From Cold War to Culture War, 1980–2000

This is Unit Sixteen, part three, on the Gulf War, the Clinton years, the election of two thousand, and the unit's two closing questions. Part two closed with the end of the Soviet Union, and pointed to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Carry one habit through this part: count results more than one way. A war won in a hundred hours left commitments behind it. A Democratic president redrew the New Deal's promise of support. And the unit closes on two questions whose answers depend on what is counted: why the Cold War ended, and whether Reaganomics succeeded. By the end you will be able to describe the Gulf War and what followed. To describe Clinton's New Democrat programme. To describe the fights over health care and gay rights. To explain the election of two thousand. And to answer the unit's two closing questions.

Three entries: Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the war that reversed it, and a civil rights law.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

USH2 2290 Iraq Invades Kuwait

On August second, nineteen ninety, some eighty thousand Iraqi troops invaded and occupied Kuwait, the oil-rich emirate on the Persian Gulf, Digital History records, and Bush declared on August sixth: this aggression will not stand. Digital History notes that in the nineteen seventies and eighties the United States and others had sold Iraq much of its arsenal.

Desert Storm.

USH2 2291 Desert Storm

Bush assembled an international coalition of thirty-four countries against Iraq, and won a United Nations resolution permitting force if Iraq did not withdraw by January fifteenth, nineteen ninety-one. An air campaign came first, breaking morale so badly that an estimated thirty percent of Baghdad's forces deserted, Digital History records. Then Operation Desert Storm, a land war of one hundred hours involving over five hundred thousand American troops, drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The misreading measures the war by its speed alone. Sanctions, weapons inspections and no-fly zones followed, the Yawp records, with American warplanes patrolling Iraqi skies. The United States stayed committed in the region, as unit seventeen shows.

The Civil Rights Act of nineteen ninety-one.

USH2 2292 The Civil Rights Act of 1991

In November nineteen ninety-one Bush signed a compromise Civil Rights Act that made it easier for workers to win discrimination lawsuits, Digital History records, strengthening unit fourteen's Title VII in the courtroom. The Yawp says political and cultural conservatism still reigned, in one historian's phrase the Age of Reagan.

Four entries on a New Democrat: the election, the candidate, free trade, and a surplus.

The election of nineteen ninety-two.

USH2 2293 The Election of 1992

In nineteen ninety-two Arkansas governor Bill Clinton won with forty-three percent of the popular vote and three hundred seventy electoral votes to Bush's one hundred eighty-eight, with Ross Perot taking nineteen percent, the best third-party showing since nineteen twelve, the anchor records. Bush, at ninety percent approval after the Gulf War, won thirty-eight percent amid a stagnating economy, Digital History notes.

The New Democrat.

USH2 2294 The New Democrat

Clinton framed himself as a New Democrat, the Yawp says, a centrist open to free trade, tax cuts and welfare reform, and the first baby boomer to make a serious run for the presidency, who played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. He promised, Digital History records, to end welfare as we know it.

NAFTA.

USH2 2295 NAFTA

Congress ratified the North American Free Trade Agreement late in nineteen ninety-three, ending tariffs and trade barriers between the United States, Canada and Mexico, in the anchor's measure the world's largest common market by population, some four hundred twenty-five million people. The anchor presents NAFTA as part of Clinton's economically conservative New Democrat programme.

The budget.

USH2 2296 The Budget Surplus

Higher tax revenue and budget cuts turned a deficit of close to two hundred ninety billion dollars in nineteen ninety-two into a record surplus of over two hundred thirty billion in two thousand. The Yawp notes that the debt had ballooned despite earlier Republican vows of discipline.

Three entries on health care and gay rights, and the compromises of the Clinton years.

Health care reform.

USH2 2297 Health Care Reform

A task force led by Hillary Clinton produced the one thousand three hundred forty-two-page Health Security Act of nineteen ninety-three, seeking universal coverage, with employers required to cover employees, no one refused for pre-existing conditions, and the poor paying nothing. Opponents called it Hillarycare, an unwarranted expansion of federal power, and it failed; unit seventeen takes up the question again.

Gay service members.

USH2 2298 Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Clinton pledged to lift the fifty-year ban on gay and lesbian service members, but in January nineteen ninety-three, to appease conservatives, he adopted the policy of don't ask, don't tell: service members were not asked their orientation, and were dismissed if they discussed it openly. The anchor says the compromise satisfied neither conservatives nor the gay and lesbian community.

The Defense of Marriage Act.

USH2 2299 The Defense of Marriage Act

In September nineteen ninety-six Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of same-sex marriage and the federal benefits that go with it, after both houses passed it by margins wide enough, the anchor says, to override any veto. The anchor calls the signature another step to appease political conservatives.

Four entries on the Republican Congress: a contract, welfare reform, impeachment, and acquittal.

The Contract with America.

