The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 marked the transformation of American politics toward the “new conservatism.” Following the Carter administration, the nation was prepared for a radical change in political leadership. The Anybody But Carter (ABC) Democratic took the lead following Carter’s term, where his inability to control the double-digit inflation and overall frustration of his management of the nation’s affairs heralded a call for conservatives. This, combined with what seemed to be the hour for the Republicans, allowed Reagan to run away with the election. Focusing on the social issues that addressed the cultural concerns rather than the economic issues. Such hotly debated topics as Affirmative Action and race became very controversial. Conservatives around the nation were calling for stronger punishments on criminals and claimed “reverse discrimination” And with Ronald Reagan leading the crusade; the thought of big government was on the way out. All the pieces and momentum was on the side of the Republicans as their time had come.

            The effects of the new conservatism on American politics were seen through the foreign policy initiatives in the Middle East, Central America, and Eastern Europe. From the outset, Reagan reengaged the Cold War with the Communist’s and the Soviet Union. With the Soviet’s possessing the control in Eastern Europe, Reagan believed keeping an eye on the communists was necessary. Through his most infamous initiative, Reagan pursued a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Nicknamed Star Wars, this bold maneuver was made to protect against the ICBMs. Tensions were heating when the Soviet’s blew a Korean airliner out of the air. Also, the Middle East saw great volatility. Israel, the hotbed for hostility, was in the midst of a hold confrontation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In Lebanon in 1983, Reagan sent American soldiers as a peacekeeping mission to restore order. But the terrorist bombing marked the end for their occupation and they evacuated. Central America, namely Nicaragua, saw the Sandinistas and communist influence seek control. All of these incidents never got Reagan into any trouble, as the “Teflon president” failed to suffer any ill effects from mistakes that were made.

            Clinton, the first baby boomer President, took the traditional democratic themes and transformed them into ideals suited to compete with the conservative beliefs. With the economy slumbering and the knowledge of Mondale’s catastrophe to avert from the traditional democratic stance. The youthful, energetic and articulate Clinton took charge and gained great popularity throughout the nation. Running for vindication rather than election, he brought focus to the issues that favored him over his opponent. With Perot running interference and getting the voter turnout to the greatest level it had ever reached, Clinton took the White House. The appeal to reforming the nation, but not in the traditional democratic fashion, led Clinton to the presidency. He exaggerated the issues that the conservatives were weak in and Bush did not combat the exploitation; his inability to appeal to the voters at there level and the Republican’s confidence led to the eventual defeat. Clinton illustrated how confronting the issues of your opponent rather than focusing on the traditional ideals leads to success.

Chapter 41 Part 1 

            In the 1980’s a somewhat new political view emerged.  It was the view of new conservatism.  This view gained wide amounts of popularity with the Republican Party.  Ronal Reagan was elected to be the leader for this political view.  When he became president, he brought the beliefs of new conservatives to the government, and made changes in both American politics and foreign policy.

            The new conservatism popularity was first noticed when Ronald Reagan became the Republican presidential nominee.  Most of the now older population was likely to live in wither the South or the West.  These areas of the United States were previous strongholds of the old right conservatism.  The new right movement in response to the counterculture protests of the sixties also gave more strength to the conservative party.  Chosen by Republicans to be in charge of this new conservative party was Ronald Reagan.  Reagan gained popularity because of different aspects of his character; “An actor-turned politician, Reagan enjoyed enormous popularity with his crooked grin and aw-shucks manner…He used his professional acting skills to great advantage in a televised ‘debate’ with the colorless Carter.” (993).  Reagan ultimately beat Carter in the presidential election of 1980 primarily because of Carter’s inability to fix the problems of the seventies. 

            The new conservative movement greatly affected politics of the United States.  President Reagan wanted to reduce the size of the government by cutting taxes and by reducing the federal budget.  He also declared “government is not the solution to our problem.  Government is the problem.”  After gaining huge amounts of sympathy and more popularity, Reagan was able to obtain budget cuts for the government.  “In August 1981 Congress approved a set of far-reaching tax reformer that lowered individual tax rates, virtually eliminated federal estate taxes, and created new tax-free savings plans for small investors.  Reagan’s ‘supply-side’ economic advisers assured him that the combination of budgetary discipline and tax reduction would stimulate new investment, boost productivity, and foster dramatic economic growth.”  (996-997). 

            In 1983 President Reagan sent US troops to Lebanon to attempt to keep peace in the Middle East.  However on October 23, 1983 a suicidal bomber crashed into a United States marine barracks, killing more then two hundred marines.  Reagan then took the troops out of Lebanon without suffering any political damage. 

