The Conservative Ascendancy

1974 – 1991

A Troubled Economy

• In the 1970s, Americans faced an unfamiliar combination of rising prices, rising unemployment, and low economic growth known as stagflation

• The rest of the world (primarily Western Europe and Japan) now competed on the world markets—steel and auto

• Dependence on foreign oil had steadily grown since the mid-50s• The OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973 caused gas prices to double,

rationing, and a gas shortage• Soaring energy prices led to rapid, sustained inflation• Union membership in the AFL-CIO declined by 30% from 1970-

1982

Population Shifts

• Large scale migrations fueled Sunbelt (South and Southwest) population growth; California became the most populous state as the standard of living in those areas increased

• Sunbelt prosperity was not evenly distributed and a two-tier class society developed

• Snowbelt or Rustbelt cities like Cleveland, Pittsburg, NYC, and Philadelphia saw declining populations and faced urban decay

Ford and Carter: Domestic Policies

• Gerald Ford assumed office when Nixon resigned in 1974• Ford’s pardon of Nixon “for any crimes he may have committed” lost him

the nation’s trust• Ford’s WIN plan (Whip Inflation Now) was ineffective• First Lady Betty Ford championed the ERA, medical issues, and

substance abuse• The Election of 1976 saw newcomer Georgia governor Jimmy Carter

narrowly defeat Ford—his “outsider” persona, and the cynicism of Watergate most likely contributed to the Democrats taking the White House and Congress

• Carter promised to rebuild trust and supported conservative policies like deregulation and increased military spending

• Yet, inflation and interest rates continued to soar, the cost of living kept rising, and many concluded by 1980 that Carter could not turn the economy around

Ford and Carter: Foreign Policies

• Both Ford and Carter believed that American power had been declining and that there should be no more Vietnams

• The War Powers Act (1973) nullified the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and limited the president’s power to call for military action without Congressional consent

• Ford continued Nixon’s policy of détente• Ford did not intervene when Saigon fell in 1975• Ford and Brezhnev signed SALT II in 1974 furthering arms control; Carter signed another in

1979• Carter made human rights the center of his foreign policy• Carter made an effort to control / reform the CIA with minimal success• His greatest success was the negotiation of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and

Israel in 1978, Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize Israel and Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt

• In 1979, Carter negotiated the return the Canal Zone to Panama in 2000• Carter received contradictory advice urging him to be both tough on and conciliatory

towards the Soviets; his efforts in 3rd world countries was a mixed bag supporting either authoritarian or revolutionary regimes

• When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 (the “Russian Vietnam”) Carter reacted strongly to protect US interests in the Persian Gulf (the Carter Doctrine)

New Urban Politics

• Political mobilization during the 1970s frequently focused on community issues that cut across ideological lines, and voting in local elections became more significant to the voters as apathy in national elections increased

• College students, African Americans, and other minority groups mobilized and won power in numerous communities

• Several major cities elected black mayors• By 1978, ten times as many African Americans held offices in the

South than the previous decade• The fiscal crises of the 1970s undercut efforts to reform municipal

government, and affirmative action policies were angering the conservatives

The Endangered Environment

• Three-Mile Island, March 28,1979: mechanical problems and human error at the nuclear plant almost led to a meltdown; this accident led to mass anti-nuclear demonstrations and the dramatic reduction in the construction of nuclear plants

• The linking of cancer at Love Canal to toxic waste raised US concern over pollution

• Growing interest in the concept of ecology led Americans to lobby for renewable energy, reducing pollution, and protection of environment and animals

• Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring detailed the devastating effects of DDT (pesticides) helped to fuel public outcries as government officials responded: EPA, Dept. of Energy, emission controls, pesticide bans…

The New Conservatism

• Neo-conservatism grew out of the arguments that free markets work better than government programs, government intervention is harmful, and government assistance destroys individual initiative

• The New Right: a variety of forces including evangelical Christians formed the Moral Majority uniting behind conservative political leaders focusing on “traditional family values”; Protestant and Evangelical preachers promoted the Moral Majority’s agenda through television (televangelism) hoping to roll back liberalism in America

• The New Right successfully blocked the ERA for ratification and fought against abortion after the ruling of Roe v. Wade (1973)

The Iran Hostage Crisis

• Early in 1979, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by Islamic fundamentalists led by Ayatollah Khomeini

• Carter granted the deposed Shah asylum in the US• Nov. 4, 1979: Iranian students seized the American embassy in

Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days• Diplomacy failed; and a botched military rescue operation

doomed Carter’s presidency as the crisis continued and the price of oil rose 60%

• The hostages were released the minute Reagan was sworn in as president in 1981—further diminishing Carter’s presidential role (even though he negotiated to the last second of his presidency)

The Election of 1980

• Carter’s failure to fight inflation and save the economy, the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the backlash of his “malaise speech” (where he accused the nation of having a “crisis of confidence” in their leaders and need to change their attitude) all factored into his unenthusiastic endorsement for reelection

