Unit 11: 1970s & 1980s

Rise of the Right

• series of republican presidents

• resurgence of the republican party

Warren Court

• Warren is not a judge but a republican politicain who pushed for the need of internment camps for Asian Americans

• rules 1953 to the late 70s as Supreme Justice

• seen to be to activist - too liberal

• Rulings:

  • Brown v Board of Education

    • overrules Plessy v Furgeson

    • rules that seperate but equal is not equal

  • Gideon v Wainwright

    • defendent argued that the state did not allow him to defend himself equally and fairly under the constitution

    • gave legal protection to defendents who could not afford a lawyer

      • guaranteed a lawyer by state government

  • Miranda v Arizona

    • Miranda argued that he should have been reminded by police of his rights

    • rules that state officers must remind someone of their rights before being arrested

      • Miranda Rights

  • Griswold v Connecticut

    • Griswold is a female patient who is denied birth control by her doctor

    • rules that their is a right to privacy

      • that right extends to a doctor clinet relationship

      • stops doctors and states from intervening with birth control

  • Engel v Vitale

    • argued that a morning prayer was not constitutional

    • rules that the state does not have the power to hold prayer in schools

Burger Court

• nominated by Nixon

• does not shape the court in a different way

  • rulings don’t change

  • William Horton *1980s

    • found guilty of murder

  • Bush uses this case in his campaign against his opponent

  • Roe v Wade

    • rules that the women have a right to perqur an abortion and that the state cannot interfere

      • only happens because of the Groswold v Connecticut ruling

  • Lemon v Kurtzman

    • several states passed laws that allowed for some private religious school and supported buying books for the school from the state funds

    • rules that states cannot give funs to private religious schools because the reason is motivated by religion

ERA → equal rights amendment

• very popular in the ealry 1970s

• Phillis Schlafley

  • claims that this is a terrible idea

  • starts a campaign called stop ERA

• ERA never gets added

Moral Majority

• Televanjalist → religious figures who have weekly television shows

• Jerry Fallwell helps to lead this

  • appose abortion

  • appose ERA

  • don’t like accepting and legally recognizing homosexuality

  • mostly southern fenomenon

• starts to have a more vocal national effect

Religious Right

• Pat Robertson runs as a Republican and claims he is going to lead the Moral Majority

The 1970s

• themes of uncertainty, disillusionment, cultural chan

Richard Nixon

• Normalizes Relationship with China

  • Nixon takes an official diplomatic visit to China

  • for a long time, the Soviet Union had beened allied with China but recently, the Soviet Union had not been gtting along with the Peoples Republic of China

• Detente - Easing of tensions

  • changed the way that tensions are handeled with the Soviet Unuon

  • SALT talks

    • Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty

• Enviornment

  • Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

    • publihed in 1962

    • was uncovering the issues with pesticides

  • Nixon passes the Clean Air Act - 1970

    • ensure that drinking water is safe for consumption

    • any factories polluting water will start to be regulated

    • Envionrmental Protection Agency

      • responsible for ensuring national standards under enviornmental laws

      • corporations who don’t follow rules can face fines

    • OSHA - Occupation Saftey and Health Administration

      • regulates businesses to ensure that emploees are safe and to curb any harmful business practices

    • Endangered species act

      • created out of the concern for animals

Watergate Scandal

• 1972 → Presidental election

  • Nixon up for re-election

  • concerns that Nixon might not get re-elected

• Burglary is planned at the headquarters for the Democratic committee

• burglars were part of the committee titled committee to relected the president

• bugs are placed and listening devices to dig up any information

• Investigative Journalism

  • white house was denying that Nixon had any part in the burglary

• Claim of Executive Privilege

  • Nixon had recorded his conversations in the oval office

  • Nixon refuses to hand over tapes because of his executive privilege

    • tapes were wanted because people beleived that information regarding Watergate

    • also potentially took government documents

  • Court says that executive privilege does not appply

  • Tapes prove that Nixon was active in the watergate incidient and was trying to cover it up

• Nixon resigns before any official impeachment trials begin against him

  • only president to resign from office

Gerald Ford

• becomes President after Nixons resignation

• only person to not be elected vice-president

• The Pardon

  • pardoned Nixon

  • best way to move on through presidency

• Inflation

  • WIN → Whip Inflation Now

    • people should work together by not buying as much

    • not asking bosses for raises

    • does not work out

• Vietnam

  • Paris Agreement

    • North Vietnam violates treaty and attacks South Vietnamese

    • American foreign policy failure

    • entire Vietnamese penensual is communist

Jimmy Carter

• Democratic president

• touting that he is the opposite of Gerald Ford

• says that he does not claim the political baggage from watergate

• wins 1976 election

• claimed that he would never lie to the american people

• Economic Problems

  • Stagflation → inflation is rising at a high rate and so is the unemployment rate

