From Cold War to Culture War, 1980–2000

This is Unit Sixteen, part one, on Reagan's America: a new majority, supply-side economics, the Religious Right, and the war on drugs. Unit Fifteen closed on why the war in Vietnam was lost and what Watergate meant, and ended on the day the hostages came home, which is where this unit begins. Carry one observation through this part: some of the course's long arcs reverse here. In unit eleven the federal government stood behind the right to organise; here it breaks a union. And watch a chain the anchor states plainly, from how a drug was punished to who went to prison. By the end you will be able to explain who built Reagan's coalition. To explain supply-side economics and its results. To explain why the air traffic controllers' strike reverses the course's labour arc. To trace the chain from crack penalties to mass incarceration. And to describe the AIDS crisis and the response to it.

Two entries on the election of nineteen eighty, and the coalition behind it.

The election of nineteen eighty.

USH2 2251 The Election of 1980

In nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan defeated Carter, carrying forty-three states and almost fifty-one percent of the popular vote to Carter's forty-one, Digital History records, after asking voters whether they were better off than four years before. Only fifty-two percent of eligible voters went to the polls, the anchor says, the lowest turnout since nineteen forty-eight.

The New Right.

USH2 2252 The New Right

The anchor credits Reagan's victory to dissatisfaction with Ford and Carter and to the growth of the New Right, and Digital History lists his support: 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.

Four entries on supply-side economics: the theory, its first critic, a shooting, and the tax cut.

Supply-side economics.

USH2 2253 Supply-Side Economics

Influenced by the economist Arthur Laffer, Reagan lowered income taxes on the highest earners, expecting the rich to invest and the gains to reach workers as jobs, and the Yawp says the administration touted the Laffer Curve to justify the plan. Congressman Jack Kemp, it adds, promised it would unleash America's creative genius.

Its first critic.

USH2 2254 Voodoo Economics

During the Republican primaries of nineteen eighty, George H. W. Bush had called supply-side theory voodoo economics, the anchor and the Yawp both record, a phrase from the rival who became Reagan's vice president. The course names the critic because the anchor does: the doubt came from inside Reagan's own party.

An attempt on Reagan's life.

USH2 2255 An Assassination Attempt

On March thirtieth, nineteen eighty-one, Reagan survived an assassination attempt by a mentally unstable young man, John Hinckley, the Yawp records, and public support swelled for the president in his hospital bed. The Yawp says the sympathy helped carry his tax bill through Congress with significant Democratic support.

The tax cut.

USH2 2256 The Tax Cut of 1981

On July twenty-ninth, nineteen eighty-one, Congress passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act, phasing in a twenty-five percent cut in taxes over three years, five percent in the first year and ten in each of the next two, as Digital History gives them. The Yawp says the bill reduced overall federal taxes by more than a quarter.

Five entries: a strike broken, a recession and recovery, a second tax bill, the debt, and a decade that celebrated wealth.

The air traffic controllers.

USH2 2257 The Air Traffic Controllers

In August nineteen eighty-one the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, one of the few unions that had endorsed Reagan, struck for better conditions. Reagan ordered the controllers back to work and fired those who refused, a president who had called himself an old union man, in the Yawp's words, breaking a strike of federal workers. The count differs by source: twelve thousand in the anchor, more than eleven thousand in the Yawp, fifteen thousand in Digital History, which calls the firing a devastating blow to organised labour. It reverses the course's labour arc: in unit eleven the Wagner Act put Washington behind the right to organise; here the federal government broke a union.

Recession and recovery.

USH2 2258 Recession and Recovery

A deep recession in Reagan's first years pushed unemployment to about ten percent, its highest level since the Great Depression, the anchor records, and growth resumed in nineteen eighty-three, averaging four and a half percent for the rest of his presidency. By the end of his second term unemployment had fallen to about five point three percent.

The tax reform of nineteen eighty-six.

USH2 2259 The Tax Reform of 1986

In nineteen eighty-six the administration pushed through a second tax bill cutting the top rate for the wealthiest Americans to twenty-eight percent while closing loopholes, Digital History records. The Yawp notes that despite steep cuts for corporations and the wealthy, the public's overall tax burden stayed about the same, and regressive payroll taxes rose.

The debt.

USH2 2260 The Debt

By the end of Reagan's second term the nation was nearly three trillion dollars in debt, the anchor says; the Yawp gives two point seven trillion in nineteen eighty-nine, and Digital History records defence spending doubled to over three hundred thirty billion dollars by nineteen eighty-seven. The Yawp says more than eighty percent of the budget went to defence, entitlements and interest.

The celebration of wealth.

