THE AMERICAN JOURNEY A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES Brief Sixth Edition Chapter 30 The Reagan Revolution and a Changing World 1981-1992
The Reagan Revolution and a Changing World 1981-1992 Reagan s Domestic Revolution The Climax of the Cold War Growth in the Sunbelt Values in Collision Conclusion
Learning Objectives What was revolutionary about the Reagan revolution? How and why did the Cold War come to an end? How did growth in the Sunbelt shape national politics in the 1980s and 1990s? What key social and cultural issues divided Americans in the 1980s and 1990s?
Reagan s Domestic Revolution
Reagan s Domestic Revolution Building on a conservative critique of American policies and developing issues that Carter had placed on the national agenda, Ronald Reagan presided over revolutionary changes in U.S. government and policies.
MAP 30 1 The Election of 1980
Reagan s Majority Reagan had a common touch and tapped into the nostalgia for a simpler America that appealed to a large segment of the population.
Reagan s Majority (cont'd) Anti-Communist stalwarts, Christian conservatives, wealthy entrepreneurs, opponents of big government, and disaffected blue-collar and middle-class who deserted the Democrats supported Reagan. White blue-collar voters were alienated by affirmative action and school integration.
Reagan s Majority (cont'd) In 1984, Reagan won reelection in a huge landslide confirming the conservative trend among Americans.
The New Conservatism Reagan s domestic policy drew on conservative critiques of the New Deal- New Frontier approach government. Edward Banfield claimed government could not solve inequality because it was rooted in human character and the basic structure of society while Charles Murray claimed welfare assistance encouraged dependency, discouraging selfimprovement.
The New Conservatism (cont d) Free market utopians claimed free markets worked better than government programs and government intervention did more harm than good. Conservatives used new political tactics using targeted mailings to raise funds and mobilized voters with emotional appeals, bypassing the mass media.
Reaganomics: Deficits and Deregulation The Reagan Revolution was based on the Economic Recovery and Tax and Act of 1981 that reduced personal income tax by 25 percent over three years. The Reagan administration also shifted funding from domestic to military programs. Social programs would have to be enacted at the state or local level.
Reaganomics: Deficits and Deregulation (cont d) The second part of the economic agenda was deregulation. Corporate America attacked environmental legislation as strangulation by regulation. Reagan slashed the Environmental Protection Agency budget.
Reaganomics: Deficits and Deregulation (cont d) Reagan deregulated the banking industry and the national economy boomed in the short-term. Economic Recovery and Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) - A major revision of the federal income tax system.
Reaganomics: Deficits and Deregulation (cont d) Deregulation - Reduction or removal of government regulations and encouragement of direct competition in many important industries and economic sectors. Sagebrush Rebellion - Political movement in the western states in the early 1980s that called for easing of regulations on the economic use of federal lands and the transfer of some or all of those lands to state ownership.
MAP 30 2 Federal Land Ownership
Crisis for Organized Labor Reagan launched an offensive against labor unions. Federal agencies weakened collective bargaining. Union membership was one million less in 1989 than in 1964.
Crisis for Organized Labor (cont'd) Unions struggled to cope with the changing economy and corporations demanded wage cutbacks and concessions on working conditions. The decline of blue-collar jobs also contributed to shrinking union membership.
Crisis for Organized Labor (cont'd) In an era of deindustrialization, companies replaced many workers with sophisticated machinery or shifted production to nonunion plants. The corporate merger mania added to instability as manufacturing employment decline by nearly 2 million jobs in the 1980s.
An Acquisitive Society The new prosperity fueled lavish living by the wealthy and a fascination with how the rich and famous lived. Young upward mobile professionals defined themselves by elite consumerism. Business wheeler-dealers made themselves into media stars of finance capitalism.
An Acquisitive Society (cont d) The superficial glamour of this era of acquisitiveness and corporate greed had its underside of loneliness and despair. Punk rock and rap reacted to various aspects and inequities of the 1980s.