    • slow economic growth

• Camp David Accords

  • Egypt and ISreal sign peace treaty

  • Egypt recognized Isreals right to exist

  • Egypt and Isreal would not go to war

  • the treaty is till standing today

• Iran Hostage Crisis

  • American was not wild about Musadei taking power in Iran

  • The Sha which the US put into power is still in power in 1979

  • revolution in Iran in 1979 and the Sha is overthrown

  • US still comes out in support of the Sha

  • Revolutionaries are not happy and take american hostages at the US embessy

  • Hostages are held for weeks and weeks

  • by 1980, Carter is overwhelmed by the crisis and Stagflation

    • Ronald Regan wins 1980 presidency

Ronald Reagan - The 1980s

Reagan era-  1980

All the stuff that happened in the prior years are building up to this moment and Ronald Reagan's election

• Federal government exists to serve the people

• Return to normalcy 

• Spoke to the common man 

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• Defeated jimmy carter 1980

Regan is best known for economic policies

• Cutting taxes and government regulations 

• Lots of economic problems facing the country and stagflation the decade before

• When reagan elected, had a vision to revive american economy

• Time for the government to lower taxes and for government to start deregulating american businesses, extremely different from Nixon and other presidents from the 60s-70s

• Symbol and transparent turning point in american history

• Under his economic plan, federal taxes lowered to stimulate economic growth and for businesses to grow if less government influence 

• Reaganomics - economic policies of Ronald Regan 

• Becomes synonymous with reagan's presidency

• Reagan is viewed really positively or really negatively based on economic policies and views

      Reaganomics 

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• Tax cuts

• Deregulation of  businesses

• Use private contractors

• Decrease spending in social programs

Highest income tax rate was 70% when he started first term

At second term it falls to 28%

Pros and cons

• Cons: not necessary, larger deficits, larger national debts, increased wealth

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Increase Military Spending

• 7 years after involvement in vietnam war

• We need to take our military and rebuild it to become a very threatening force to any country willing to do us harm

• Communist soviet union

• Detente doesn't live very long - nixon, ford, carter

• Action over with reagan

• Includes build up of nuclear weapons and conventional forces

• Calling for reduction of other government programs

Retroic of his speech 

Words he was using makes him a significant political figure of the era - knew what words and phrases to use, had that skill with good use of rhetoric

• It's time to rethink government's role in society or social changes that have gone on

• Ronald reagan able to capture that growing sentiment and use rhetoric choices following that

• Rhetoric also used in approach with soviet union to send a message that us is going to remain strong in what they pursue is a threat, strong assertive approach of the soviet union needed to end this cold war

Directly addressing soviet leadership 

• In the 1980s when gorbachev came to power, he was willing to try era of reform, a willingness to not censor freedom speech

• Rhetoric really strong, 3 years after a speech about the berlin wall going to be destroyed, it does get torn down

Support anti-communism factions world wide 

• Reagan also takes action where he believes there are dangers of communism other places in the world

• After vietnam there had been a reluctance to use military power due to prior failure

• Reagan argues its time to use this military in order to face international dangers threatening our national security

• One thing that reagan’s legacy does is makes americans feel better about the country they live in, all of those messages Reagan is giving is appealing to more and more americans

• All of these elements at play here when one is trying to understand and describe to you era of the 1980s

• When reagan enters white house, reagan revolution takes place

• Prior to entrance to white house (since fdr) there has been a growing influence of labor unions (getting victory after victory) so union membership has been growing over a long time, but government takes a step back which leads to his belief of the market system and labor unions

What happens to labor unions and their influence, power?

• Anti-unionization

• When workers go on strike, you don't have the right to bargain, which means you don't have the right to strike

What is Reagan believed about the market system under reagan what happens to the unions 

• Air traffic control workers went on strike as a part of a union for better wages/working conditions, reagan fires them, don't have the right to strike

• Labor union influence starts to decline

• Unions stopped going on strike for fear they would not be beneficial

• Members of unions starts to go down

• Still experiencing downward trend of union influence and membership

• Even though he has desire to lower taxes and government spending in economy, doesn't really happen

• House of congress and senate under democratic control, spending doesn't go down, social security spending goes up

• Medicare continues to grow in funding same with other programs

• Food stamp program stays about the same

• Certain social programs remain stable or don't grow while there are several that continue to see a rapid increase in spending

• During reagan's presidency while using rhetoric against soviet union calling them an evil empire (star wars reference which popular at this time) and calling for increase military spending, he calls for strategic defence initiative (sdi)

• This nation for over 4 decades have been living in fear from nuclear war with soviet union

Ways to prevent war (using SDI (Strategic Defense initiative))with satellites to see the nuclear bombs

• If we put enough money, we could do this

• Pushes forth as part of military spending package

The USa was going to go every extent to protect themself from the soviet attacks which also causes the soviet union to put in the same amount of funding as they don't want to fall behind