USH2 2300 The Contract with America

In nineteen ninety-four Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey drafted the Contract with America, a conservative legislative blueprint signed by all but two House Republicans, candidates pledging on the Capitol steps to enact it if the party won the House, the Yawp records. Republicans won control of both houses of Congress that November, Digital History records.

Welfare reform.

USH2 2301 Welfare Reform

In August nineteen ninety-six Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, setting time limits on welfare benefits and requiring most recipients to find work within two years of first receiving aid. Unit eleven's promise of federal support was redrawn here by a Democratic president and a Republican Congress.

Impeachment.

USH2 2302 Impeachment

Investigating Clinton, Starr obtained evidence of his affair with Monica Lewinsky, and in September nineteen ninety-eight reported to the House that he believed the president had committed perjury. In December the House, voting along partisan lines, sent articles of impeachment to the Senate for lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The Yawp calls the impeachment a wildly unpopular step.

The Senate trial.

USH2 2303 Acquittal

In February nineteen ninety-nine the Senate acquitted Clinton: fifty senators voted to convict on obstruction of justice and forty-five on perjury, far short of the two-thirds needed. Andrew Johnson's acquittal in unit one, by a single vote, was the only earlier presidential trial. Clinton completed his term.

Two entries on the election of two thousand, and the Court that settled it.

The election of two thousand.

USH2 2304 The Election of 2000

In two thousand Vice President Al Gore won about five hundred forty thousand more votes than George W. Bush, but the presidency turned on Florida, where Bush's official margin was five hundred thirty-seven votes, as Digital History records, amid lawsuits and recounts. Digital History calls it the first election in one hundred twelve years won by the popular vote's loser.

Bush v. Gore.

USH2 2305 Bush v. Gore

Gore objected that not every ballot had been recounted by hand. After Florida's Supreme Court ordered the recount to go on, Republicans appealed, and the Supreme Court decided five to four to stop it; a narrow majority, Digital History says, held that the recount violated the principle that all votes must be treated equally. Bush received Florida's electoral votes and won the Electoral College two hundred seventy-one to two hundred sixty-six. The misreading treats the outcome as unprecedented. Digital History's hundred and twelve years reach back to eighteen eighty-eight, when Benjamin Harrison also won while losing the popular vote. The Court's role was new; the split between popular and electoral votes was not.

Two entries to close the unit: why the Cold War ended, and what Reaganomics achieved.

Why the Cold War ended.

USH2 2306 Why the Cold War Ended

The sources support more than one answer. The first reading credits American pressure: Reagan's military build-up, the Strategic Defense Initiative and his refusal to accept the Soviet Union as permanent, from the evil empire of nineteen eighty-three to the demand at the Berlin Wall. The Yawp says Gorbachev reached out to end an arms race that was bankrupting the Soviet Union. The second credits Gorbachev's choices: glasnost and perestroika, the end of the party's monopoly, competitive elections, and his decision to let the Eastern Bloc go. The third looks inside the Soviet Union, and the Yawp puts the weight there: a stagnant economy, a costly war in Afghanistan, dissident factions in Eastern Europe and internal dissent. Two misreadings sit on either side. One says Reagan won the Cold War single-handedly, which the Yawp's emphasis on internal causes, and the trust built at the summits, contradict. The other says American policy played no part, which the arms race and Gorbachev's outreach contradict. The course's position: American pressure, Soviet failure and Gorbachev's choices all mattered, and the sources weigh the internal causes most.

Reaganomics' record.

USH2 2307 Reaganomics' Record

It depends on which result is counted, and the anchor's own judgement is mixed. On one side stand the recovery figures: after a recession that pushed unemployment to about ten percent, growth resumed in nineteen eighty-three, averaging four and a half percent, and unemployment fell to about five point three percent. The Yawp adds that conservatives celebrated the end of hyperinflation, and Digital History records disposable income per person, adjusted for inflation, rising twenty percent after nineteen eighty. On the other side stand the costs: a debt near three trillion dollars, an overall tax burden that stayed about the same while regressive payroll taxes rose, and falling earnings for the poorest fifth while a hundred thousand Americans a year became millionaires. The Yawp notes that the New Deal and Great Society programmes survived, battered but intact, and concludes that the rise of the right promised more than it delivered. Two misreadings sit on either side: a clean success, which the debt and widening gap contradict; and a failure, which the recovery and the fall of inflation contradict. The course keeps the anchor's judgement mixed.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe the Gulf War: a coalition of thirty-four nations, a hundred-hour land war, and sanctions, inspections and no-fly zones afterward. You can describe Clinton's New Democrat programme: NAFTA, a deficit turned to surplus, and welfare reform with time limits, signed with a Republican Congress. You can describe the fights over health care and gay rights: universal coverage defeated, don't ask, don't tell, and the Defense of Marriage Act. You can explain the election of two thousand, settled five to four by the Court, and why a split between popular and electoral votes was not new. And you can answer the two closing questions. Pressure, Soviet failure and Gorbachev's choices ended the Cold War, and Reaganomics' record is mixed.