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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.
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