• The Republicans nominated California governor Ronald Reagan, who asked voters: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

• Even though only half of the eligible voters participated, Reagan won over 90% of the electoral vote and 50% of the popular vote (to Carter’s 40%)

• The Republicans took control of the Senate (first time since 1952)

The “Great Communicator”

“Reaganomics”

• Reaganomics is based on a supply-side economic theory in which tax cuts and reduced government spending would give private entrepreneurs and investors greater incentives to start businesses, take risks, invest capital, and thereby create new wealth and jobs

• The key components included tax cuts, increased defense spending, and the deregulation of industry

• The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981: reformed the federal income tax system, essentially the largest tax cut in history

• The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981 cut government spending from 1982-84, cutting funding for over 200 social and cultural programs (education, environment, health, housing, urban aid and welfare)

• While decreasing spending on domestic programs, Reagan greatly increased the defense budget to nearly $2 trillion

The Election of 1984

• The Democrats nominated Walter Mondale (Carter’s VP) who focused on the traditional liberal Democratic standards and chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate (the first woman candidate for VP)

• Reagan countered Mondale stating the America was prosperous, united, and strong

• Despite poles showing the candidates evenly splitting the ballot, Reagan won every state except Minnesota and DC in a landslide (59% of the popular vote)

Recession, Recovery, Fiscal Crisis

• Reagan’s economic policies had mixed results• A recession gripped the economy during the early 1980s

but as the economy grew, inflation lessened by 1983-4• Yet, the enormous budget deficits grew to $2.7 trillion

(the opposite of Reagan’s promise to balance the budget)• The US went from being the world’s biggest creditor

since WWI to the leading debtor by the mid-1980s• The fiscal crisis was made worse by scandals in the

securities industry; in 1987 the stock market crashed, ending the bull market of the 1980s

A Two-Tiered Society

• During the 1980s, though wealth and money-making was celebrated (“Greed is good”) the gap between the rich and poor widened, and race sharply defined that gap

• Yuppie culture (Young Urban Professionals) dominated the latest fashions, fastest cars, and a resurgence of consumer culture

• The average weekly earnings declined substantially and half the new jobs did not pay enough to keep a family out of poverty

The Feminization of Poverty

• Women experienced declining earning power during this period

• Divorce (no-fault divorce laws) and a sharp rise in teen pregnancy was a significant factor in contributing to female poverty

Drugs, AIDS, and Homelessness

• Drug trafficking took on a new dimension in the early 1980s: Cocaine, and crack-use spiraled out of control in the poor urban neighborhoods; and though Reagan declared a “war on drugs” it did not concentrate on the domestic end of the problem as turf wars and urban decay increased

• AIDS was the plague of the 1980s, and since it was labeled as a homosexual disease, one of “deviant” behavior, which initially created a negative backlash, rather than a positive push to fight the disease

• Homelessness was a chronic problem in the 1980s; the homeless population was estimated as low as 250,000 to as high as 3 million; 1/3 were mental patients who had been deinstitutionalized

Reagan’s Foreign Policy

• Anticommunism was the centerpiece of Reagan’s foreign policy, going as far as calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire”

• The US increased its nuclear arsenal based on claims that America was deficient in firepower compared with the Soviets

• Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) dubbed “Star Wars” was a proposed missile defense system that made the Soviets uneasy, but it was impractical

• The prospects of meaningful arms control was stalled

The Reagan Doctrine

• Reagan declared the “Vietnam Syndrome” (No more Vietnams, and the reluctance of Ford and Carter to be aggressive on the world stage) over

• The Reagan Doctrine declared that third world political instabilities were not due to poverty and indigenous conditions, but rather to Soviet influence; Reagan used this doctrine to reaffirm the US’s historic superiority in Central American affairs

• Reagan intervened in Grenada, El Salvador, and waged a covert war against the revolutionary government of Nicaragua by supplying arms to the Contras (armed exiles trained by the CIA to overthrow the Sandinista government)

The Middle East and the Iran-Contra Scandal

• In 1986, news broke that the US traded arms to Iran in return for their assistance in freeing hostages held by terrorist groups; the money from the arms sales was used to fund the Contras in Nicaragua

• Oliver North who ran the enterprise, acknowledged that he did what he did out of patriotism; the investigating committee found Reagan had allowed this unsupervised group to run the operation without his involvement

• In 1992, lame duck President George H.W. Bush would pardon several officials who were scheduled to be tried

The Collapse of Communism

• In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union and instituted a series of political and economic reforms: glasnost (eased political repression) and perestroika (restructuring the Soviet Union’s economic and political systems to make them more modern, innovative, and flexible)

• 1989: Poland held it first free elections since the close of WWII• The Berlin Wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989• August 1991: Old-line communists attempted a coup against

Gorbachev, placing him under house arrest; he resigned on Christmas Day

• The Soviet Union dissolved into the Commonwealth of Independent States, ending the great superpower rivalry, ending the Cold War

• Boris Yeltsin took charge as Russia’s new leader