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26 2 Reagan
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reagan's most significant achievement
was in the cold war
in 1985 leadership of the soviet union
passed to mikhail gorbachev who realized
that the soviet union
desperately needed to reform itself so
he instituted a program known as
glasnost which meant
greater transparency in government think
of the word glass
glass gnost but soviet allied
governments in eastern europe had been
maintained by
force since shortly after world war ii
when it became clear that gorbachev
would not send the soviet military to
prop up these regimes that he was trying
to reform
they collapsed one by one beginning in 1989
1989
first poland then hungary czechoslovakia
romania bulgaria
and east germany by 1991 the ussr had
dissolved into a commonwealth of
independent states
the soviet union was no more each of its
nations was now independent and cia
director robert gates maintained in his
book from the shadows that soviet
communism had committed suicide it had
failed on its own
but that reagan and later h.w bush had
crucially given it the space to do so
the emergence of acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome or aids
simultaneously devastated stigmatized and
and
energized the nation's gay community
when aids appeared in 1981 most of its
victims were gay men
and reagan's administration appeared
indifferent to their suffering
when surgeon general c everett coop
called for more federal funding of
aids-related research
critics on the religious right argued
against it claiming that the disease was
killing the right
people in 1985 aids activist cleve jones
came up with an idea to protest the
government's failure to act
the names project memorial quilt began
in san francisco in 1987.
so they created a quilt with each patch
roughly the same size as a grave
and dedicated to the memory of a person
killed by hiv aids
in 1987 they showed the quilt on the
national mall in dc putting into focus
just how many americans had died
without a response from their government
and i've included here some examples of works
works
in the quilt so each of these in person
is roughly the size
in 1984 13 year old ryan white
contracted hiv
from a tainted blood transfusion so ryan
white was a hemophiliac his blood did
not clot
so he had to receive transfusions which
included factor eight which is made from
blood it's a blood product
and some of the blood that was used to
make factory was tainted with hiv so he
becomes hiv positive
when he tried to return to school angry
parents feared that he would somehow
infect their children
and when the school refused to let him
attend white's parents filed a lawsuit
white became the symbol of the cause
decreasing the stigma
of hiv aids in 1987 reagan finally
convened a presidential commission on
aids which called for
anti-discrimination laws to protect aids victims
victims
and for more federal spending on aids research
research
the way aids patients were treated in
hospitals though changed the gay rights
movement forever
when lifelong partners were kept from
the death beds of their loved ones by
family members who did not approve of
homosexuality and had legal right to
make those decisions
the importance of legal marriage or
civil unions to protect these
relationships became apparent
the abuses of the 1980s would lead the
lgbt rights movement to fight for those
protections so it's not until
beginning during and shortly after the
hiv aids crisis that we really see the
gay movement begin to fight for
marriage rights or some type of civil
union that would protect their
relationship especially
if one half of the couple ended up
seriously ill or
dying ryan white passed away in august
of 1990 but not until congress passed
the ryan white comprehensive aids
resources emergency or
care act and president george h.w bush
signed it
it was the largest federally funded
program in the united states for people
living with hiv aids it was later
extended by both presidents george w
bush and barack obama i do not believe
it's come
up for extension under president trump
it's not that he hasn't extended
it i don't believe it's expired under
him yet the devastating
impact of hiv aids can be seen in this
1993 photograph of the san francisco gay
men's chorus founded in 1978.
