The Rise of the Right

2017-11-29

  • Write down, in less than a sentence, your essay topic on the top of a piece of paper.
  • Pass it to the right
  • On the other persons page, write:
    1. Whether you think this monuments should actually be build (cost excepted).
    1. One group of people who would disagree.
    1. Fold over what you wrote, but not the description of the essay: repeat.

The End of the New Deal Coalition

Party Politics, 1932-1968

New Deal Coalition Republican Party
Southern Whites Middle-class Western and Northern Whites
African Americans (in net) --
Labor Unions Anti-Communists
Working class, urban machines Businessmen and educated professionals
Catholics (somewhat) Protestants (somewhat)

US Political History Since 1974

  1. Conservative Southern Democrats slowly disappear
  2. Republicans get much more conservative, both socially and fiscally
  3. Democrats get more liberal socially, more conservative fiscally.

Democratic Goals, 1972-2016

  1. Protection of New Deal/Great Society Programs
  2. Universal Health Care
  3. Expansion and protection of rights for women and minorities.


(Joe Biden, first elected to the Senate in 1972)

Republican Goals, 1972-2016

  1. Anti-Counter-Culture agenda.
  2. "Southern Strategy": detach Southern Whites.
  3. Pessimism in Government.
  4. Taxes, Taxes, Taxes.
  5. Mobilize Evangelical Christians.

Nixonland

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

Kevin Philips, Nixon Strategist.

Nixon's Major Policies Achievements

  1. Environmental Protection Agency (1970)
  2. Endangered Species Act, Improvements to 1967 Clean Air Act
  3. Normalization of relations with Communist China
  4. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

The Legitimation Crisis and the Transition of the 1970s

Oil Prices, 1860-2015



Decline of Organized Labor

Christian Politics

Groups up for grabs in the 1970s, politically:

  • (White) Christian Evangelicals
  • Women
  • Southern Whites
  • (Northern) Catholics

The Tax Revolt