Nixon Era, 1968-1974

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Nixon Era, 1968-1974

• Governing to the Right

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1968 Presidential Election Electoral Vote
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Nixons Mandate
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Nixons 1968 Mandate

• A Minority President 43 of Popular Vote
• George Wallace won 14 of popular vote and 5
  Southern states on states rights, anti civil
  rights platform
• Nixon promised peace with honor in Vietnam
• But Congress was solidly Democratic

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Nixons Political Challenge

• Extricating the United States from Vietnam
• Working with the Democratic Congress
• Addressing the emerging problems with the slowing
  economy unemployment, rising inflation and trade
  deficit caused by Johnsons spending policies
• Defining a conservative domestic agenda on social
  welfare, civil rights, poverty, the environment,
  and law and order.

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Securing A Republican Majority Political
Realignment

• The Republicans needed to draw voters away from
  the Democratic Party by identifying
  constituencies disaffected with the policies of
  the Kennedy/Johnson era.
• The Southern Strategy to convert white southern
  Democrats to the Republican Party
• Working Class White Ethnics convert labor
  Democrats to Republicans
• Suburbanites

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The Demagogic Appeal to the Silent Majority

• Vice President Spiro Agnew attacked the
  excesses of sixties liberalism and radicalism,
  labeling opponents of Nixons policies
• "nattering nabobs of negativism,"
• "pusillanimous pussyfoots"
• "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history"
• "effete corps of impudent snobs"

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Political Divide according to Nixon

• Pro Nixon Voters The Silent Majority
• the middle class,
• blue collar workers
• Sunbelt residents,
• ethnics (e.g., white ethnics)
• The Opposition
• Advocates of forced busing
• Hippies
• Welfare chiselers
• People soft on crime
• Antiwar activists
• Drug users
• Advocates of sexual permissiveness

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Political Practice

• Vietnam War
• Escalation of the conflict with May 1970
  Cambodian invasion
• Change the selective service system to a lottery
  system
• Vietnamization of the fighting e.g., reduce
  American casualties
• Punish the North Vietnamese into negotiating
• Ignore antiwar protests

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Political Practice

• Domestic New Federalism
• Replace welfare with a work incentive program,
  workfare - not implemented
• Revenue sharing distribute federal revenue to
  state and local governments rather than through
  federal programs
• War on drugs create the DEA
• Promote environmental improvement, creating the
  Environmental Protection Agency and laws to
  promote clean air, clean water, recycling,
  protection of wilderness and natural resources

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Political Practice

• Civil Rights
• Enforce affirmative action, including in blue
  collar trade unions
• Title IX guaranteeing equality in sports in
  educational institutions
• Used the Justice Department to oppose busing to
  desegregate schools. Courts continued to support
  desegregation, including using busing.

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Political Practice

• Rhetoric Nixon appealed to conservative
  rhetoric, and used Agnew to mobilize the
  Republican base
• Reality He governed closer to the center, and
  compromised and supported Democratic initiatives.
  In return, he dampened the liberal thrust of the
  Kennedy/Johnson initiatives

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Clouds on the Economic Horizon

• From 1945-1970 the US economy had unprecedented
  prosperity
• By 1970, the European and Asian economies
  devastated by WWII had caught up with the
  American economy, and had newer, more advanced
  technologies or production in many cases
• Johnsons deficit spending on the Vietnam war
  undermined the U.S. dollar which had supported
  the international monetary system since 1945

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Clouds on the Economic Horizon

• 1945 Bretton Woods agreement made the US the
  guarantor of world monetary stability by pegging
  the dollar to gold at 35 an ounce.
• By 1971, US could not sustain the system and went
  off the gold standard, effectively devaluing the
  dollar

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1970
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1969
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1972 Presidential Election Electoral Vote
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1976 Presidential Election Electoral Vote
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1980 Presidential Election Electoral Vote
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1968
1972
1976
1980