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+The Seventies: An Era of Malaise
+
+- Nixon resigned in disgrace
+- American troops resigned from Vietnam
+ - The Vietnamese gov't collapsed
+- ME nations put a complete embargo on the US
+ - "Energy shortage"
+ - Unending gas lines, spiking gas prices
+- Americans were accustomed to hegemony. It appeared to have come to a
+ halt
+ - "Sense of limits"
+- Pres candidates sought to develop a sense of purpose
+ - Indecision at the ballot box; voters oscillated wildly
+ - Democrats got the greatest majority in postwar era, Republicans do
+ the same 6 years later.
+ - Huge swathes of voters didn't vote.
+- New Right and the "Me" Era (instant gratification) developed
+ - Microcosm of the new vs. old (do values even count?) issue.
+
+Questions
+- Why do historians consider the 70s a period of political malaise?
+- Why did Jimmy Carter experience such limited success as president?
+- How did the Iran hostage crisis shape the Carter presidency?
+
+- America's leadership in the world relied on sustained economic growth
+ and global hegemony
+ - Economic decline
+ - Diplomatic reversals challenged Americans' sense of leadership
+
+President Gerald Ford
+- Nation relieved Watergate had come to an end
+- Most of Nixon's political aides were serving jail sentences, and Ford
+ pardoned Nixon of "all wrongdoings."
+ - Nation was stunned.
+- Ford vetoed 39 measures designed to give consumers more money to
+ spend.
+ - Deepened the economic recession that was beginning
+- Historians eventually viewed Ford's pardon as "statesmanlike," but
+ voters next time around preferred a Democrat senate/house. Carter, a
+ born again Christian, was reelected. Carter told small-town audiences
+ that they deserved a government as "good, honorable, and filled with
+ love as Americans."
+
+- Personality, commitment to values created a sense of new hope.
+ Sounded like an old-time populist, pledging to help the little man
+ against large corporations, against racial-economic discrimination.
+ - Lost 33 points in the polls before election, and won narrowly.
+ - Both Ford and Carter had ~80% of Americans believing negatively of
+ him
+ - Economic issues were the major concern of most Americans. Carter
+ won 3/4 of votes about jobs.
+
+The Oil Shocks
+ - OPEC was a cartel designed by oil-owning states
+ - Took 1973 Arab-Israeli (Yom Kippur) War as an opportunity to raise
+ global oil prices.
+ - To pressure US, Israel's chief ally, Arab oil producers
+ reduced prodcution by 10%. Then, after military aid, put the
+ embargo on (lifted in 1974) but continued to rise from
+ $2/barrel to over $10/barrel by end of 1974.
+ - Triggered '74-'75 recession, most serious since Great
+ Depression. Unemployment rate reached 9%
+ - Stagflation coined to describe the stalled economic growth
+ and rising inflation.
+ - Competition from Eurasia was hurting American businesses
+ - American workers' productivity significantly slowed.
+Americans believed "The Land of Plenty is becoming the Land of Want"
+
+The "Me" Decade and "The Culture of Narcissism"
+- Personal rather than political awareness
+- Norman Mailer, called, in 1979, the 70s an emphasis on "the skin, the
+ surface rather than on the root of things."
+ - Developing sense of entitlement
+ - The economic and social issues were blamed on it.
+
+The Culture Wars and the Christian Right
+ - Religious conservatism, once deemed so outside the mainstream
+ Christian conservatives didn't believe it had a place in politics.
+ - Business conservatives argued for low tax rates and deregulation.
+ - Religious right joined them in a Republican party against the
+ "liberal state"
+ - Backlash against growing feminist movements
+ - Originally were mostly reacting to
+ - Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority
+ - Phyllis Schlafly and the Battle over the ERA
+ - Anita Bryant wanted to repeal municipal gay rights ordinances
+ - Eventually coalesced into a party that wanted action.
+ - Historically separated by denominational differences, like
+ abortion being regarded as "Catholic issues."
+ - Nearly 80% of Sunday school teachers used to support abortion
+ access
+ - The evangelical right reframed Christianity as one issue and
+ had Christian conservatives rally around the "right to life."
+ - Supreme Court ruled that unmarried women had the right to
+ contraception and that women had the right to abortion in Roe v.
+ Wade. (Opinion had changed significantly in late 60s and early
+ 70s)
+ - Jane Roe is an anonym.
+ - In the coming years and decades after Roe v. Wade, the
+ anti-feminist and conservative ("pro-family") movement grew based
+ on this, called the Moral Majority.
+ - Led by Rev. Jerry Falwell.
+ - Attack on feminism, abortion, and equal rights movement was
+ supported by Phyllis Schlafly.
+ - Feminist activists wanted broader protections against
+ discrimination in the workplace. Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
+ was a constitutional amendment that "Equality of rights under
+ the law should not be abridged by the US or any state on the
+ basis of sex, and Congress could enforce it."
