The Conservative Turn Flashcards
Affirmative Action
Policy efforts to promote greater employment opportunities for minorities.
○ The thing they used to have in college before they realized it was racist lol
Busing
The means of transporting students via buses to achieve school integration in the 1970s.
Reverse discrimination
○ Belief that affirmative action programs discriminate against white people.
○ Based
○ Bakke V. California
■ Believed he was unfairly denied due to 16 spots reserved to black students
■ Ruled that race should not be only determinant
Title IX
Part of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 that banned gender discrimination in higher education.
Phyllis Schlafy
○ Led STOP ERA
○ Believed it hurt women’s freedom in traditional role
■ Social security, military draft
Kent State Massacre
National guard opened fire on anti-war protesters - 4 dead
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
1972 talks between President Nixon and Secretary Brezhnev that resulted in the
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (or SALT), which limited the quantity of nuclear warheads each nation could possess, and prohibited the development of missile defense systems.
Détente
Period of improving relations between the United States and Communist nations,
particularly China and the Soviet Union, during the Nixon administration.
My Lai massacre
Massacre of 347 Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai by Lieutenant William Calley and troops under his command. U.S. army officers covered up the massacre for a year until an investigation uncovered the events. Eventually twenty-five army officers were charged with complicity in the massacre and its cover-up, but only Calley was convicted. He served little time for his crimes.
Pentagon Papers
Informal name for the Defense Department’s secret history of the Vietnam
conflict; leaked to the press by former official Daniel Ellsberg and published in the
New York Times in 1971.
War Powers Act
Law passed in 1973, reflecting growing opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War; required congressional approval before the president sent troops abroad.
Vietnam Syndrome
The belief that the United States should be extremely cautious in deploying its
military forces overseas that emerged after the end of the Vietnam War.
Watergate
Washington office and apartment complex that lent its name to the 1972–1974 scandal of the Nixon administration; when his knowledge of the break-in at the Watergate and subsequent cover-up were revealed, Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment.
Oil Embargo
Prohibition on trade in oil declared by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, dominated by Middle Eastern producers, in October 1973 in response to U.S. and western European support for Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The rise in gas prices and fuel shortages resulted in a global economic recession and profoundly affected the American economy.
Stagflation
○ A combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation present during the
1970s.
Deindustrialization
Term describing decline of manufacturing in old industrial areas in the late twentieth century as companies shifted production to low-wage centers in the South and West or in other countries.
Sunbelt
The label for an arc that stretched from the Carolinas to California. During the
postwar era, much of the urban population growth occurred in this area.
Helsinki Accords
1975 agreement between the USSR and the United States that recognized the post–World War II boundaries of Europe and guaranteed the basic liberties of each nation’s citizens.
Deregulation
Legislation during the Reagan-Clinton era that removed regulations on many
industries, including finance and air travel.
Three Mile Island
Nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, site of 1979 accident that released radioactive steam into the air; public reaction ended the nuclear power industry’s expansion.
Camp David Accords
Peace agreement between the leaders of Israel and Egypt, brokered by
President Jimmy Carter in 1978. (Three mile island soon after)
Neoconservatives
The leaders of the conservative insurgency of the early 1980s. Their brand of conservatism was personified in Ronald Reagan, who believed in less government, supply-side economics, and “family values.”
Reagan Revolution
The rightward turn of American politics following the 1980 election of Ronald
Reagan. The Reagan Revolution made individual “freedom” a rallying cry for the
right.
Reaganomics
Popular name for President Ronald Reagan’s philosophy of “supply side” economics, which combined tax cuts with an unregulated marketplace.
Iron-Contra Affair
Scandal of the second Reagan administration involving sales of arms to Iran in
partial exchange for release of hostages in Lebanon and use of the arms money to aid the Contras in Nicaragua, which had been expressly forbidden by Congress.
Young Americans for Freedom
Conservative, anti-SDS (students for a democratic society)
○ Barry goldwater for president
■ “The New Right”
■ Men and women had designated spheres
John Birch Society
Kinda conspiratorial
William F Buckley
Published “The National Review”
The Religious Right
Abortion made catholics and christians unite
Jerry Falwell
Moral majority
○ Christianity in politics
○ Argued separation of church and state caused moral decline
James Dobson’s Radio focused on…
…The family
