Decades of Change: America's Changeable Political and Economic Scene - Essay Example

Decades of Change: America’s Changeable Political and Economic Scene I. The Sixties The rationale for Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program was that, given the affluence that America had achieved by the 1960s, American society and the welfare of all its citizens should reflect the nation’s prosperity and a new social progressivism (Foner, 2008, 956-76). Johnson toured Appalachia in 1965 and met with governors of seven Appalachian states, an experience that affected him deeply and bolstered his resolve to remake American society. Michael Harrington’s groundbreaking work, The Other America also informed Great Society policy. The Great Society was aimed, above all, at ending poverty. In order to accomplish that goal, the administration sought to provide opportunities for all Americans, regardless of their economic background, and to eliminate inequality. To that end, Johnson put forth Medicaid/Medicare; urban development/renewal; and increased funding for education and the arts. The introduction of programs such as food stamps, and an emphasis on higher education helped reduce poverty, though many of the chronic problems the Great Society was designed to eradicate remain serious problems today. Vietnam began the transformation of America’s concept of the Cold War and its belief in the value of direct and unilateral military intervention (Foner, 2008, 976-89). It would also have the effect of heightening domestic suspicion of government actions and motivations abroad. The government’s tendency to reduce mass slaughter (body counts) to the level of statistics and quasi-corporate projections, along with escalating American casualties, also stirred outrage over the government’s conduct of the war. The use of napalm and President Nixon’s decision to bomb Cambodia did much to stir up popular dissent, leading to the most widespread anti-war movement in the nation’s history. Vietnam served to radicalize American politics and drove many anti-war groups (such as the Weather Underground) to adopt desperate, even violent measures to force an end to the war. Persistent anti-war protests by the SDS, the 1967 march on the Pentagon and widespread resistance to the military draft eroded the nation’s will to continue waging war (Foner, 2008, 976-89). Another transformative phenomenon, the rights revolution, was in large measure a response to the rightist transgressions of the McCarthy years and the leverage it gave the government vis a vis civil rights. From 1953 to 1969, the Warren Court restored civil rights in a number of landmark court cases, including New York Times v. Sullivan, NAACP v. Alabama and Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer and Company. The Warren Court, which has been accused of judicial activism ever since, also reasserted the protections offered by the Bill of Rights in decisions such as Miranda v. Arizona, and through the prohibition of illegal monitoring and search and seizure by authorities (a situation exacerbated during the Vietnam War protests). In one of its broadest interpretations of the Constitution, the Warren Court used the First Amendment to assert the separation of church and state. The high court also addressed the issue of women’s rights in Roe v. Wade, perhaps its most controversial decision (Foner, 2008, 989-1002). As with the court’s other rulings, its intent was to remove government from the private lives of its citizens, the aim of which was to strengthen and reinforce the protections accorded to all Americans in the Constitution. II. The Triumph of Conservatism The election of Richard Nixon in 1968 marked the rise of the modern conservative movement in the United States. The assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1967; the withdrawal of Lyndon Johnson from the 1968 presidential election; and violence at the 1968 Democratic Convention led Americans to conclude that a harder line on law and order and domestic social unrest was needed. This “conservative backlash,” which Nixon claimed was driven by the great American “silent majority,” supposedly a vast reservoir of untapped grass roots conservatism, swung control of the U.S. government to the Republicans and empowered Nixon to enact sweeping social and economic programs. However, some of those social initiatives proved surprisingly liberal. The Nixon administration responded to unprecedented levels of pollution, and environmental depredations by corporate America, by establishing the Environmental Protection Agency. This action included passage of the Endangered Species and Clean Air acts. The government also enhanced the social policies of the Great Society and established a number of overtly conservative policies, including the creation of a “New Federalism,” which accorded to the government the privilege of making block grants, which had the effect of tying the states more closely to federal patronage. The administration stirred political controversy with the appointment of former segregationists to the courts, and the forging of alliances with wealthy corporate interests, a precedent that has proven problematic down to the present day and may be said to have commercialized government to a considerable extent. But the social conditions that facilitated the rise of Nixonian Democracy had their roots in fears that were based in uncertainty over political and economic insecurity. