1. No category

Chapter 33
Lecture Outline
A Conservative
Realignment:
1977–1990
© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Modern Conservative Movement
http://wwnorton.com/college/history/america9/full/ch/33/author-video.aspx
The Carter Presidency
• The Camp David Accords
– Carter would broker a peace
treaty between Israel and
Egypt in 1978 in which Egypt
recognized Israel’s right to
exist and Israel returned to
Egypt all the land it had taken
in the Sinai Peninsula.
Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat (left), Jimmy Carter (center), and Israeli
prime minister Menachem Begin (right) at the announcement of the Camp
David Accords, September 1978.
The Carter Presidency
• Mounting Troubles
– Carter’s greatest failure was the mismanagement of the economy.
– When he left office, inflation averaged 13% per year.
– He signed the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II)
negotiated by Gerald Ford.
The Carter Presidency
• Iran
– The Iranian Revolution erupted in 1979 when fundamentalist
Muslims joined to overthrow the pro-American shah.
– They were led by Ayatollah Khomeini, and would take the U.S.
embassy there, holding the fifty-two diplomats and staff as
hostages.
– Carter appealed to the United Nations, but Khomeini refused to
listen.
– The president would launch two rescue attempts, but both failed
due to helicopter problems.
– Eventually they would be released, but only after Carter had been
defeated and Reagan had been elected, in 1980.
The Carter Presidency
• The Election of 1980
– The downturn in the economy that had grown worse under Carter and
the foreign affair debacle with the Iranian hostage crisis led Reagan in
1980 to win the presidency
The Reagan Revolution
• The Making of a President
– Reagan was a movie star before running for governor of CA. He would
run against Ford in 1976, but would lose in the Republican primary.
• The Rise of the “New Right”
– Reagan benefited from a shifting of population to Florida, California, and
Texas, which shifted those states from liberal to conservative.
• The Moral Majority
– Reagan’s chances for the presidency corresponded with a national
revival of evangelical Christians. (Rev. Jerry Falwell)
– The so-called religious right would back Reagan even though Jimmy
Carter was a Baptist who openly practiced his faith.
• NRA
– Gun Control Act of 1968
• Heritage Foundation
– Conservative “think –tank”, non-profit lobbying group that attempts to
influence legislators
The Reagan Revolution
• Anti-Feminist Backlash
– Another factor in the rebirth of the conservative movement was a
reactionary movement of women opposed to the dramatic
changes feminists were demanding.
– Women who relished their roles as homemakers and mothers
opposed what they considered “a bunch of bitter women seeking
a constitutional cure for their personal problems.”
• Promoting Conservative Ideas
– Conservatism had become engrained in the business world in the
1970s, and due to the issues that compounded the miseries of
that time period, caused business leaders to invest heavily in
Reagan’s campaign
The Reagan Revolution
Anti-abortion movement Anti-abortion demonstrators pass the Washington
Monument on their way to the Capitol.
Reagan’s First Term
• Reaganomics
– supply-side economics
• Reagan's economic advisers concentrated on supply. By
reducing taxes and business regulations, they hoped to make
it easier to produce more goods. They reasoned this larger
supply of goods would drive down prices and stop inflation. It
would also lead to fuller employment. Some called this new
strategy "Reaganomics."
• By 1983, the economy began to come out of recession.
Reagan's tax cuts, deregulation and military spending
encouraged greater business activity, while new supplies of oil
from Alaska and the North Sea stabilized oil prices.
• Budget Cuts
– In addition, the federal government’s budget was cut in areas that
were deemed not for the “truly needy.”
Reagan’s First Term
Reagan’s First Term
• Reagan’s Anti-Liberalism
– In 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization went on
strike, which was against federal law.
– Reagan fired all of the members of this union and provided replacements
from the military.
• Sandra Day O'Connor:
– In 1981 , President Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor as the first
woman Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
– Born in El Paso, Texas, she studied in California before moving to
Arizona. O'Connor had served as Arizona's Assistant Attorney General,
State Senator, and a Superior Court Judge.
– During her early years on the U.S. Supreme Court she was a
conservative who preferred "judicial restraint."
– She emerged in the late 1990s as a swing vote between the
conservative and liberal groups on the Court.
Reagan’s First Term
• The Federal Deficit and the National Debt:
– The federal deficit is the amount of money that the federal government
spends beyond what it collects in taxes. Reagan had promised a budget
in which government spending would be limited to the amount of taxes it
raised. But because of military spending, the federal deficit actually
increased greatly, and the national debt more than doubled.
• The Trade Imbalance:
– During the Reagan years, Americans bought more goods and services
from abroad than they sold overseas. This imbalance led to the loss of
millions of jobs, the closing of steel mills and auto plants, and a drop in
the disposable income of many Americans.
• Immigration Policy:
– President Reagan introduced new changes to our immigration laws. To
deal with the problem of illegal immigration, the Mazzoli-Simpson Act
(1986) "legalized" illegal aliens who had lived continuously in the United
States since 1981.
Reagan’s First Term
• A Massive Defense Buildup
– Reagan charged that most of the
trouble in the world politically lay at
the hands of the Soviet Union in
Moscow.
– Labeling the Soviets an “evil empire,”
he initiated a dramatic buildup of
nuclear and conventional weapons
and announced the creation of the
Strategic Defense Initiative, a spacebased anti-weapons platform.
Reagan strongly believed in a policy of
Peace through Strength -"Let he who
desires peace prepare for war."