            In Central America a leftist revolution had turned the nations of Central America into anti-Americans.  Carter wanted to become friends with these rebels, but Reagan instead attacked these rebellious people.  He accused the Sandinistas of allowing Soviet and Cuban military penetration of all of Central America.  Reagan sent military advisers to help the government of El Salvador, which was pro-United States.  He also provided covert aid to others who were pro-United States in Central America.   

            The new Soviet Leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, came up with two policies that would revolutionize the government of the Soviet Union.  These were glasnost and perestroika.  The two new policies brought an end to the Cold War.  The Soviet Union also announced that no more intermediate-range nuclear forces would be targeted at Western Europe.  President Reagan decided to make friends with this new Soviet Union leader.

           Chapter 41 Pt. 2

             Even before Bill Clinton became the president of the United States, he declared himself to be a “new” democrat.  He desired to end the Republican winning streak by becoming president.  To do so he and other centrist Democrats created the Democratic Leadership Council.  This was meant to “point the party away from its traditional antibusiness, dovish, champion-of-the-underdog orientation and toward progrowth, strong defense, and anticrime policies.” (1014).  Clinton would be the president that helped change the traditional democratic party and turn it into a party that would have some of the conservative ideals. 

            Some of President Clinton’s first attempts at reform failed.  The first was when he made it illegal to ban gays and lesbians from the army.  This act brought extreme opposition, so he instead created a policy that would quietly except gay and lesbian soldiers.  The next of Clinton’s political failures was his attempt to reform the health-care system of the nation.  He put his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in charge of creating a better health-care system.  However the new plan was extremely complicated and was destroyed by critics.  Some of Clinton’s political achievements were a deficit-reduction bill in 1993, a better economy in 1996, a gun-control law known as the Brady Bill, and an anticrime bill. 

            After these failures the conservative Republican Party took over the government.  They had huge amount of representatives throughout Congress and were able to pass bills that were in agreement with their beliefs.  President Clinton, for a time, was almost taken over by Congress.  He had barely any influence on what was voted for.  President Clinton at one point was persuaded to allow a welfare-reform bill; “…In 1996 the new Congress achieved a major conservative victory when it compelled a reluctant Clinton to sign a welfare-reform bill that made deep cuts in welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment.  The new welfare law also tightly restricted welfare benefits for legal and illegal immigrants alike, reflecting a rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment as the numbers of newcomers climbed toward an all-time high.” (1017).   Liberal Democrats were extremely upset with this new bill.  However this was part of President Clinton’s master plan to slowly morph some of the democratic ideals into something that would be accepted by conservative Republicans.  The Republican majority would then be happier, and Clinton would be able to put into action some bills that he wanted. 

            However many believed that the Republican Party was going to far.  Some felt they were using their power a little too fluently.  People became even more upset when the Republicans proposed the idea that children of parents who were being helped by welfare should be sent to an orphanage.  One time in 1995 President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress were in a tense relationship.  They fought with one another and eventually forced the federal government to shut down for a few days.  This whole instance was because of a disagreement over a budget package.  It showed how even though Clinton was trying to appease the Republican majority; he just could not accept some of the political ideals of the conservative Republicans. 

Carter’s administration was failing miserably. Ronald Reagan was the first choice for the nomination for the Republican Party. The children of the 60s were now adults and living in the south or west where conservatism was more widespread. The appearance of the “New Rights” activists exposed the extensive amount of conservatives in the country. These people were against abortion, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, and affirmative action. They supported prayer in school and capital punishment. Affirmative action was a significant concern. Whites were complaining that they were being denied jobs because jobs were not looking at actual qualifications, but race or background. These extreme right-wingers were the most important factor in the rise of conservatism.

            Reagan sided with the New Rights group.  He supported the common man, but also big business. He condemned big government, special treatment of minorities, and elitism in bureaucrats. Reagan drew ideas from neoconservatives who supported free-market capitalism. He opposed soviet positions in foreign policy, liberal welfare programs, and affirmative–action policies.

            Reagan tried to help the Lebanese when they were invaded by the Israelis, but a suicide bomber succeeded in killing two hundred American marines. He immediately withdrew the troops and the incidents didn’t tarnish his image a bit.

            There was also trouble brewing in Central America. In Nicaragua some anti-American revolutionists succeeded in a coup.  Carter had tried to ignore these “Sandinistas,” but Reagan did the opposite. He claimed that they were shipping weapons to revolutionary forces in El Salvador, so he sent “advisors” to help the pro-American government of El Salvador. He sent covert aid to the Nicaraguan “contra” rebels opposing the anti-American government in place. He thoroughly enjoyed making America look tough and testosterone-filled. In October 1983, Reagan sent a heavy ground force to Grenada where they ran out revolutionists who had brought Marxists to power. “…American troops vividly demonstrated Reagan’s determination to assert the dominance of the United States in the Caribbean, just as Theodore Roosevelt had done” (1000.)