1984 Re-Election

• You are better off now than you were for years ago

• The people agree, reagan wins almost every single electoral vote, winning 49/50 states

• The american people support his views, second term is him continuing his legacy

Regan shapes the supreme court

• Serves two terms, while he is president he is able to name 3 supreme court justices’

• Warren Burger eventually steps down during Reagan's presidency

• Rehnquist was chosen, even though already on the court

• Actual first pick he has is O’Connor, first woman on the Supreme Court

• Also nominated Scalia

• Eventually appoints Kennedy

• Reshaping the court with his nominations 

• Scalia and regunist are conservative voters 

• Kenedy and o'connor are swing voters 

• Reagan puts 3 justices on the court and move rehnquist as chief

• The next president (his vice) is able to name 2 more)

• Some of the rulings the don't go with how the conservatives wanted them to go

Foreign policy

• In his first term, there are major issues going on in middle east with israel and its neighbors and terrorists

 - Lebanon

• Early on in his presidency, he orders marines to go to lebanon to keep peace with israel and its arab neighbors

• Unfortunately something goes wrong and he makes sure the soldiers go back home 

• Sucide bomber comes attacks them and is even bigger on than attacks in japan

• Then lebanon makes the USA to have a military force 

• Then after another bombing regan makes the troops come home

- Grenada

• Around the same year uses US military force in Grenada

• Grenada had recently gone through coup and overthrow, many medical students still on the island, troops sent their to bring students back and overthrow to create a more democratic government

• Reasons : protect innocent lives, stall further chaos, repair law and order

• 19 American soldiers die in that issue and get it over with pretty quickly.

• Then places a democratic leader and government 

- Nicaragua

• Nicaragua had internal civil war, one of the sides rebelling were the contras

• Reagon wanted to support them because non-communist and supported overthrowing the government

• Democratic congress made it illegal and president cant do that

• Secretly, Reagan oks the secret sending of military aid to the Contras  (SCANDAL)

Overhand contra Scandal?

• Gives the Contras  the ones who follow the moral rights money to help but it was illegal as they had gotten money from the cocaine trade 

• This didn't stop him makes some send money secretly  anyway no matter the costs

US made agreements with Iran, sends money for weapons (over half went to contras in nicaragua)

• Regan makes a secret deal to exchange hostages for weapons

• Us government allocates 30 mil for weapons to get the hostages 

• 18 mill of the funds are funneled to the contras in Nicaragua

Never brought up on charges 

But many people were found guilty 

• More distrust of US citizens with the government

End of the Cold War 1985-1991

Mikhail Gobrachev → Leader of the Soviet Union from 1985-1991

• Glasnost → openness

  • Russia didn’t originally allow for freeedom of speech or press

  • allowing more free speech within Soviet Society which goes against the previous rule of the Soviet Union

  • public uses this to challenge Soviet rule and ideas

• Perestroika →

  • the communist party and government

  • experiment with economic restructor and wanted to intigrate capitalist ideasl into the Soviet Union

• Abandons Brezhnev Doctrine →

  • also allows for more openess in the eastern provinces

  • there will be some populations that demand reforms and protest and under Glasnost, these ideas should be allowed to happen

  • Brezhnev Donctrine → didn’t allow for any openess and was strong in putting down any revolts to ensure that the Soviet Union would stay strong

    • went so far as to use military force

INF Treaty (1987)

• deals with the issue of Intermediate-rande nuclear weapons and the increasing of tensions

• Negotiation and agreement that takes all short range and medium range nuclear missiles and dismantles them

  • both sides agree to on-side inspections to ensure that both sides are following the treaty

• first time in which both sides openly agree to eliminating weapons and removing them

Soviets withdrawal from Afghanistan

• invasion happened in the 1970s

• populations like Islams wanted reforms

• Soviets go to Afghanistan to put down revolts and a coming war

• US and other countries are going to financially support the Afghan figters who would like to establish a stronger Islam government and society

• Gorbrachev decides to bring the Soviet army back once in power

  • Soviet version of Vietnam

  • continues with the idea of Glasnost

  • there was no short term victory

  • occures in the late 80s

President George H.W.Bush

• president in 1989 - wins 1988 presidental election

• only serves one term

November 1989

• People of East Berlin demand that the Berlin Wall be torn down

• sets into motion the beginning of the end of communism in eastern europe

  • gives the green light to other countries to demand reform

McDonald’s opens in Moscow - January 1990

• first private, capitalistic company opens its doors in Russia

• another show of Glasnost

What Follows

• Poland is one of the first to push communism out of their country

• Chezislovokia is next

• Hungary

• Bulgaria → more militant and not through elections

• Romania

• Germany reunifies East and West (Fall of 1990)

• Gorbachav allows for elections in Russia and sees a rejection of the Communist party

  • a desire to not be Communist