Reagan’s First Term
Strategic Defense Initiative President Reagan addresses the nation on March 23, 1983, about
the development of a space-age shield to intercept Soviet missiles.
Reagan’s First Term
• The Americas
– Central America was rife with communist activity, such as El Salvador,
where communist-supported forces had been attempting to overthrow
the government since 1980.
– Reagan send advisors and aid but the revolutionaries used this to their
advantage and won control of the nation.
– In Nicaragua, Reagan would empower the CIA to train and supply anticommunist rebels to fight against the Soviet- and Cuban-armed govt.
Reagan’s First Term
• The Middle East
– Wracked by an Islamic civil war between the Iran and Iraq.
– Afghanistan invaded by the Soviets, who were bogged down in their own
version of Vietnam.
– Israeli troops pushed Palestine Liberation Organization’s forces from
Lebanon, and U.S. troops sent in as peacekeepers.
– In October 1983, an Islamic suicide bomber would kill 241 marines,
leading Reagan to withdraw all forces from the area.
Reagan’s First Term
• Grenada
– Also in 1983,
Reagan would
respond to pleas
from neighboring
nations of Grenada
to depose a
communist
government there
that had overthrown
the previous
regime.
In 1985, Reagan announced the Reagan Doctrine. He stated that the United States
would not simply confine itself to the containment of Communism. It would also
attempt to "rollback" Communism by aiding anti-Communist ''freedom fighters" in
Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua, and Cambodia.
Reagan’s First Term
Reagan’s Second Term
• The Election of 1984
Reagan’s Second Term
• Domestic Challenges
– Using his election as a mandate to continue his previous term’s
goals, he would sign the Tax Reform Act, which reduced the
number of tax brackets and lowered rates once again.
Reagan’s Second Term
• The Iran-Contra Affair
– For the last two years in office, Reagan faced an opposition Congress.
– Reports would begin circulating about illicit arms sales to Iran in
exchange for Iran working to secure American hostages in Lebanon.
– Money from these sales would in turn be used to fund the Contra forces
fighting in Nicaragua.
Reagan’s Second Term
The Changing Social Landscape
• The Computer Revolution
– The invention of the silicon chip in 1971 led to the computer age.
Led by Bill Gates the personal computer revolution would
transform the marketplace and the economy.
• Debt and Stock Market Plunge
– During Reagan’s administration, the federal debt tripled, savings
among Americans were at an all-time low, and on October 19,
1987, the stock market crashed.
– Although it was worse than the 1929 crash, automatic safeguards
enacted since then prevented the worst from occurring.
The Changing Social Landscape
• The Poor, the Homeless, and the Victims of AIDS
– The government had given up on building new public housing for
low-income families, and urban renewal programs were not
required to locate new homes for those whom it displaced.
– As a result, the number of homeless rose during the 1980s.
The Changing Social Landscape
The computer age Beginning with the cumbersome electronic numerical integrator and
computer (ENIAC), pictured here in 1946, computer technology flourished, leading to the
development of personal computers in the 1980s and the popularization of the Internet in the
1990s.
The Changing Social Landscape
• A Historic Treaty
– Under the new Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Russians would
pursue détente to focus on their domestic problems.
– Gorbachev would meet with Reagan and sign a treaty that would cause
both sides to reduce the number of nuclear warheads they had in their
possession.
• Reagan’s Legacy
– During his administration, Reagan was able to redefine the role of the
government and promote a more active engagement with the Soviets in
an attempt to win, or at least end, the Cold War.
Tear down this wall:
https://youtu.be/YtYdjbpBk6A
The Changing Social Landscape
The Changing Social Landscape
• The Election of 1988
The H.W. Bush Administration
• Domestic Initiatives
– Bush’s biggest domestic problem was the size of the national
debt, which had grown to three times what it had been in 1980.
– He would also wage war on illegal drugs, and would appoint
William Bennett as drug czar.
The H.W. Bush Administration
• The Democracy Movement Abroad
– In communist nations where a
strong leader who had the power
to hold the system together was
lacking, revolutionary
movements took root.
• Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria,
Romania, Poland, Hungary,
and eventually East
Germany
– Although he was globally
popular, Mikhail Gorbachev
faced a coup back home and
was removed from power. He
was replaced by Boris Yeltsin.
Bush and Yeltsin would both
agree to a dramatic reduction in
the numbers of nuclear
stockpiles.
The H.W. Bush Administration
Dissolution of the Soviet Empire West Germans hacking away at the Berlin Wall on November
11, 1989, two days after all crossings between East Germany and West Germany were opened.
The H.W. Bush Administration
Action against Gorbachev In August 1991, one day after Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under
house arrest by Communists planning a coup, Russian president Boris Yeltsin (holding papers)
makes a speech criticizing the plotters.
The H.W. Bush Administration
• Panama
– Bush would send troops into Panama in 1989 to overthrow
Manuel Noriega, who in 1983 had taken the de facto leadership
position of Panama.
– He would use his connections to run drugs and arms into the
United States. Within a day, Noriega had been captured.
The H.W. Bush Administration
• The Gulf War
– On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait. Bush would send
troops into Saudi Arabia to defend that nation from a similar
attack. After deadlines expired in January 1991, a coalition force
made up of thirty nations would attack Iraq and drive it out of
Kuwait. After six weeks of fighting, the war ended.
The H.W. Bush Administration
The Gulf War
U.S. soldiers adapt to desert conditions during Operation Desert Shield, December 1990.