Mass Media and Fragmented Culture Cable television reflected both the fragmentation of American society and its increasing dependence on instant communication. Vast quantities of information were more easily available and packaged for a subdivided marketplace of specialized consumers.
Poverty amid Prosperity Federal tax and budget changes had different effects on the rich and poor. The top one percent increased their share of private wealth from 31 to 37 percent. The bottom 20 percent experienced a tax hike. Middle-class families saw their security decrease.
Poverty amid Prosperity (cont'd) Corporate downsizing and automation reduced many low-paying office jobs and hit middle managers in the late 1980s. The poverty rate increased from a low of 11 percent in 1973 to a 13 to 15 percent. Women earned less than men and constituted two-thirds of poor adults by the end of the 1980s.
Poverty amid Prosperity (cont'd) A variety of forces tripled the number of permanent homeless.
FIGURE 30 1 Changes in Real Family Income, 1947 1979 and 1980 1990
FIGURE 30 2 Comparison of Men s and Women s Earnings, 1960 2003
Consolidating the Revolution: George H. W. Bush George Bush won the 1988 election. Bush believed Americans wanted government to leave them alone. His major legislation was a bill that shifted federal priorities from highway building to mass transit. He also supported the Americans with Disabilities Act to prevent discrimination against people with physical handicaps.
Consolidating the Revolution: George H. W. Bush (cont'd) Bush s lack of leadership left continuing economic crime, and healthcare problems. Americans with Disabilities Act - Legislation in 1992 that banned discrimination against physically handicapped persons in employment, transportation, and public accommodations.
The Climax of the Cold War
Confronting the Soviet Union In 1980, the Soviet Union was supporting Marxist regimes in civil wars in Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan. Reagan s willingness to confront the Soviet Union reflected conservative beliefs that the Soviets were monolithic and bent on world conquest.
Confronting the Soviet Union (cont'd) The focus was on central Europe, and Reagan began deploying missiles in Europe that escalated the nuclear arms race.
Confronting the Soviet Union (cont'd) Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, also called Star Wars. Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) - President Reagan s program, announced in 1983, to defend the United States against nuclear missile attack with untested weapons systems and sophisticated technologies; also known as Star Wars.
Risky Business: Foreign Policy Adventures The Reagan Doctrine said that Sovietinfluenced governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America needed to be eliminated if the United States was to win the Cold War. Central America became the focus of a secret CIA foreign policy against Nicaragua.
Risky Business: Foreign Policy Adventures (cont'd) The United States war on drugs included an invasion of Panama. Reagan s intervention in the Middle East failed as a terrorist bomb killed 241 Marines in Lebanon. The Iran-Contra Affair ended in a scandal of illegality and unconstitutional actions. Oliver North lied to Congress.
Risky Business: Foreign Policy Adventures (cont'd) In Asia, the United States helped install democratic governments in the Philippines and South Korea. Reagan Doctrine - The policy assumption that Soviet-influenced governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America needed to be eliminated if the United States was to win the Cold War.
Embracing Perestroika Mikhail Gorbachev began the thaw in the Cold War with his glasnost and perestroika policies that opened up the Soviet Union and restructured the Soviet economy.
Embracing Perestroika (cont d) Reagan had the vision to embrace the new Soviet position. He met with Gorbachev and negotiated the Intermediate Nuclear Force Agreement that was the first true nuclear disarmament treaty. Glasnost - Russian for openness, applied to Mikhail Gorbachev s encouragement of new ideas and easing of political repression in the Soviet Union.
Embracing Perestroika (cont d) Perestroika - Russian for restructuring, applied to Mikhail Gorbachev s efforts to make the Soviet economic and political systems more modern, flexible, and innovative. Intermediate Nuclear Force Agreement (INF) - Disarmament agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union under which an entire class of missiles would be removed and destroyed and on-site inspections would be permitted for verification.
Crisis and Democracy in Eastern Europe Bush pushed the pro-democratic transformation of Eastern Europe. The East Germans opened the Berlin Wall in 1989. By the end of 1989, new democratic, non-communist governments had emerged in several eastern European governments. In 1990, Germany reunified.
