America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era

1. America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era Part-1

2. Theme: Elected as the first baby-boom president, Bill Clinton tried to turn the Democratic party in a more centrist direction. Ideological conflicts and sharp partisan battles in the 1990s were partly overshadowed by a booming economy, a balanced federal budget, and America’s search to define its role in the increasingly global economy and system of international relations. The 2000 election and the subsequent events that followed it would deeply divide the nation and alienate the United States from traditional allies in the world community.

3. chapter summary • The dynamic young “baby-boomer” Bill Clinton defeated Bush in 1992, and promoted an ambitious reform agenda within the context of his centrist “new Democrat” ideology. Clinton’s stumbles over health care reform and foreign policy opened the door to aggressive conservative Republicans, who gained control of Congress in 1994 for the first time in fifty years advocating a “contract with America.” But the Newt Gingrich-led Republicans’ over-reaching enabled Clinton to revive and win a second term in 1996.

4. In his second term, Clinton downplayed reform and successfully claimed the political middle ground on issues like welfare reform, affirmative action, smoking, and gun control. A booming economy created budget surpluses, and encouraged Clinton’s efforts toward ending international trade barriers. Conflicts in the Middle East and the Balkans led to American diplomatic and military involvements, with mixed results. A series of scandals, culminating in the Monica Lewinsky affair, led to Clinton’s impeachment and acquittal in 1999.

5. Texas Governor George Walker Bush defeated Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, in a contested cliffhanging election in 2000 that was finally decided by a Supreme Court decision. As the fourth president elected in American history to lose the popular vote, George W. Bush entered the oval office promising to bring to Washington the conciliatory skills he had fine tuned as Republican governor of Texas, where he had worked well with the Democratic majority in the state’s legislature. But as president, Bush proved to be more of a divider than a uniter, focusing on social issues like abortion, a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages, embryonic stem cell research, the environment, and add to that an increasing budget deficit – these polarizing policies both reflected and deepened the cultural chasm that divided American society.

6. On September 11, 2001 suicidal terrorists slammed two hijacked airliners into the twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, a third plane crashed into the Pentagon and a fourth plane was forced down by its heroic passengers in rural Pennsylvania. Osama bin Laden had been identified as the mastermind behind the World Trade Center attack, and when the Taliban refused to turn over bin Laden to American officials, Bush ordered a massive military campaign against Afghanistan. Within three months, American and Afghani rebel forces had overthrown the Taliban but failed to find bin Laden.

7. The fear of future threats lead American officials to take aggressive and controversial actions following the events of September 11; congressional passage of the USA-Patriot Act, creation of the Department of Homeland Security, rounding up and trying suspected terrorists in military tribunals (where the usual rules and procedures do not apply), and the controversial invasion and occupation of Iraq.

8. In 1992, the Democrats chose Bill Clinton as their candidate (despite accusations of womanizing, drug use, and draft evasion) and Albert Gore, Jr. as his running mate. The Democrats tried a new approach, promoting growth, strong defense, and anticrime policies, while campaigning to stimulate the economy. The Republicans dwelt on “family values” and selected Bush for another round and Dan Quayle as his running mate. They claimed that “character matters”, obviously implying that Clinton and his baggage should not be elected. Bill Clinton: the First Baby-Boomer President

9. Yet, largely due to the economy and Bush’s failed promise of “no new taxes”, the young Clinton ultimately defeated Bush, 370 to 168 in the Electoral College. • Third party Texas billionaire candidate Ross Perot added color to the election by gathering 19,742,267 popular votes.

10. Democrats also gained control of both the House and the Senate, and now women held more congressional seats than ever before in US history. • Clinton immediately took liberal action by vowing to shape a government that “looked like America” by appointing more women (as well as more minorities) to important positions than any other president before him, including the first female attorney general ever, Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court.

11. Upon entering office, Clinton called for accepting homosexuals in the armed forces, but finally had to settle for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that unofficially accepted gays and lesbians. Clinton also appointed his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to revamp the nation’s health and medical care system, and when it was revealed in October 1993, critics blasted it as cumbersome, confusing, and unpractical. Interestingly, a similar proposal was passed in 2010 by President Obama’s administration – with Hillary Clinton now as Secretary of State. In 1993, he passed a gun-control law called the Brady Bill, named after presidential aide James Brady who had been wounded in President Reagan’s attempted assassination. In July 1994, Clinton persuaded Congress to pass a $30 billion anticrime bill. By 1996, the economy had truly begun to turn around under Clinton as the federal deficit shrunk to its lowest level in a decade. A False Start for Reform

12. During the decade, terrorism emerged as the new evil to replace communism: • a radical Muslim group bombed the World Trade Center in New York, killing six. • An American terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, bombed the federal building in Oklahoma in 1995, taking 169 lives. • And a fiery standoff at Waco, Texas, between the government and the Branch Davidian religious cult ended in a huge fire that killed men, women, and children. By this time, few Americans trusted the government, the reverse of the WWII generation.

13. The Politics of Distrust In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans on a sweeping attack of Clinton’s liberal failures with a conservative “Contract with America,” and that year, Republicans won all incumbent seats as well as eight more seats in the Senate and 53 more seats in the House. Gingrich became the new Speaker of the House and seemed to be the rising star of the Republican party. However, if Clinton had gone too far to the left, the Republicans now went toofar to the right, imposing federal laws that put new obligations on state and local governments without providing new revenues and compelling Clinton to sign a welfare-reform bill that made deep cuts in welfare grants. Gradually, the American public grew tired of Republican conservatism, such as Gingrich’s suggestion of sending children of welfare families to orphanages, and of its incompetence, such as the 1995 shut down of Congress due to a lack of a sufficient budget package. These outlandishly partisan antics bred a backlash that helped President Clinton rebound from his political near-death experience. Newt Gingrich

14. Bill & Hillary Hippies! Yuppies!