US in numbers far exceeding the quotas set by the Hart-Celler Act

  • Despite calls to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, Reagan viewed immigration as crucial to the country’s economic strength

• Reagan passes the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, providing amnesty and a path to citizenship for nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants in the US.

Conservatives and Reagan

• While he implemented conservative economic policies, Reagan disappointed ardent conservatives.

  • his administration sharply reduced funding for Great Society antipoverty programs like food stamps, school lunches, and federal funding of low-income housing.

  • however, core aspects of the welfare state like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were left intact despite the wishes of conservatives.

• Reagan’s tenure did little to advance the social agenda of the Christian Right.

  • abortion remained legal and women continued to enter the labor force in record numbers

• Bowers v Hardwick

  • Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws outlawing homosexuality.

• Reagan gave verbal support for supporting the proposed constitutional amendment restoring prayer in public schools but did little to promote its passage.

• Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign against illegal drug use failed to half the spread of crack in urban areas → street crime and family breakdown surged

The Wars on Crime and Drugs

• Reagan’s administration emphasized law and order.

  • Building on the Nixon administration, Reagan endorsed a “tough on crime” approached

    • he reinstated the death penalty, abolished the federal parole system and instituted harsh sentencing guidelines

  • public fears about the spread of crack in urban areas contributed to support these policies

    • national spending under Reagan on criminal justice reached a record high

    • the Anti-Drug Abuse Act led to a surge in arrests and a rapidly expanding prison population.

• Reagan’s war on drugs failed to disrupt global supply chains or the domestic demand for drugs

Reagan and the Cold War

• Reagan resumed vigorous denunciation of the Soviet Union, calling it an “evil empire”

  • Reagan sponsored the largest military buildup in American history and he proposed a completely new strategy: the SDI

    • developing a space-based system to intercept and destroy enemy missiles

• Despite the SDI’s technological infeasibility, it appealed to Reagan’s desire to assert America’s global dominance.

• Reagan’s renewal of the arms race and casual attitude regarding nuclear war caused widespread alarm at home and abroad.

  • led to rise in movements for a nuclear freeze (halt in nuclear weapon development), attracting millions of supporters in the US and Europe.

• Reagan came into office determined to overturn “Vietnam Syndrome” (the widespread public reluctance to commit American troops overseas)

  • ousted pro-Cuban government of Grenada with American forces

  • dispatched marines in a peacekeeping force in Lebanon in the midst of a civil war but withdrew after a bombing killed 200+ Americans

    • Reagan realized the public would support minor operations but remained unwilling to sustain heavy casualties abroad.

• Reagan generally relied on military aid over American troops to pursue his foreign policy objectives

• Reagan abandoned the Carter’s administration emphasis on human rights and instead embraced the idea that the US should oppose “totalitarian” communists but assist “authoritarian” noncommunist regimes.

  • Reagan’s administration funded insurgencies against the governments of El Salvador and Guatemala.

The Iran-Contra Affair

• Congress banned military aid to the Contras fighting against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua (that had ousted the American-backed dictator Somoza in 1979).

  • Reagan secretly authorized the sale of arms to Iran in order to secure the release of American hostage in the Middle East.

    • some of the funds were secretly diverted to buy military supplies for the Contras in defiance of the congressional ban

• After a middle eastern newspaper leaked the story, Congress held televised hearings that revealed a web of lies reminiscent of the Nixon era.

  • Reagan denied knowledge of the illegal proceedings but the Iran-Contra affair undermined confidence that he controlled his own administration

Reagan and Gorbachev

• Surprisingly, Reagan softened his anticommunist rhetoric and established good relations with Soviet premier Gorbachev

  • Gorbachev had come to power and was determined to reform the USSR’s repressive political system and reinvigorate the economy.

    • The USSR had fallen further and further behind the US in the production and distribution of consumer goods and increasingly relied on agricultural imports to feed itself.

• Gorbachev implemented glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (economic reform)

• Realizing that significant change would be impossible without reducing the Soviet military budget, Gorbachev and Reagan underwent a series of talks that yielded significant developments in arms control.

  • Reagan left office with hostilities between the superpowers diminished heavily.

Reagan’s Legacy

• Due to the Iran-contra affair, Reagan’s reputation remained somewhat tarnished.

• Reagan’s policies led to a shift in perspective on those receiving public assistance from citizens entitled to help in coping with economic misfortune to only a burden on taxes

The Election of 1988

• TV ads and media exposes dominated political campaigns

  • rumors and defamation campaigns were widespread, aiming to tarnish the reputation of the candidates

• Bush won in a respectable margin but the Democrats remained successful in retaining Congressional control.