CH 29
Engel v. Vitale and Abington
. In the early 1960s, Supreme Court decisions prohibiting teacher-led prayer (Engel v. Vitale) and Bible reading in public schools (Abington v. Schempp) led some on the right to conclude that a liberal judicial system threatened Christian values.
---religious right
Although Reagan was only a nominal Christian and rarely attended church, the religious right embraced him. Reverend Jerry Falwell directed the full weight of the Moral Majority behind Reagan. The organization registered an estimated 2 million new voters in 1980. Reagan also cultivated the religious right by denouncing abortion and endorsing prayer in school.
"Run, Jesse, Run"
At the national level, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson became the first African American man to run for president when he campaigned for the Democratic Party's nomination in 1984 and 1988. Propelled by chants of "Run, Jesse, Run," Jackson achieved notable success in 1988, winning nine state primaries and finishing second with 29% of the vote.
Schlafly
Catholic activist Phyllis Schlafly marshaled opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, while evangelical pop singer Anita Bryant drew national headlines for her successful fight to repeal Miami's gay rights ordinance in 1977.
Cosby Show
Comedian Bill Cosby's sitcom about an African American doctor and lawyer raising their four children drew the highest ratings on television for most of the decade. The popularity of The Cosby Show revealed how class informed perceptions of race in the 1980s. Cosby's fictional TV family represented a growing number of black middle-class professionals in the United States.
"Buy American"
Competition from Japanese carmakers spurred a "Buy American" campaign.
"law-and-order rhetoric"
Echoing the law-and-order rhetoric (and policies) of the 1960s and 1970s, politicians-both Democratic and Republican-and law enforcement agencies implemented more aggressive policing of minority communities and mandated longer prison sentences for those arrested, inaugurating the explosive growth of mass incarceration that exacted a heavy toll on African American communities long into the twenty-first century.
"religious right"
Evangelical Protestants—Christians who professed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, upheld the Bible as an infallible source of truth, and felt a duty to convert, or evangelize, nonbelievers—comprised the core of the so-called "religious right."
"Watergate babies" and the New Deal
Hart and other "Watergate babies" still identified themselves as liberals but rejected their party's faith in activist government and embraced market-based approaches to policy issues. In so doing, they conceded significant political ground to supply-siders and conservative opponents of the welfare state.
Iran-Contra
In 1982, the House voted 411-0 to approve the Boland Amendment, which barred the United States from supplying funds to the contras, a right-wing insurgency fighting the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Reagan, overlooking the contras' brutal tactics, hailed them as the "moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers." Though the Iran-Contra scandal tarnished the Reagan administration's image, it did not derail Reagan's most significant achievement: easing tensions with the Soviet Union.
Immigration reform
In 1986, Reagan also signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act. American policymakers hoped to do two things: deal with the millions of undocumented immigrants already in the United States while simultaneously choking off future unsanctioned migration. The former goal was achieved (nearly three million undocumented workers received legal status) but the latter proved elusive.
Farm Aid
In September 1985, prominent musicians including Neil Young and Willie Nelson organized "Farm Aid," a benefit concert at the University of Illinois's football stadium designed to raise money for struggling farmers.
Carter's 1978 address
In his 1978 State of the Union address, Carter lectured Americans that "[g]overnment cannot solve our problems...it cannot eliminate poverty, or provide a bountiful economy, or reduce inflation, or save our cities, or cure illiteracy, or provide energy." The statement neatly captured the ideological transformation of the county. Rather than leading a resurgence of American liberalism, Carter became, as one historian put it, "the first president to govern in a post-New Deal framework."
"white backlash"
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black Power, affirmative action, and court-ordered busing of children between schools to achieve racial balance brought "white backlash" in the North, often in cities previously known for political liberalism. To many white Americans, the urban rebellions, antiwar protests, and student uprisings of the late 1960s signaled social chaos
---Latin Am.
Jimmy Carter had sought to promote human rights in the region, but Reagan and his advisers scrapped this approach and instead focused on fighting communism—a term they applied to all Latin American left-wing movements. And so when communists with ties to Cuba overthrew the government of the Caribbean nation of Grenada in October 1983, Reagan dispatched the United States Marines to the island. Grenada was the only time Reagan deployed the American military in Latin America, but the United States also influenced the region by supporting rightwing, anti-communist movements there. From 1981 to 1990, the United States gave more than $4 billion to the government of El Salvador in a largely futile effort to defeat the guerillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).76 Salvadoran security forces equipped with American weapons committed numerous atrocities, including the slaughter of almost 1,000 civilians at the village of El Mozote in December 1981.
