Ronald Reagan s CONSERVATIVE Era Explained APUSH Review

All right, it's time we talked about high noon for the new conservative movement during the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. And now let us pause so my more conservative students can feel their feels. I love him so much! I know you do, Boo, but it's time to shut all that down because I gotta stuff them mind grapes full of learning. So if you're ready to get them brain cows milked, let's get to it. Okay, now before we get to Ronald Reagan, let me do a quick run through what we covered in the last unit about how this modern conservative party got started. It started with the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964. And although he lost the election to that filthy liberal Lyndon B. Johnson, Goldwater was able to articulate on the national stage the big emphases that would define conservatism for the rest of the 20th century and beyond. In other words, the new right emphasized the transfer of political power away from the federal government and back to the states. And as such, the movement represented a clear criticism of New Deal liberalism that had emphasized the role of the federal government in curing any and all economic and social ills that Americans experienced. Despite the fact that Goldwater laid an absolute egg in his bid for the presidency, the new right secured a significant victory in 1968 with the election of President Richard Nixon, who worked to enact many policies that were dear to disgruntled conservative Americans. But since he turned out to be a crook and thus resigned the presidency in 1974, the full power of this new conservatism faltered for a moment. And so in the election of 1976, Americans elected the Democrat Jimmy Carter into office. And on his watch, America experienced a profound economic crisis and many perceived foreign policy failures. Because that clearly didn't work, the new right went ahead and got its voter mobilization pants on for the election of 1980, and as a result, Americans elected the brightest star of their right-wing universe, namely, Ronald Reagan. But before we talk about his conservative excellency, let me just mention real quick that if you need help getting an A in your class and a five on your exam in May, you might want to check out my Heimler Review Guide. It has exclusive whole unit review videos that are not here on YouTube and basically everything you need to study for that beast of an exam as fast as possible. And if that's something you're into, that link is in the description. Okay, now during his campaign, Reagan uttered a phrase that nicely summed up his conservative priorities. He said, in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. And once Reagan was elected, he got right to work putting those conservative policies into action. And those fell under two big categories. First of all, Reagan worked to cut taxes. To that end, he persuaded Congress to pass the Economic Recovery Tax Act in 1981, which significantly cut income taxes for many Americans from the wealthiest down to those who made the least income. And the tax cuts were a centerpiece of Reagan's policy because he embraced the darling economic theory of the New Right, namely, supply-side economics. Now in order to understand this, it might help to compare this system to its opposite, namely, Keynesian economics, which was behind the New Deal and Great Society programs. So by Keynesian reckoning, the best way to reverse an economic slump is for the federal government to increase its spending even if it has to go into debt to finance the cost. And then, in theory, the massive amounts of money that just got pumped into the But the consequence of implementing this theory is that the power and influence of the federal government grows in direct proportion to how much it spends. Now supply-side economics has the same end goal, namely, to revive a slumping economy, but its means are entirely different and deeply rooted in conservative ideology. So supply-siders would argue that the best way to stimulate the economy is by removing the influence of the government in Americans' lives, most notably through tax cuts. And in theory, as the wealthiest Americans and entrepreneurs are able to keep more money, they will invest that money into their businesses, which in turn will create more jobs. And if people have jobs, they'll spend more money, and all the economic problems will be solved. And this theory was based on an idea from the 1920s which said that if the richest Americans had more wealth, then eventually that wealth would trickle down to the rest of society. And you know, that definitely worked in the 1920s and did not at all lead to the most profound economic depression in modern history, so, you know, I'm sure it'll work in the 1980s. Anyway, if you want everything I just said summed up into as few words as possible, and I know that you do, then here it is. Keynesian economics focuses on the demand problem while supply-side economics focuses on the supply problem. Anyway, this push for tax cuts became so central to Reagan's presidency that it was dubbed Reaganomics and it turned out to have, uh, mixed effects. So even with all these drastic tax cuts rolling out, unemployment steadily rose for the first three years of Reagan's administration. Additionally, now that the government was taking in significantly less tax revenue, the federal deficit more than tripled. And by the way, the word deficit is going to come up a lot in the next few videos, and it's just referring to the amount of money that has to be borrowed to pay the country's bills. So if our bills cost this much, but tax revenue only gives us this much, then the deficit is the difference. So the federal deficit under Reagan got real bad, and maybe you're confused because wasn't Reagan all, Oh, I'm about