Post-Watergate: Anger,
Apathy, Alienation
Q. How did the 1970s set the stage for the 1980s?
Malaise: n. 2. A vague or
unfocused feeling of mental
uneasiness, lethargy, or
discomfort.
I. Economic Malaise
 End
of the “golden era”: 1947-1973
 A)
Underlying structural reasons:
relative economic decline
“Benefits” of bombing
 A)
Underlying structural reasons:
relative economic decline
 B) Policy mistakes: LBJ and RMN
 A)
Underlying structural reasons:
relative economic decline
 B) Policy mistakes: LBJ and RMN
 C) OPEC and Oil Shock:
“stagflation”
 A)
Underlying structural reasons:
relative economic decline
 B) Policy mistakes: LBJ and RMN
 C) OPEC and Oil Shock:
“stagflation”
 Stagnation
+ inflation began before,
but oil shock worsened Fed + Pres
errors
II. Political Malaise
A. A Ford, Not a Lincoln
II. Political Malaise
A.
B.
“A Ford, Not a Lincoln”
Jimmy Carter: Problems without
Solutions
Campaign '80
Which message will resonate with voters?
"Let's talk better mileage" "Kill the Bastards"
- Jimmy Carter
- Ronald Reagan
Fake: From “The Onion”
II. Political Malaise
A.
B.
C.
“A Ford, Not a Lincoln”
Jimmy Carter: Problems without
Solutions
Decline in Voter Participation
- all the same, why care?
% Voter Turnout Presidential
Elections: 1964-1988
65
60
55
50
45
40
1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988
III. Cultural Malaise: The “Me”
Decade
 San
Francisco
 A) People’s Temple: Jim Jones—
Don’t Drink the KoolAid
Jonestown, Guyana
November 18, 1978
III. Cultural Malaise
 San
Francisco
 A) People’s Temple: Jim Jones—
Don’t Drink the KoolAid
 B) Patty Hearst and the Symbionese
Liberation Army
III. Cultural Malaise

San Francisco
 A)
People’s Temple: Jim Jones—Don’t
Drink the KoolAid
 B) Patty Hearst and the Symbionese
Liberation Army
 C) Dan White, Harvey Milk, and the
“Twinkie Defense”

Really just argued that it was a symptom of the depression, not the
cause
George
Moscone
Harvey Milk
Dan White
Disco: symptom or cause?
The Rise of the New Right
The New Right
Major shift in national politics: Democrats
(esp. liberals) dominant 1932-1968
 Like the New Left: break from past
 Emphasize social and cultural
conservatism
 Although also political and economic
 Old Right: Northeast
 New Right: Southeast and Southwest

I. Decline of the New Deal
Coalition
New Deal Coalition: working class,
suburban whites, minorities, Catholics,
white southerners
 Benefits to blacks limited by Southern
Democrats
 1960s: loss of “moral compass”
Republicans: common sense against
liberals, bureaucrats, communists, blacks

II. Cracks in the New Deal
Coalition
A. White Southerners and Civil Rights
 1948: Strom Thurmond and Dixiecrats
 1964: Barry Goldwater
 Breaks Solid South
 First use of “New Right”
 1968: George Wallace, American
Independent Party
 Support: Deep South, blue collar NE
A. Backlash Against CRM
1966: Reagan and CA Governor’s Race—
Rumford Fair Housing Act (1963): no
discrimination in housing; repealed in
referendum 2:1 (later reinstated)
 Affirmative Action: 1978 Regents of the
University of California v. Bakke
 “reverse discrimination”
 Quotas out, race as a factor
 Busing: boycotts, private schools

B. Backlash Against Student
Movement
Reagan and Wallace vs. Pat Brown and UC
Berkeley
 Brown sent in cops, but poured in $
(tuition $100/yr)
 Gov. Reagan: make the ungrateful brats pay
and workno time for activism

C. Backlash against the Women’s
Movement
1972: ERA passes Congress
overwhelmingly
 1973: Roe v. Wade
 Phyllis Schlafly: “Stop ERA” and Eagle
Forum—ERA and feminism are a “satanic
assault on the home”
 Stops ERA 3 states short

D. Backlash against the Gay
Rights Movement
Most shocking to the New Right
 1975: CA repeals sodomy law by 1 vote
 Anita Bryant, “Save Our Children”

III. Reagan’s Message and
“Cultural War”
1. Not strong civil rights, but did not
race bait: roll back Federal
government, less “social
engineering”: can’t legislate
morality
2. Reclaim American respect abroad:
Build up military to stand up to
USSR and Iran
3. Side-step
uncomfortable facts
of the past: “Mickey
Mouse History”; we
won Vietnam
4. Cut taxes: “Voodoo
Economics”

1992 Republican Convention in Houston:
Pat Buchanan proclaims a “cultural war”
for America’s soul
 Helps lose Bush the election: Reagan
arose at peak of conservative popularity
 Bush II and resurgence (as much
structural as popular; 9-11)