"morning again"
Meanwhile, the "harsh medicine" of high-interest rates helped lower inflation to 3.5%. While campaigning for reelection in 1984, Reagan pointed to the improving economy as evidence that it was "morning again in America."His personal popularity soared. Most conservatives ignored the debt increase and tax hikes of the previous two years and rallied around the president.
"Black Friday"
On "Black Friday," the market plunged 800 points, erasing 13% of its value. Investors lost more than $500 billion.
---racial hostilities
Reagan condemned the policy during a speech at South Carolina's Bob Jones University, which had recently sued the IRS after losing its tax-exempt status because of the fundamentalist institution's ban on interracial dating.
Union strength?
PATCO had been one of the few labor unions to endorse Reagan. Nevertheless, the president ordered the union's striking air traffic controllers back to work and fired more than 11,000 who refused. Reagan's actions crippled PATCO and left the American labor movement reeling. For the rest of the 1980s the economic terrain of the United States—already unfavorable to union organizing—shifted decisively in favor of employers.
"popular culture as hostile"?
Popular culture of the 1980s offered another venue in which conservatives and liberals waged a battle of ideas.
"economic gains of the decade"?
Reagan left office in 1988 with the Cold War waning and the economy booming. Unemployment had dipped to 5% by 1988.80 Between 1981 and 1986, gas prices fell from $1.38 per gallon to 95¢.81 The stock market recovered from the crash, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average—which stood at 950 in 1981—reached 2,239 by the end of Reagan's second term. Yet, the economic gains of the decade were unequally distributed. The top fifth of households enjoyed rising incomes while the rest stagnated or declined. In constant dollars, annual CEO pay rose from $3 million in 1980 to roughly $12 million during Reagan's last year in the White House. Between 1985 and 1989 the number of Americans living in poverty remained steady at 33 million. Real per capita money income grew at only 2% per year, a rate roughly equal to the Carter years.The American economy saw more jobs created than lost during the 1980s, but half of the jobs eliminated were in high-paying industries. Furthermore, half of the new jobs failed to pay wages above the poverty line. The economic divide was most acute for African Americans and Latinos, one-third of whom qualified as poor. Trickle-down economics, it seemed, rarely trickled down.
Hinkley
Reagan survived an assassination attempt by a mentally unstable young man named John Hinckley.
Star Wars
Reagan went a step further in March 1983, when he announced plans for a "Strategic Defense Initiative," a space-based system that could shoot down incoming Soviet missiles. Critics derided the program as a "Star Wars" fantasy, and even Reagan's advisors harbored doubts. "We don't have the technology to do this," Secretary of State George Shultz told aides.77 These aggressive policies fed a growing "nuclear freeze" movement throughout the world. In the United States, organizations like the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy organized protests that culminated in a June 1982 rally that drew almost a million people to New York City's Central Park
Hyde
Reagan, more interested in economic issues than social ones, provided only lukewarm support for these efforts. He further outraged anti-abortion activists by appointing Sandra Day O'Connor, a supporter of abortion rights, to the Supreme Court. Despite these setbacks, anti-abortion forces succeeded in defunding some abortion providers. The 1976 Hyde Amendment prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortions; by 1990 almost every state had its own version of the Hyde Amendment. Yet some anti-abortion activists demanded more.
Amend the Constitution?
Religious conservatives took advantage of the Republican takeover of the White House and Senate in 1980 to push for new restrictions on abortion—with limited success. Senators Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah introduced versions of a "Human Life Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution that defined life as beginning at conception; their efforts failed, though in 1982 Hatch's amendment came within 18 votes of passage in the Senate.
State of "black economic rights"
Spending cuts enacted by Reagan and Congressional Republicans shrank Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, food stamps, school lunch, and job training programs that provided crucial support to African American households. In 1982, the National Urban League's annual "State of Black America" report concluded that "[n]ever [since the first report in 1976]... has the state of Black America been more vulnerable. Never in that time have black economic rights been under such powerful attack
---IRS
The IRS tax exemption issue resurfaced as well, with the 1980 Republican platform vowing to "halt the unconstitutional regulatory vendetta launched by Mr. Carter's IRS commissioner against independent schools.