 Pt. 2 Explain how Bill Clinton took traditional Democratic Party themes and adopted them to match conservative ideals.

             Bill Clinton took traditional Democratic Party ideals that were anti-business, dovish, and champion-of-the-underdog orientated, and turned toward “progrowth, strong defense, and anticrime policies” (1014.) He claimed to be a “new” Democrat, and his youthfulness, energy and articulateness won 43,728,275 voters. Clinton also appealed to many conservatives because he was the first baby boomer to “ascend” to the White House and because he was a “forty-something southern white male Protestant” whose vice president could be given the same description. He filled Congress, his Cabinet and the Supreme Court with minorities and women saying that he wanted a government that “looked like America.”

:Carter’s administration was failing miserably. Ronald Reagan was the first choice for the nomination for the Republican Party. The children of the 60s were now adults and living in the south or west where conservatism was more widespread. The appearance of the “new rights” culture. the new rights activists were against abortion, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, and affirmative action. They supported prayer in school and capital punishment. Affirmative action was a big concern. Whites were complaining that they were being denied jobs, because jobs were not looking at actual qualifications, but race or background.

            Reagan sided with the New Rights group.  He supported the common man, but also big business. He condemned the big government, special treatment of minorities, and elitism in bureaucrats. Reagan drew ideas from neoconservatives who supported free-market capitalism and opposed to soviet positions in foreign policy, liberal welfare programs, and affirmative –action policies.

The Iranians contributed to the very festive mood by releasing all the hostages on Reagan’s Inauguration Day on January 20, 1981 after a very long 444 days in captivity. The Environmental Protection Agency and to permit oil drilling in beautiful places. Watt’s planned to allow oil exploration off the California coastline was halted. He made too many mistakes in 1983, when he told an offensive ethnic joke in public he was forced to resign. Reagan’s political career was to reduce to the size of the government by slashing the taxes and shrinking the federal budget.
By the early 80s, the whole anti government message had found a very receptive audience. In the twenty years since 1960, federal spending rose from about 18 percent of gross national product to about 18 percent of gross national product to 23 percent. In 1973 the budget of the Department of health, education and welfare surpassed the Department of Defense by a lot. Californians staged a tax revolt in the year 1978. Reagan rode the political shock wave to presidential victory in 1980 and proceeded to rattle the welfare state to its roots. On March 6, 1981, a gunman shot Reagan as he was leaving a hotel in Washington. He was hit beneath his left arm and his left lung collapsed. Twelve days after the attack, he walked out of the hospital and continued to work. Reagan displayed his skill as a performer as well as a persuasive man, in an effective television address in July 1981, when he pleaded for the congressional passage of the tax cut bill. In august of 1981 congress approved a set of tax reforms that lowered individual tax rates, and eliminated federal estate taxes, and made all new tax-free plans for small investors. Unemployment reached 11 percent in 1982. The anti inflationary tight money policies that the Reagan recession of 1982 had been initiated by the federal reserve board in 1979 on President Carter’s watch. The supply-siders seemed to be vindicated when a healthy economic recovery got under way on the year 1983. Federal budget deficits topped the 100 billion dollar mark in 1982. The government’s books were nearly 200 billion dollars out of balance.

Pt. 2 Explain how Bill Clinton takes traditional democratic party themes and adopt them to match conservative ideals.

In the year 1996 the new congress achieved a very major conservative victory when it compelled Clinton to sign a welfare-reform bill that made very deep cuts into the welfare grants, and also required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment. In a very tense confrontation between the democratic president and the republican congress, the federal government actually had to close for a few days at the end of 1995, until a budget package was agreed upon. Meanwhile, the republicans fought it out in a noisy round of primaries, and they eventually nominated Bob Dole, a veteran of World War II. The Reform party, in actuality was little more than the personal organization of Texas billionaire and 1992 presidential want to be, H. Ross Perot, nominated its egomaniacal founder.  Clinton also lead in dispatching American troops as part of a peacekeeping mission to Somalia, in Africa’s eastern horn and reinforced the US contingent after Somali rebels killed over a dozen Americans in 1993. In March of 1994 the president withdrew the American units, without accomplishing any of those goals. Clinton committed about twenty thousand American troops to return to Aristide to the Haitian presidency in 1994, after thousands of Haitian refugees sought asylum in America. Clinton also supported the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created a large free trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the United States.