to shrink that filthy government! Well, yeah, he did say that, but it's a little more complicated. So here's where I tell you that although Reagan poo-pooed federal spending, it was only a certain kind of federal spending. Like, Reagan wanted to cut very expensive social safety net programs enacted by liberal administrations like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. But even though these programs were the veritable poster children for liberalism, many Americans liked those programs and refused to let them go, which meant that the Reagan administration was still on the hook to make those payments. Even so, he was able to make some modest cuts to liberal programs like Medicaid and food stamps. But on the other hand, Reagan actually got all kinds of giddy when it came to a different kind of federal spending, namely military spending. And as we'll talk about in another video, Reagan spent metric buttloads of money on military buildup, and that cranked that deficit to levels that would have made FDR proud. Anyway, in the end, Reaganomics very much did benefit the wealthiest Americans. And with more money in their pockets, the rich invested much of that money into the stock market, which saw a significant spike in value. However, it turned out that as wealthy Americans gained more wealth, the benefits did not, in fact, trickle down to the rest of society, and that led to a widening gap between the rich and the poor. And so over the course of his two terms, Reagan was forced to sign bills that increased the tax rate in order to make up some of that lost revenue. Alright, and then the second big policy push for Reagan was the deregulation of businesses. So recall that over the course of the 20th century, several new federal agencies were created in order to oversee and regulate various areas of America's businesses. For example, the Department of Labor protected workers' wages and safety, while the Environmental Protection Agency enforced various laws concerning pollution. And so these and many other agencies actually provided good and needed services to the American public. But there was a significant downside. You see, many of the regulations imposed on these businesses cost those businesses a good chunk of money in order to make sure that their practices were in compliance with the law. And with less profits available, business owners had less money to reinvest in their companies in order to create more jobs and fund new research and development. And therefore, Reagan made it his goal to dismantle much of the government's regulation over the private sector. And to be clear, such deregulation began under Carter's administration, but Reagan kicked it into high gear. For example, Reagan worked to deregulate America's natural gas industry. You see, starting in the 1930s, the federal government passed several laws that set price controls on natural gas. And these laws were meant to keep natural gas affordable to Americans. But by the 1970s, these price controls had kept gas prices artificially low and created huge inefficiencies in distribution. Therefore, Reagan gradually phased out price controls and allowed natural gas companies to sell their product at market rates on the belief that the free market could better facilitate supply and demand than government regulation. And as a result, natural gas production increased, which in turn lowered prices, and all of that created a more stable supply. Additionally, in order to roll back the influence of other regulatory agencies, Reagan appointed leaders to those departments who were ideologically opposed to the missions of those agencies. For example, Reagan appointed a woman with serious anti-environmentalist beliefs to lead the EPA. And the result was that the agency significantly eased up on enforcing environmental protection laws. So, you know, that's fun. Okay, now we've spent quite a bit of time talking about Ronald Reagan, but that's because his policy agenda really did set the stage for national politics throughout the rest of the 20th century. And those commitments resulted in ongoing political and cultural debates that have lasted up to the present day. And that's what we're going to focus on here in this last section. But first, let me do a quick speed run After Reagan came the Republican George H.W. Bush, who promised a kinder, gentler conservatism. And while Bush promised not to raise taxes, I guess that he forgot that Reagan handed him a massive honking budget deficit, and so Bush was forced to raise taxes. And it turned out that Americans didn't like that. And so after Bush served a single term, Americans voted in the Democrat Bill Clinton, who in many ways looked a lot like a conservative on economic issues, but more like a liberal on social issues. Okay, so now let's get to the ongoing liberal First of all, liberals and conservatives debated the value of free trade agreements. So in 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which lowered barriers to trade between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. And essentially, the agreement turned these three countries into a powerful economic unit that could compete on the global market with the newly formed European Union. Now conservatives, who wholeheartedly believed in the forces of the unregulated free market, cheered this agreement. To them, which ultimately increases efficiency and lowers prices. But liberals, on the other hand, argued that as barriers to trade were stripped away, manufacturing jobs would rapidly relocate to Mexico. And if that happened at scale, then millions of American workers would be out of jobs while the corporate elite got richer since they no longer had to pay fair wages. And as it turned out, both sides were kind of rightsies. The agreement did cause a significant uptick in unregulated trade, which