Tax reform
Tax Reform Act of 1986. The bill lowered the top corporate tax rate from 46% to 34% and reduced the highest marginal income tax rate from 50% to 28%, while also simplifying the tax code and eliminating numerous loopholes.52 The steep cuts to the corporate and individual rates certainly benefited wealthy individuals, but the legislation made virtually no net change to federal revenues
Reagan's S. Ct. philosophy?
The New Right's transformation of the judiciary had limits. In 1987, Reagan nominated Robert Bork to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Bork, a federal judge and former Yale University law professor, was a staunch conservative. He had opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, affirmative action, and the Roe v. Wade decision. After acrimonious confirmation hearings, the Senate rejected Bork's nomination by a vote of 58-42.
--- the Middle East
The Reagan administration took a more cautious approach in the Middle East, where its policy was determined by a mix of anti-communism and hostility to the Islamic government of Iran. When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, the United States supplied Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with military intelligence and business credits—even after it became clear that Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons. Reagan's greatest setback in the Middle East came in 1982, when, shortly after Israel invaded Lebanon, he dispatched Marines to the Lebanese city of Beirut to serve as a peacekeeping force.
"Reagan Recession"
The Senate voted unanimously to condemn the plan, and Democrats framed it as a heartless attack on the elderly. Confronted with the recession and harsh public criticism, a chastened White House worked with Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neil in 1982 on a bill that restored $98 billion of the previous year's tax cuts.43 Despite compromising with the administration on taxes, Democrats railed against the so-called "Reagan Recession," arguing that the president's economic policies favored the most fortunate Americans. This appeal, which Democrats termed the "fairness issue," helped them win 26 House seats in the autumn Congressional races.44 The New Right appeared to be in trouble.
"Number Two"?
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan that same year, leading conservatives to warn about American weakness in the face of Soviet expansion. When Reagan warned, as he did in 1976, that "this nation has become Number Two in a world where it is dangerous—if not fatal—to be second best," he was speaking to these fears of decline
Roe and religion
The Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling outraged many devout Catholics and evangelicals (who had been less universally opposed to the procedure than their Catholic counterparts). Christian author Francis Schaeffer cultivated evangelical opposition to abortion through the 1979 documentary film Whatever Happened to the Human Race? arguing that the "fate of the unborn is the fate of the human race."
Response to AIDS
The emergence of a deadly new illness, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), simultaneously devastated, stigmatized, and energized the nation's homosexual community. When AIDS appeared in the early 1980s, most of its victims were gay men. For a time the disease was known as GRID—Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disorder. The epidemic rekindled older pseudo-scientific ideas about inherently diseased nature of homosexual bodies.
Changing relations with Soviets?
The summits failed to produce any concrete agreements but the two leaders developed a relationship unprecedented in the history of US-Soviet relations. This trust made possible the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987, which committed both sides to a sharp reduction in their nuclear arsenal.
"trickle down"
a huge tax cut hopefully resulting wealth would reach-or "trickle down," in the words of critics-lower-income groups through job creation and higher wages. Conservative economist Arthur Laffer predicted that lower tax rates would generate so much economic activity that federal tax revenues would actually increase.
Moral Majority
an explicitly political organization dedicated to advancing a "pro-life, pro-family, pro-morality, and pro-American" agenda. The Moral Majority skillfully wove together social and economic appeals to make itself a force in Republican politics.
Reagan Doctrine
declared that the United States would supply aid to anti-communist forces everywhere in the world.73 To give this doctrine force, Reagan oversaw an enormous expansion in the defense budget. Federal spending on defense rose from $171 billion in 1981 to $229 billion in 1985, the highest level since the Vietnam War.
Neocons
disillusioned intellectuals who had rejected liberalism and the Left and become Republicans...Irving Kristol defined a neoconservative as a "liberal who has been mugged by reality"
---welfare
he criticized welfare Reagan had long employed thinly veiled racial stereotypes about a "welfare queen" in Chicago who drove a Cadillac while defrauding the government or a "strapping young buck" purchasing T-bone steaks with food stamps. Like George Wallace before him, Reagan exploited the racial and cultural resentments of struggling white working-class voters.
New IRS rules
new rules revoking the tax-exempt status of racially segregated, private Christian schools.
Reagan Revolution
rejection of the liberal ideas that had dominated much of american politics in 1960s and 1970s. the rise of conservativism
Why a "crisis of confidence"?
televised speech on energy policy in which he attributed the country's economic woes to a "crisis of confidence." Carter lamented that "too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption." The president's push to reduce energy consumption was reasonable, and the country's initial response to the speech was favorable.
