The Conservative Movement

1. The Conservative Movement Conservatism reached a high point with the election in 1980 of President Ronald Reagan and Vice-President George Bush.

2. Entitlement Programs • a government program— such as Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid—that guarantees and provides benefits to a specific group.

3. some people had become frustrated with the government’s civil rights policies. • Congress had passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in an effort to eliminate racial discrimination. • Over the years, however, judicial decisions and government regulations had broadened the reach of the act.

4. New Right • a late-20th-century alliance of conservative special interest groups concerned with cultural, social, and moral issues

5. Affirmative Action • Many in the New Right criticized the policy of affirmative action. Affirmative action required employers and educational institutions to give special consideration to women, African Americans, and other minority groups, even though these people were not necessarily better qualified.

6. Reverse Discrimination • Many conservatives saw affirmative action as a form of reverse discrimination, favoring one group over another on the basis of race or gender. • an unfair treatment of members of a majority group—for example, white men—resulting from efforts to correct discrimination against members of other groups.

7. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the conservative movement in the United States grew in strength. • Eventually conservative groups formed the conservative coalition an alliance of business leaders, middle-class voters, disaffected Democrats, and fundamentalist Christian groups.

8. Moral Majority • a political alliance of religious groups, consisting mainly of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, that was active in the 1970s and 1980s, condemning liberal attitudes and behavior and raising money for conservative candidates.

9. Ronald Reagan President Reagan pursued a conservative agenda that included tax cuts, budget cuts, and increased defense spending. As soon as Reagan took office, he worked to reduce the size and influence of the federal government, which, he thought, would encourage private investment.

10. Reaganomics • the economic policies of President Ronald Reagan, which were focused on budget cuts and the granting of large tax cuts in order to increase private investment

11. Supply-Side Economics Reaganomics relied heavily on the idea that a reduction of tax rates will lead to increases in jobs, savings, and investments, and therefore to an increase in government revenue. First step ------supply-side economics = cut taxes

12. Shift in Judicial Power • Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony M. Kennedy to fill seats left by retiring judges. O’Connor was the first woman to be appointed to the Court.

13. Deregulating the Economy • Reagan achieved one of his most important objectives reducing the size and power of the federal government in part by cutting federal entitlement programs but also through deregulation, the cutting back of federal regulation of industry.

14. George H. Bush • George Bush simply built on President Reagan’s legacy by promising, “Read my lips: no new taxes”in his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. • He stressed his commitment to the conservative ideas of the Moral Majority. • Though Bush asserted that he wanted a “kinder, gentler nation,” his campaign sponsored a number of negative “attack ads”aimed at his opponents.

15. Social Concerns in the 1980s Issues involving health care, education, civil rights, and equal rights for women continue to challenge American society. • AIDS • Drug abuse • Abortion • Education

16. Foreign Policy after the Cold War • After the Cold War, the United States provided and continues to provide substantial economic support to the new capitalistic and democratic nations.

17. End of Cold War • In March of 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the general secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. • His rise to power marked the beginning of a new era in the Soviet Union.

18. Gorbachev • A skilled diplomat and political leader, Gorbachev advocated a policy known as glasnost (Russian for “open-ness”). • He allowed open criticism of the Soviet government and took steps toward freedom of the press. • In 1985, he out-lined his plans for perestroika, a restructuring of Soviet society. • He called for less government control of the economy, the introduction of some private enterprise, and steps toward establishing a democratic government.

19. In October 1989, East Germans startled the world by repudiating their Communist government. On November 9, 1989, East Germany opened the Berlin Wall, allowing free passage between the two parts of the city for the first time in 28 years. • East German border guards stood by and watched as Berliners pounded away with hammers and other tools at the despised wall.

20. Communism in China • Early in the 1980s, the Chinese Communist government loosened its grip on business and eliminated some price controls. • Students in China began to demand freedom of speech and a greater voice in government.

21. Tiananmen Square • In April 1989, university students in China held marches that quickly grew into large demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and on the streets of other cities. • In Tiananmen Square, Chinese students constructed a version of the Statue of Liberty to symbolize their struggle for democracy.

22. China’s premier, Li Peng, eventually ordered the military to crush the pro-testers. • China’s armed forces stormed into Tiananmen Square, slaughtering unarmed students. • The world’s democratic countries watched these events in horror on television. • The collapse of the pro-democracy movement left the future in China uncertain. • As one student leader said, “The government has won the battle here today. • But they have lost the people’s hearts.

23. Iran-Contra Scandal • Negotiating conflicts between ever-shifting governments drew the United States into scandal and its first major war since Vietnam…IRAN • In 1983, terrorist groups loyal to Iran took a number of Americans hostage in Lebanon. • Reagan denounced Iran and urged U. S. allies not to sell arms to Iran for its war against Iraq.

24. In 1985, he declared that “America will never make concessions to terrorists.” • Therefore, Americans were shocked to learn in 1986 that President Reagan had approved the sale of arms to Iran. • In exchange for those sales, Iran promised to win the release of seven American hostages held in Lebanon by pro-Iranian terrorists.

25. Persian Gulf War • Regardless of the scandal surrounding the Iran-Contra affair, conflict with Iraq (which was Iran’s long-standing enemy) and its leader, Saddam Hussein, soon eclipsed U. S. problems with Iran. • During the 1980s, Iran and Iraq had fought a prolonged war, and Hussein found himself with enormous war debts to pay. • Several times, Hussein had claimed that the oil-rich nation of Kuwait was really part of Iraq. • On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. • The Iraqi invaders looted Kuwait; then they headed toward Saudi Arabia and its oil fields

26. Operation Desert Storm • a 1991 military operation in which UN forces, led by the United States, drove Iraqi invaders from Kuwait. • The United Nations went to war in the Persian Gulf because Iraq invaded Kuwait

27. Despite his great achievement in the Persian Gulf War, President Bush was not as successful on the domestic front. • He was hurt by rising deficits and a recession that began in 1990 and lasted through most of 1992.