+ - Congressional politicians widely supported it.
+ - Ratification slowed and stalled as "Stop ERA" made the
+ argument that the ERA would reduce rather than expand
+ women's rights.
+ - Schlafly described herself as "just a housewife looking to
+ protect mothers and housemakers, and a woman's right to
+ alimony, child support, and their bias of getting children
+ in divorce. Also "what about a woman who doesn't want to
+ be treated like a man?"
+ - Marginalized supporters of ERA as radicals who hated
+ men and women.
+ - Evangelicals believed that traditional gender roles
+ had been divinely determined and that women had a duty
+ to serve and submit to their husbands.
+ - Conservative women wanted to maintain what privileges
+ they had.
+ - Culture Wars
+ - The nuclear family was a large symbol
+ - Persecution of gay men
+ - Health professionals treated homosexuality as a mental
+ illness.
+ - Outed gay people were investigated by FBI as subversives,
+ states criminalized homosexuality, couldn't get jobs.
+ - Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village raided by "Vice Police" and
+ the attendants retaliated, causing the "Greenwich Riots."
+ - APA removed homosexuality from mental illness list
+ - Gay and Lesbian Studies at colleges
+ - Anita Bryant was a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus
+ industry, raised by pious Baptist grandparents.
+ - Wanted to repeal a Dade County gay rights ordinance
+ - Primary concern was about gay teachers in schools
+ - Equated child molesters with homosexuality
+ - Said she did not hate homosexuals but needed to
+ "protect her children"
+ - She succeeded in the repeal
+ - Bryant believed it required the same dedication as a military
+ war.
+
+Carter passed a minor relief bill for the worst-hit industries
+- Anti-inflationary spending cuts
+- The industrial decay was partly because of a growing service industry
+ (70% of jobs created in the private sector).
+ - Worse-paying and much less reliable than manufacturing jobs
+- Promise of nuclear power to replace oil was dashed when, on Mar 28
+ 1979, 3-Mile Island plant melted down and released radioactive gas
+ into the air. Governor ordered an evacuation, and confusion caused
+ panic.
+ - Coincidentally happened at the same time as a movie about a
+ nuclear accident.
+ - Another energy embargo occurred, from the Iranian Shah (1979).
+- Drivers were burning through 150KB/day just trying to get gas.
+Jul 15, Carter gave a speech about Americans' psychological roots to
+overconsumption.
+- "Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by one owns"
+- Speech fell flat because Americans wanted a solution to the issue
+ - Conservatives dismissed the speech as the "Malaise Speech"
+- Chrysler, the "Sick Man of Detroit," looked like it was going to fall.
+ - Dodge, St. Regis were hugely underselling
+ - Big recalls on car designs
+ - Started to close up auto manufacturing plants
+ - 10th largest firm in the nation, major pillar of American economy
+ - Chrysler CEO goes in front of Congress and blames regulations as
+ the reason for its failure. Business community asserted that the
+ company should be forced to fend for itself. There was a big
+ bailout and "Such help...penalizes success," said the NYT.
+ - Unions lost their once strong position
+ - The Federal Gov lacked a plan for revitalizing the economy.
+The Challenger on the Right: Ronald Reagan
+ - Developing media presence of the right.
+ - Reagan used radio to express his arguments and develop a
+ constituency.
+ - Refuted claims that people living under Communism actually
+ liked the system
+ - Middle East became a focal point of his criticisms
+ - Carter focused his time and energy on "finding peace in the Middle
+ East."
+ - Situation spiraled out of control
+ - Carter allowed the Shah (believed to be an illegitimate
+ leader by Iranian public) to get medical procedure in NY
+ because he had terminal cancer.
+ - Mob of Iranians overran US embassy and took 66 American
+ hostages.
+ - Iranians wanted the US to apologize for allowing the Shah
+ to get medical surgery.
+ - Carter refused and, at first, America rallied around the
+ pres, but the media became consumed by the drama of the
+ Iran Crisis; public believed America was powerless.
+ - Reagan pointed to the Iran Crisis as a marker of Carter's failures
+ in foreign affairs, believing the Dem administration had
+ vacillating weakness, "dillying and dallying for months, trying
+ various diplomatic maneuvers with nothing to show for it."
+ - Reagan was embraced by the religious right
+ - Reagan's acceptance speech had dramatic speeches about the
+ need to lighten the tax burden and a call for silent prayer at
+ the end
+ - Promised he would work to "get the government off the
+ backs of the people." Proved very popular with the
+ electorate, making inroads with white working voters. The
+ old New Deal coalition includes the "Reagan Democrats."
+ - 489-49 in EC but barely cleared 50% of the popular
+ vote in the lowest voter turnout election in 30yrs.
+ - On first day of election, hostages released after
+ 444 days.