Crisis and Democracy in Eastern Europe (cont d) The Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended.
Controlling Nuclear Weapons: Four Decades of Effort
Why Did the Cold War End?
The Persian Gulf War After Iraq invaded Kuwait, President Bush led a United Nations coalition that ultimately fought the Gulf War that liberated Kuwait but did not topple the Iraqi government. Operation Desert Storm - Code name for the successful offensive against Iraq by the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf War (1991).
The Persian Gulf War (cont'd) Persian Gulf War - War (1991) between Iraq and a U.S.-led coalition that followed Iraq s invasion of Kuwait and resulted in the expulsion of Iraqi forces from that country.
MAP 30 3 The Persian Gulf War
Growth in the Sunbelt
Growth in the Sunbelt The rise in military and defense spending from the late 1970s to the early 1990s fueled the growth of the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt was a region of conservative voting habits and reflected the leading economic trends of the 1970s and 1980s. Sunbelt - The states of the American South and Southwest.
MAP 30 4 Fast-Growing and Shrinking Metropolitan Areas, 1990 2000
The Defense Economy Defense spending underwrote the expansion of American science and technology. California s Silicon Valley grew with military sales long before it turned to consumer markets. The space component of the aerospace industry was equally dependent on the defense economy.
Americans from Around the World The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 transformed the ethnic mix of the United States and helped stimulate the sunbelt boom. Immigration reform opened America to Mediterranean Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Mexico supplied the largest group of new Americans.
Americans from Around the World (cont'd) The West Indies and Central America tended to settle on the East Coast. Asians accounted for nearly half of all arrivals in 1990. Recent immigrants found both economic possibilities and problems.
Americans from Around the World (cont'd) Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 - Federal legislation that replaced the national quota system for immigration with overall limits of 170,000 immigrants per year from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 per year from the Western Hemisphere.
MAP 30 5 Religious Geography of the United States
TABLE 30 1 Major Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the United States
Old Gateways and New The new immigration most affected coastal and border cities. Southern and western cities became gateways for immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Miami became the economic capitol of the Caribbean.
TABLE 30 2 Global Cities
The Graying of America Retirees were another factor in the rise of the sunbelt. Retired Americans changed the social geography of the United States. Much of the growth in the South and Southwest was money earned in the Northeast and Midwest and transferred by retirees.
Values in Collision
Women s Rights and Public Policy In Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court accorded women abortion rights. The Equal Rights Amendment and Roe v. Wade opened sharp debates on women s rights and abortion.
Women s Rights and Public Policy (cont'd) In 2000, six of every ten women were working or looking for work. The number of working women increased as 1970s inflation and declining wages in the 1980s eroded income.
Women s Rights and Public Policy (cont'd) The shift to service jobs also stimulated an increase in working women. Roe v. Wade - U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973 that disallowed state laws prohibiting abortion during the first three months (trimester) of pregnancy and established guidelines for abortion in the second and third trimesters.
AIDS and Gay Activism The Stonewall Revolt began the gay rights movement. The AIDS outbreak changed the character of life in gay communities. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) - A complex of deadly pathologies resulting from infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Churches in Change Mainline Protestant denomination struggled after 1970 as evangelical Protestant churches experienced growth. By the 1970s, televangelism reached 20 percent of American households. Another important change was the Americanization of the Catholic Church.
Culture Wars Family values and beliefs have sparked disputes between liberal and conservatives. Theological differences within Protestantism contributed to the divisions on social issues.
Culture Wars (cont'd) The cultural conflict transcended the historic division among Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, focusing on divisions between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives initiated the culture wars because of fears related to sexual indulgence, though evidence is mixed on the sexual revolution. Censorship is another aspect of the culture wars.
Conclusion
Conclusion American sought stability in the 1980s but the decade witnessed transformations that redirected American life. Many of the changes were connected to national policy issues. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War. Prosperity alternated with recession and shifted the balance between regions.