Backlash: Nixon, Politics of Polarization, and Watergate

1
Backlash Nixon, Politics of Polarization, and
Watergate
2
Historians and Nixon

• The Elephant that is Watergate
• Nixons Foreign Policy v. Domestic Policy
• Nixon as a secret liberal
• Nixons conservatism in an age of radicalism

3
Nixon and Polarization

• Bring the People Together
• Phillips strategy
• Southern strategy
• Rise of the Sunbelt region
• Court south
• Desegregation and Supreme Court
• Attack liberals
• Enemies List
• COINTELPRO
• Report

COINTELPRO coloring book
4
Nixons New Federalism

• Rise of the Environmental Movement and EPA
• Silent Spring (1962)
• Santa Barbara Oil Spill
• New Federalism
• reverse flow of money and resources away from
  fed. govt and back to states/cities
• Revenue Sharing Act (1972)
• block grants of funds given to states and cities
  let them spend it as they want

5
Nixon and Detente

• China
• Impact of Vietnam
• Kissinger and back channels
• Normalized relations (1972)
• Russia
• SALT 1 Treaty

6
Nixon and Vietnam

• Promise to end war
• yet get peace with honor
• Vietnamization
• bring troops home/increase air war
• Cambodia bombings
• Kent State
• Christmas Bombing (1972)
• Truce-1973 Fall of Saigon-1975

Nixon 1968 Ad
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Watergate

• Watergate Break-in
• Plumbers
• Cover up Begins
• 1972 Election
• Trial, Hearings, and Tapes
• Saturday Night Massacre

Dean Testimony
Weicker Testimony
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The End of a President
I am not a crook speech

• Impeachment begins
• Resignation (August 9, 1974)
• Significance of Watergate
• Congress limits pres. power
• Campaign reform
• Freedom of Information Act
• Widens gap of distrust of govt

9
The Rise of the New Right
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Conservatism in Postwar America

• Progressive Historians
• Viewed right in terms of economic elites
• Consensus School
• Acknowledged right but saw it in terms of
  McCarthy populist and dismissed it as significant
• New Left
• Largely ignored it because saw mass political
  movements as democratic and progressive and more
  interested in discrediting liberalism

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Recent Studies of New Right

• Conservatism and Liberalism How different are
  these ideologies?
• Share belief in democratic capitalism and Lockean
  conceptions of freedom
• Differ on role of the state and type of
  individualism (econ v. personal freedom)
• American West and Religious fundamentalism
• Social historians and nature of the mass movement

12
Conservatism on the Eve of the 70s

• Impact of the New Deal and the Welfare State
• Expanding govt power and collective society
• Cold War and Communism
• McCarthy, John Birch Society
• 60s Liberalism
• Changing values and Great Society
• Civil Rights and Federal power
• 1968 Election
• Wallace, Nixon, and unraveling of Democratic New
  Deal coalition

13
Archie Bunkers World

• Demise of the Postwar Economy
• postindustrial economy
• Japanese/Germ competition
• White working class response
• Boston and Busing
• Demise of 60s workingclass liberalism

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The New Right and the American West

• West and the New Right
• Goldwater
• Daisy
• Reagan Conservatism
• Free enterprise
• Inequities of taxation
• Danger of big govt
• 1966 CA Election
• Larger meaning
• Plain Folks Americanism
• Sagebrush Rebellion
• Nevada and Bureau of Land Management

15
The New Right and American Culture
Phyllis Schlafly

• Rise of New Right
• social issues, 60s, and anger politics
• abortion, feminism, prayer,
• Evangelical Christianity
• televangelists
• Falwells Moral Majority
• Conservative Think Tanks
• Heritage Foundation
• Prop 13 and Bakke Decision

16
Reagan Revolution

• The Carter Malaise
• 70s Economy, Hostage Crisis
• 1980 Election and a New Sheriff
• Reagan Democrats
• less govt, win Cold War, cut taxes
• Reaganomics

17
Reagan Revolution

• Vietnam Syndrome and Evil Empire
• Grenada and Nicaragua
• Iran-Contra
• Yuppies, Wall Street, and the Crash

18
The End of the Cold War

• Gorbachev
• glasnost
• Berlin Wall
• Bush and Desert Storm

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America in the New Millennium

• Rodney King and the LA Riots
• 1992 Election and New Politics
• Clinton and the New Millennium
• September 11th and New Cold War?
• Pres. Bush Speech

Race
Inhale
Monica