resulted in the loss of significant amounts of American manufacturing jobs as corporations relocated their operations where labor was cheaper. And to be fair, that whole debate is not as tidy as I just explained. Like, some conservatives opposed NAFTA while some liberals endorsed it, but on the whole, that's how it was. Okay, the second debate was about the proper scope of government's safety net policies. So Bill Clinton made it a priority of his administration to enact sweeping health care reform because medical costs were skyrocketing and millions of Americans could not afford health insurance. Therefore, he proposed a complicated policy that would have allowed the federal government to play a significant role in offering health care at minimal cost to Americans. And not surprisingly, congressional conservatives loudly protested what to them sounded like the old New Deal kind of government overreach into the lives of Americans. And ultimately, the bill proposed by Clinton was voted down by Congress. Anyway, here's where I tell you that the rancorous debate over that health care bill significantly influenced the midterm elections later that year in 1994. And as it turned out, Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress and soon began to wield that power to bring conservatism back to the American public. And the most visible effort on this front came from Georgia Representative Newt Gingrich, who became the first conservative Speaker of the House in nearly 50 years. And during his campaign, Gingrich courted conservative voters by presenting what he called a contract with America. It outlined a whole host of conservative policies that, on the whole, would dismantle the corrupt liberal welfare state while working for further deregulation of industries and generally shrinking the size of the federal government. But ultimately, Gingrich was such a bombastic man with little patience for compromise, and that meant that relatively few of his contract policies were enacted. Okay, and then the third continuing debate centered on the push for traditional vs. progressive social values. So picking up on the arguments from the last period, conservatives continued to argue that liberal policies had led to a manifest decay in traditional family values. For example, conservatives complained that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion was an attack against the rights of the unborn. However, equally upsetting to conservatives was the growing influence of second-wave feminism and the women's liberation movement. You see, the push for women's social equality challenged the conservative notion that society functioned best when men and women submit to assigned gender roles, which essentially meant that men do the work and women stay at home and serve. And then adding fuel to this particular fire was the intertwining of evangelical Christian beliefs with conservative Republican politics. You see, the evangelicals came equipped with a fistful of Bible verses that they believed commanded female submission. And with evangelical leaders like Pat Robertson emphasizing such teachings through his enormously popular show The 700 Club, conservatism was infused with a powerful religious zeal. And so it was difficult to discern whether the new right's opposition to abortion concerned the rights of the unborn or whether it was more of a reaction to women upending their preferred norm for family structure. And then another example of the conservative traditional values debate was the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Now because this novel virus first began spreading rapidly among gay men, the conservative Reagan administration did very little to address the tens of thousands of Americans who were dying from the disease. In fact, some Christian leaders of the new right, including Pat Robertson, claimed that the reason the disease was killing gay men is because they were under God's judgment for their embrace of a perverted lifestyle. Anyway, the point is, Reagan had won the presidency in no small part thanks to the support of the Christian right, and so he worried that any move on his part to address the epidemic might alienate them. Even so, eventually the Reagan administration did act to address this crisis, but it was far too little, far too late. But on the flip side, this injustice mobilized gay activists to organize the Act Up movement, through which they staged public protests aimed at securing better funding for AIDS research and relief. And finally, the fourth major debate was about immigration policy. So immigration numbers rose significantly during the 1970s after legal quotas were removed in 1965, and a large portion of those immigrants came from Mexico. And in response to such a surge, conservatives themselves were divided as to the proper response. Some conservatives took up the old arguments that immigrants stole jobs from Americans and they were unable to fully assimilate into American society. But others, although a minority, attempted to remind everyone that America was largely built on the benefits conferred by immigrants, not least their contribution to the economy. And as it happened, Reagan fashioned a compromise between these antagonistic groups with the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This law allowed undocumented immigrants who had lived in the United States for a certain period of time to remain in the country and work toward gaining their citizenship. But on the other hand, it also enacted economic penalties for businesses who hired undocumented immigrants. Okay, you can click here to watch my other Unit 9 videos, or you can click here to grab my A-Push Heimler Review Guide, which has everything you need to help you get a 5 on your exam in May. I'm glad you came around, and I'll catch you on the flip-flop. Heimler out.