Chapter 25 The Conservatism Revolutions 1980 -1992

The Conservatism Revolutions

     

      In the 1980’s the Republican Party scored major electoral victories. Under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and then George Bush, the republicans rolled back the liberal agenda. The republicans main thrust was an attempt to revive the moral values of the nations, which conservatives felt had eroded in an increasingly permissive society. George Bush foreign policy successes, including the end of the cold war.

    When Ronald Reagan began his career as a movie actor in Hollywood, he became actively involved in the political affairs of the actors’ union. Originally, Reagan considered himself a Democrat.  However, he found himself less comfortable with the Democratic Party after World War II, and joined the Republican Party in the 1950s. Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966.  During his eight years as governor, Reagan eliminated California’s budget deficit by modestly increasing taxes, cutting funding to social programs, and reforming state spending.

   Although most people supported the desegregation of public schools, many parents questioned why their students had to be bused to distant schools. Many Democrats who objected to affirmative action moved their support to the Republican Party.  These Reagan Democrats would help Republicans win many victories in the 1980s.

      By 1980, conservative groups had formed a powerful political coalition called the New Right.  The New Right wanted to improve the economy and reduce the size of government by cutting spending on social programs. One group on the New Right included evangelists such as Jerry Falwell of Virginia.  Using a new format called televangelism, Farwell and others appealed to television viewers to contribute money to their campaign.  One of Reagan’s main goals was to spur business growth. Reagan believed that supply-side economics, a strategy that focused on the supply of goods, would achieve this goal. Supply-side economics advocated giving more money to businesses and investors.  These businesses in turn would hire more people and produce more goods.

       Under Reagan, public service jobs were eliminated, unemployment and welfare benefits were reduced, and Medicare rates were raised. Reagan initiated a plan called the New Federalism in which the federal government would no longer tell states exactly how federal aid had to be used. In 1983, Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), popularly known as “Star Wars.”  SDI proposed the creation of a massive satellite shield in space to intercept and destroy incoming Soviet missiles.

      The number of African American elected officials rose dramatically during the 1980s, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday became a national holiday.  However, Reagan appointed federal judges who were less sympathetic to civil rights goals, and resistance to affirmative action programs rose. The campaign for homosexual rights presented another controversial issue.  The spread of AIDS, or acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome, caused alarm. Some savings and loan banks (often called S & Ls) took advantage of new laws to make risky investments with depositors’ savings. When hundreds of S & Ls failed, taxpayers had to make up the billions of dollars lost.

     In Nicaragua, the United States secretly supported guerrillas known as Contras against the ruling Marxist Sandinistas.  This policy violated American laws on international intervention. Congress discovered this violation and, in 1984, cut off aid to the Contras.  In what became known as the Iran-Contra affair, some government officials secretly continued supporting the Contras using profits from arms sales to Iran. The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty provided for the destruction of thousands of American and Soviet missiles in Europe. Payments for entitlements, or programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which guarantee payments to a particular group of recipients, grew faster than policymakers had expected.

   Republican Vice President George H. W. Bush began the 1988 campaign far behind his opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. As the Soviet Union disintegrated, Bush continued arms-control talks with Gorbachev.  The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed in 1991, called for dramatic reductions in the two nations’ supplies of long-range nuclear weapons. President Bush believed that protection of Kuwait’s oil reserves was an issue of national security.  Bush, working with the United Nations and leaders of more than 25 other countries, mobilized forces for the Persian Gulf War.

   Bush’s nomination of conservative African American judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court angered many liberals and moderates.  Charges of past sexual harassment plagued Thomas’s confirmation hearings. A deficit reduction plan that included new taxes broke Bush’s campaign promise and angered many Americans. A recession which began in the early 1990s resulted in widespread downsizing, or the laying off of workers to cut costs to companies.  Cuts in defense spending and rising oil prices also contributed to America’s economic problems.

     Since the expansion of the federal government in the 1930s, conservatives had argued for a smaller government. Ronald Reagan came into office determined to cut taxes, shrink the size of the federal government, and increase defense spending. After a decisive reelection victory in 1984, Reagan continued his conservative policies on economic and social issues.  George Bush foreign policy successes, including the end of the cold war, had their roots in Reagan’s initiatives.