USH2 2261 The Celebration of Wealth

Digital History calls the nineteen eighties a decade celebrating wealth, when one hundred thousand Americans became millionaires every year and the television hit Dynasty celebrated glamour and greed. Yet the average annual earnings of the poorest fifth of Americans fell from nine thousand three hundred seventy-six dollars to eight thousand eight hundred, Digital History records.

Four entries on the Religious Right: a landslide, a moral majority, television ministries, and the campaign that ended the ERA.

The election of nineteen eighty-four.

USH2 2262 The Election of 1984

In nineteen eighty-four Reagan and Vice President Bush won a landslide over Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major party's ticket for vice president, with Reagan taking fifty-six percent of the women's vote to the Democrats' forty-four, the anchor records. The anchor credits his middle position on some women's issues for the result.

The Religious Right.

USH2 2263 The Religious Right

Evangelical Christians in Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, founded in the late nineteen seventies, opposed legal abortion, feminism and sex education in the public schools, and sixty-one percent of its members voted for Reagan, the anchor records. The Yawp says the organisation helped cement the New Christian Right's place in American politics.

Television ministries.

USH2 2264 Television Ministries

Christian television programmes such as Pat Robertson's The Seven Hundred Club and Jim Bakker's The PTL Club proved enormously popular and raised millions from viewers, the anchor records, and Robertson, the Yawp notes, made a long-shot run for the Republican nomination in nineteen eighty-eight. His Christian Coalition later helped mobilise social conservatives in nineteen ninety-four.

The campaign against the ERA.

USH2 2265 STOP ERA

Phyllis Schlafly's STOP ERA movement, whose name stood for Stop Taking Our Privileges, argued that women enjoyed special privileges such as separate restrooms and exemption from the draft. The anchor calls Schlafly a major reason the amendment of unit fifteen went down to defeat.

Two entries on the war on drugs, and the prisons it filled.

The war on drugs.

USH2 2266 The War on Drugs

Nancy Reagan's campaign urged young people to say no to drugs, and politicians competed to enact harsher sentences for drug offences, the anchor says, setting crack penalties far above those for equal amounts of powder cocaine, a costlier drug used more by White people. State after state adopted mandatory minimum sentences, and federal guidelines removed judges' discretion.

Mass incarceration.

USH2 2267 Mass Incarceration

The sentencing laws produced what the anchor calls a new age of mass incarceration. California's three strikes law of the nineteen nineties mandated life without parole for any third felony, even a nonviolent one, and by the century's end the number of prisoners in the nation had grown fourfold in twenty-five years, with African Americans seven times more likely to be in prison, the anchor records. The anchor states the chain plainly: penalties designed around crack, then incarceration, then disparity. The Yawp adds that politicians of both parties and law enforcement policed minority communities more aggressively. The policy's own terms were law and order and toughness on crime; the course states those aims alongside the numbers, and keeps the numbers.

Three entries: the AIDS epidemic, the activists who answered it, and a fight over warning labels.

The AIDS epidemic.

USH2 2268 AIDS

AIDS appeared in the early nineteen eighties, striking mostly gay men, the Yawp says, and in nineteen eighty-two New Yorkers formed the Gay Men's Health Crisis, with a volunteer hotline, counselling and legal aid. In nineteen eighty-three Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier found that a virus, later named HIV, caused AIDS, the anchor records.

ACT UP.

USH2 2269 Silence Equals Death

In nineteen eighty-five the actor Rock Hudson announced his AIDS diagnosis, and in nineteen eighty-seven activists in New York founded ACT UP, under a pink triangle above the words Silence equals death, which the anchor says became the crisis's symbol. That year Reagan convened a commission on AIDS, the Yawp records; research spending reached a quarter of what experts advised.

Warning labels on records.

USH2 2270 The Parents Music Resource Center

In nineteen eighty-five Susan Baker and Tipper Gore, wives of Washington politicians, founded the Parents Music Resource Center to seek warning labels on records, and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider and the folk musician John Denver advised Congress against the restrictions. The recording industry settled on a voluntary generic label, which musicians roundly mocked, the anchor says.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain who built Reagan's coalition: White southerners, suburban Catholics and evangelical Christians, with the Moral Majority behind him. You can explain supply-side economics: tax cuts at the top meant to reach workers as jobs, then a recession, growth, a tax burden that stayed the same, and a debt near three trillion dollars. You can explain why the air traffic controllers' strike reverses the labour arc. The federal government that once stood behind the right to organise broke a union. You can trace the chain from crack penalties to a fourfold rise in prisoners, with African Americans seven times more likely to be imprisoned. And you can describe the AIDS crisis and the response: the Gay Men's Health Crisis, ACT UP, and research funded at a quarter of what experts advised.