1. Warm Up Partner Work Divide up Conservative Readings (SKIP CARTER)
HIPP + Questions after each

2. The Presidency of Ronald Regan

3. All of this, taken together, inspired a backlash amongst more traditional, conservative, white, Christian voters.

4. Groups like Moral Majority, founded by Christian pastor Jerry Falwell, sought to use the political process to return America to a time of “traditional family values.”

5. -New Right, Conservative Coalition, Moral Majority
Conservative Shift
-New Right, Conservative Coalition, Moral Majority
-smaller gov., less spending
-unrestrained free market capitalism
-Lower taxes
-Less gov. assistance to those in need
-hard-line against communism and USSR

6. In 1980, Ronald Reagan hoped to ride this growing “New Right” ideology into the White House.

7. - Carter is incompetent.
- Are you better off now, than you were four years ago?
- It’s morning again in America.

9. First Term
(Technically it’s )

10. In his inaugural address, Reagan summed up the neo-conservative mindset: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”

11. Congress passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 which cut tax rates by 25% over 3 years.
This was the largest tax cut in American history. How was it supposed to help the economy recover?

12. Reaganomics
-supply-side economics: tax cuts to businesses so they expand, provide more services, and help economy grow
-”trickle down economics”
-economy began to respond to policies

13. Congress also passed the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981 which cut $136 Billion from 200 government programs over 2 years.

14. Many of the programs that were cut had come out of the New Deal and the Great Society. They were primarily designed to help out those Americans most in need.

15. The neo-conservatives argued that money spent on programs to help the poor was money wasted, and that it was not the job of the government to help out those in need.

16. Taken together, the tax cuts and the cuts for social welfare programs resulted in a growing gap between the rich and the poor. The rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.

17. Conservative Policies
-Reagan and Bush appoint conservative Justices
-Chief Justice William Rehnquist
Sandra Day O’Connor- 1st women Supreme Court Judge

18. However, in dealing with the Soviet Union, Reagan contradicted his own commitment to a balanced budget. Reagan believed that U.S. national security demanded lots and lots of government spending.

19. His ultimate goal was to win the Cold War.
Reagan was not merely content to continue America’s long standing policy of containing the spread of communism.
He described the Soviet Union as the “focus of evil in the modern world.”
His ultimate goal was to win the Cold War.

20. Cold War Escalates
-Reagan had been a hardliner against communism
-increased military spending
Star Wars or SDI: Strategic Defense Initiative: create massive satellite shield over US to prevent USSR missile attack
Cost $1.1 trillion and not effective
BUT…… did it end the Cold War??

22. Reagan’s plan was incredibly successful in that the Soviet Union felt pressure to keep up with America. In doing so they focused their almost the entirety of their economy on military production.

23. Cold War Escalates

24. Between 1981 and 1988 Reagan’s military spending increased 50%
Between 1981 and 1988 Reagan’s military spending increased 50%. He had no hope of balancing the budget. U.S. debt exploded and America became the largest debtor nation in the world.

25. Reagan also spent billions of dollars helping stop the spread of communism in various places around the world.

26. The most important example was his support for groups in Afghanistan fighting against the Soviet invasion.

27. Through the CIA, the U.S. provided billions of dollars of weapons and military training to a group known as the Mujahedeen, Afghanis fighting against the Soviets.

28. Some Muslims were concerned about the impact the Soviet invasion would have on Afghanistan's Islamic population and went to join the fight against the Soviets.

29. One such Muslim left his wealthy life in Saudi Arabia, joined the Mujahedeen and received weapons from the U.S.
His name?
Osama Bin Laden

30. Latin America
-Iran-Contra Scandal---weapons secretly sold to Iran in exchange for money to be given to anti-communism Contras of Nicaragua
- Illegal and an embarrassment
-Grenada---effort to prevent communist rule
-Panama---arrest of General Noriega to stop flow of illegal drugs

31. More important than any of that stuff, was Regan’s dealings with the Soviet Union.

32. 3 different leaders in less than 3 years hurt the Soviet government’s ability to deal with large problems facing the nation.

33. By the late 1970s the Soviet economy was shrinking.
Industrial and farm production, population growth, education, and medical care all fell.
The Soviet Union started importing food. (Great Grain Deal, Helsinki Accords)

34. Mikhail Gorbachev realized three things had to happen, and happen quickly, if the Soviet Union was going to survive.

35. 1. The USSR had to END the Arms Race
2. Reform their economy (perestroika)
3. Allow for political openness (glasnost)

36. To that end Gorbachev pushed for face to face meetings with Reagan.
The two met four times between 1985 and 1988 and signed a treaty reducing the size of both nation’s nuclear arsenals.

37. Allowed for free, democratic elections in the Soviet Union by 1989.
Perestroika
Brought in some capitalist style reform to the economy, allowing factory managers to operate free from government control.
Allowed for free, democratic elections in the Soviet Union by 1989.

38. - Slowly Soviet citizens began to speak out.
Glasnost
- Lifted media censorship, allowing public criticism of the government. Gorbachev held press interviews.
- Slowly Soviet citizens began to speak out.
- They complained about the price of food, of empty store shelves, and of their sons dying in Afghanistan.

39. The call for glasnost and perestroika awakened a spirit of nationalism and independence in the nations of the Eastern European Iron Curtain.

40. Without Soviet support, the communist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed beginning in 1989.

41. The Berlin Wall remained a repressive symbol of Soviet communism.
To calm rising protests in East Germany, the government opened the gates of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.
Thousands of East Berliners poured into West Berlin.
People pulled down the razor wire and spontaneously began ripping down the wall with axes and sledgehammers and their bare hands.

42. Beginning in 1990, states of the Soviet Union itself began declaring their independence.

43. In 1991 Gorbachev resigned as leader of the Soviet Union which essentially ceased to exist as a country.

44. Russia, the largest state of the Soviet Union, inherited power, problems, nuclear weapons, etc. from the U.S.S.R. but would never have as much power or influence.

45. The Cold War was over.

46. Social Issues
-AIDS: researching for cure was expensive, conservative backlash against Gay rights
-Abortion: wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade decision
-Drug Abuse
Just Say No
-Graying of America
-baby boomers: problem with their collection of social security which increased taxes

47. Education Reforms
-”A Nation at Risk”
-educational debate about reform
School voucher debate

48. Equal Rights Struggle Continues
-ERA fails, equal pay issues remain
-African Americans are elected to major political positions
-Geraldine Ferraro (1st female VP to run)
Title IX: prevents discrimination based on sex in colleges

49. Europe and Asia
-Soviets withdraw some troops in late 80’s
-Democracy movements begin in former satellite nations in E. Europe
-Nov Berlin Wall is destroyed
Germany reunites
China experiences democratic protests
1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre: one million student protesters are fired on by military

51. Soviet Collapse
-Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power, 1985
-Glasnost: political openness
-Perestroika: restructuring their economy to include some free enterprise
-1991 coup attempted
Boris Yeltsin- new leader of RUSSIA (not USSR)
-Communist Party disbanded
-14 Republics of USSR begin to separate
-Nuclear concerns (sign INF Treaty which destroys weapons)

52. Desert War
-George Bush’s Presidency
Promises no more taxes but cannot deliver
-Iraq invades Kuwait
Saddam Hussein: leader of Iraq who was anti-Western influence in the Middle East
-Operation Desert Storm
Colin Powell: top military advisor/officer in the nation
military efforts to repeal Iraq from Kuwait