Contextualizing Period 9 in two minutes
- Period 9 runs from 1980 to the present. Ronald Reagan took office on January 20, 1981, the day Iran released 52 American hostages after 444 days.
- Causes of the conservative turn: stagflation, with inflation at 13.5 percent in 1980, the hostage crisis, and falling trust in government after the Vietnam War and Watergate.
- Reagan's coalition joined free-market conservatives, evangelical Christians and Cold War hawks. Blue-collar Democrats, later called Reagan Democrats, also voted for him, and he won 44 states and 489 electoral votes.
- Reagan promised to shrink the government that Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson built, so the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society became a lasting political fight.
- Four other changes followed: the Cold War ended by 1991, computers and trade reshaped work, immigration from Asia and Latin America grew, and the September 11 attacks began a war on terrorism.
- Continuity and change: the South and West kept gaining people and political weight, and Social Security survived the conservative turn, while technology, trade and immigration changed work and communities.
- On the exam: Contextualization questions ask you to link the 1970s economic and political troubles to the rise of conservatism and to compare Reagan-era conservatism with New Deal liberalism.
Topic 9.1 key terms
- Conservative movement
The movement that won the White House in 1980, arguing for a smaller federal government and for traditional social values. It kept shaping the argument over government long after Reagan left office.
- Iran hostage crisis
On November 4, 1979, militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans for 444 days. They flew out on January 20, 1981, less than an hour after Reagan took office.
- New Deal and the Great Society
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal built Social Security. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society added Medicare and more aid for the poor. Reagan promised to shrink that government.
- Reagan Revolution
Reagan's program to reduce that government: lower taxes, less spending on welfare, a larger military, and a more conservative federal court.
- Contextualization
Placing an event inside the bigger developments that shaped it. The AP exam asks for this in every essay. Here the event is Reagan's 1980 victory. The years before it are the context: prices, the hostages, and the coalition that had been building since the 1970s.
- Misery index
Inflation plus unemployment. Carter used it against Ford in 1976. Reagan turned it on Carter in 1980, when the monthly sum reached 21.98 in June.
- New Right
The coalition of economic conservatives, religious conservatives, and anticommunists that grew in the 1970s and elected Reagan. Topic 8.14 tells how it formed.
- Reagan Democrats
White working-class voters, often in unions, who had backed Democrats since the New Deal and voted for Reagan in 1980 and 1984. Their switch broke up the New Deal coalition.
- Sun Belt
The fast-growing South and Southwest. After the 1980 census, those regions and the West gained House seats from the Northeast and Midwest.
Transcript
Quotes are from the historical record and name their source. Lines marked Dramatized are reconstructions.
Two Clocks
January 20, 1981
Key terms: Conservative movement, Iran hostage crisis, New Deal and the Great Society, Reagan Revolution
WASHINGTON 11:57 A.M. TEHRAN 8:27 P.M.
January 20, 1981. For the first time, a president takes the oath on the Capitol's West Front, facing down the Mall.
Ronald Reagan
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.
Six thousand miles east, in Tehran, it's almost nine at night.
Two Algerian airliners start their engines. One of them carries fifty-two Americans, hostages for 444 days.
They took off at about 12:25, Washington time. Jimmy Carter worked his last night to free them. He had been out of office less than half an hour.
The new president told Congress at lunch.
Some 30 minutes ago, the planes bearing our prisoners left Iranian airspace and are now free of Iran.
Reagan had promised to shrink the government that Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson built. What would he cut, and what would voters refuse to give up?
Are You Better Off?
1976–1981
Key terms: Contextualization, Misery index, New Right, Reagan Democrats, Sun Belt
To explain an election, start with the years before it.
In 1980, prices rose 13.5 percent.
Every night, the news counted the days the hostages had been held.
Reagan's coalition had three parts: free-market conservatives, evangelical Christians and Cold War hawks.
A week before the vote, they debated in Cleveland. Carter said Reagan had campaigned against Medicare.
There you go again.
Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?
Reagan won 44 states and 489 electoral votes to Carter's 49.
Millions of blue-collar Democrats had voted for him. Pollsters later called them Reagan Democrats.
Republicans won the Senate for the first time in 26 years.
Five currents run through the years ahead.
Five currents run through the years ahead. A conservative turn, the Cold War's end, computers and closed mills, new immigrants, and after 2001, a war on terrorism.