1 gen 2000 anni - Summary

Descrizione:

The 1970s began with Americans already divided by Vietnam and social strife. A decade defined by economic malaise, political scandal, and rapid change only intensified a widespread uneasiness. As a result, many ordinary Americans developed a deep distrust of the expansive liberalism of the Great Society. A revived Republican Party thrived as an alternative. With a movement known as the New Right leading the way, conservatives offered the nation a new political order based on deregulation, low taxes, Christian morality, and a reenergized Cold War foreign policy. The election of Ronald Reagan as president of the United States in 1980 marked the ascendance of this political formula, and his presidency reshaped government in the mold of this decidedly conservative republicanism.

The New Right revived confidence in “free markets” and called for a less activist government role in economic regulation and social welfare. Like the New Right generally, Reagan was profoundly skeptical of the liberal ideology that had underpinned American public policy since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Reagan famously said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and he duly sought to slash regulation and government programs. His conservative, domestic economic agenda was paired with aggressive anticommunism abroad — rekindling dormant tensions with the Soviet Union before Reagan, in his second term, helped orchestrate a thawing of the Cold War.

Reagan became the face of conservative ascendancy, but he did not create the New Right groundswell that brought him into office. Grassroots activists in the 1960s and 1970s built a formidable right-wing movement, and by 1980 resurgent conservatives were ready to contend for national power. Their chance came with Democratic president Jimmy Carter’s mismanagement of two national crises. Raging inflation and the Iranian seizure of American hostages in Tehran undid Carter and provided an opening for the New Right, which would shape the nation’s politics for the remainder of the twentieth century and the early decades of the twenty-first.

Aggiunto al nastro di tempo:

Data: