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History of the United States II / Unit 18   USH2 2585 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds

The New Right

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The idea

The New Right of entry 2252 carried Reagan to office in nineteen eighty, drawing on White southerners, suburban Catholics and evangelical Christians. The Yawp traces it to alarm at the Great Society, worry over deficits, and White southerners leaving the Democrats after the civil rights laws. The Religious Right of entry 2263, Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, opposed legal abortion, feminism and sex education in the schools, and Phyllis Schlafly's STOP ERA, entry 2265, helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.

In practice

Three strands in one coalition: economic conservatives, evangelical Christians and opponents of the ERA.

Where people slip

The confusion to avoid is treating conservatism as one idea. The New Right joined a case against federal spending and taxes, entries 2253 and 2256, to a case about family and faith, entry 2263. Entry 2307 records the Yawp's judgement that the rise of the right promised more than it delivered.

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