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of the worst domestic unrest since the Civil War. The prosperity of the 1950s and early 1960s had begun to give way in the face of social peril and the ideological splintering of the American state (Foner, 2008, 956-76). Nixon’s response to this crisis was to adopt an activist stance that played on the popularity of the reform-minded policies of the Johnson administration. Nixon’s ostensibly bi-partisan approach to social policy provided the political basis from which to go about the business of solidifying the groundswell of popular conservative support. It has been postulated by many that the “Reagan Revolution” essentially completed the work initiated during the Nixon years. An unabashedly pro-business, anti-Communist position resonated with Americans, much as Nixonian conservatism had struck a chord with the country in response to a perceived radicalized society. A high-performing economy gave rise to what Foner calls “Gilded Age” values, in which greed and the unscrupulous pursuit of wealth was encouraged and socially affirmed. Reagan also proved a divisive figure in many ways, through his promotion of prayer in schools, efforts to stigmatize and make illegal the practice of abortion and the increasing presence of scandal in the latter years of his administration (i.e. Iran-Contra, diversion of arms to Nicaragua, etc.) (Foner, 2008, 1033-1051). Ultimately, the Reagan years proved politically and socially polarizing in that they drove an ideological gap between conservative and liberal. American politics became a forum in which foundational notions of compromise, of political give-and-take, were compromised in the interest of creating a contentious, confrontational “Us-vs.-Them” environment in American society, a state of affairs that has persisted through subsequent presidencies. III. Globalization and its Discontents With Ronald Reagan having spent the Soviet Union into obsolescence, the Clinton administration sought to use America’s power and influence in world affairs to resolve regional conflict throughout the globe. Perhaps not surprisingly, these initiatives met with mixed success. The peace talks headed by George Mitchell’s delegation proved successful in Northern Ireland, long the site of Republic violence against the British government. Clinton also launched a successful diplomatic campaign in Haiti. However, the administration’s Middle Eastern peace initiative proved unsuccessful, as did its subsequent attempts to destroy the terrorist threat posed by Al Qaeda and its allies. The administration gradually adopted a policy of international cooperation in the area of peacekeeping, though the United Nations actions in the Balkans were unable to prevent ethnic cleansing between Serbs and Croats, Christians and Muslims. Human rights provided the philosophical underpinning for international diplomacy during the Clinton years. The Clinton administration actively pursued an interventionist philosophy, which included an intensive yet unsuccessful attempt to leverage the Chinese government into freeing political prisoners. Ultimately, Clinton’s legacy in international affairs would be one of alliance-building and of working through international organizations, such as the U.N., to effect change. The Clinton years also saw an increase in human rights as an international issue, not just as a tool of American statecraft but as a philanthropic undertaking aimed at securing basic rights for oppressed people throughout the world. In the realm of economics, the Bill Clinton presided over a surge of prosperity in the 1990s brought on by low unemployment rates and low rates of inflation. Perhaps more significantly, the Clinton administration fostered an environment in which the federal budget was able to operate in a surplus rather than being hampered by deficits. Much of this economic growth was attributable to the technological boom that led to unprecedented developments in the field of computers and Internet technology (Foner, 2008, 1051-1130). The advent and modification of the microchip and the advances it made possible were key during the 1990s, but it was the growth in America’s global commercial reach that provided the basis for long-term growth and effectively changed the way American business regarded the marketplace. Notions that the Internet could be used to spread American commercial and political influence, to advance the cause of Democracy and help secure the country’s borders provided the basis for this new ethos. The country’s demographics changed significantly during the 1990s, with an upsurge in Latino and Asian immigration posing new challenges; specifically, the diversification of America’s population. Concerns over controlling illegal immigration raised new political and cultural issues, as did the question of gay rights and the persistence of poverty among African-Americans in the country’s urban areas. The Los Angeles riots were a frightening manifestation of this social inequality. The polarization of America’s political landscape, which grew exponentially during the Reagan and Bush years, continued apace, with Republicans scoring major victories in the House and Senate during the Clinton years and using this new power to attack perceived “liberal” institutions, such as the National Endowment for the Arts. Terrorism, both domestic and international, remained a major challenge to American guarantees of civil liberties. Works Cited Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty!: An American History, Vol. 2. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2008. Read More