so everyone you see there in a white
suit is one of the original members of
the choir
everyone you see there in a black suit
represents one of the original members
polls showed a trend dubbed the reagan paradox
paradox
americans loved the man as an individual
even when they didn't support his policies
policies
a majority of americans did not support
a school prayer amendment and the
anti-abortion amendment only pulled at
25 percent
and most voters supported the era yet a
majority of these same voters backed
reagan who didn't agree with them on any
of those issues
voters also didn't support a lot of
reagan's civil rights policies for
example he opposed even making martin
luther king
day a national holiday arguing that
federal employees had enough holidays already
already
but the house passed the bill 338-90 a
veto-proof majority so it became so
despite his unpopular policies reagan
himself remained immensely popular hence
the paradox
falwell and robertson's moral majority
organized religious voters that is the
religious right
and reagan made huge gains for the
republican party with these religious groups
groups
in 1976 only one-third of southern
baptists voted republican by 1984
two-thirds of southern baptists voted
republican and that number is probably
even higher today
the rise of cable tv also led to more
religious programming
and tele-evangelists 13 million people
tuned in each week to see falwell and
robertson merge politics and religion
so reagan leaves office in 1988 with the
cold war waning but still going on
and the economy booming the stock market
recovered from the crash
but these economic gains that had been
made were unequally distributed
the top one-fifth of households enjoyed
rising incomes
the rest stagnated or declined so the
american economy saw more jobs created
than lost during the 80s that's a good thing
thing
but half of the jobs eliminated were in
high-paying industries
and half of the new jobs failed to pay
wages above the poverty line
so that's not a good thing trickle down economics
economics
rarely trickled down it benefited the
really wealthy the wealthiest
fifth of the country so the number of
government employees actually
increased under reagan as did the size
of the government breaking one of his
key campaign promises
and between 1980 and 1989 the national
debt rose from 914 billion dollars
to 2.7 trillion dollars steep tax cuts
for corporations in the wealthy just did
not pay for themselves
moreover so-called regressive taxes on
payroll and certain goods actually
increased the tax burden on low and
middle-income americans
while reagan pledged to balance the
budget in his first three years in
office the deficit the amount that the
government goes into debt each year
grew two and a half times or 250 percent
during his presidency
he increased spending 1.2 trillion
dollars in five years while adding tax
cuts so under reagan the republican
party became a much more southwestern
and moral
issues party it had been a business
oriented party now it was also
a much more religious party while most
new deal and great society programs proved
proved
durable reagan saw the end of the
democratic party's new deal coalition
the government still offered its
neediest citizens a safety net but it
was a continually shrinking one
as conservative political ideas grew
ever more popular the democratic party
began to adapt its own message in
response to the conservative mood of the country
country
so we're going to see both parties shift
to the right
to try to match where they believe the
country is
the legacy of the conservative reagan
revolution lingered over the
presidential election of 1988.
reagan's vice president george h.w bush
promised to continue the conservatism of
the reagan era
george h.w bush was a world war ii
veteran president of a successful
oil company which is how he ends up in
texas and had served as chair of the
republican national committee and
director of the central intelligence
agency the cia
he had also been elected to the house of
representatives from his district in texas
texas
and after failing to beat reagan in the
1980 republican primaries he was elected
as his vice president
in 80 and again in 84. bush had to
contend with what the press dubbed
the wimp factor next to a hollywood
actor he looked
wimpy right reagan was this very
charismatic actor and
bush just wasn't but he did give a
stirring speech at the 1988 republican
national convention which you're about
to see a very famous clip of
bush also struggled to get conservatives
who had backed reagan behind him because
they didn't
trust him necessarily they thought he
was too liberal
even though he is a conservative
republican reagan's much more
conservative than he is
so he has to kind of get their trust
even though those
voters are not going to vote for a
democrat anyway
in 1988 massachusetts liberal michael
dukakis was the democratic nominee
and he ran a pretty weak campaign now
bush clearly had some weaknesses he was
a connecticut aristocrat he had never
been fully embraced by movement
conservatism who loved reagan
so he hammered dukakis on moral and
cultural issues to try to get that super
conservative base behind him claimed
that dukakis had blocked the recitation
of the pledge of allegiance in
massachusetts schools and that he was a
quote card-carrying member of the
american civil liberties union
bush meanwhile dispatched his eldest son
george w
bush as his ambassador to the religious right
right
following reagan's strategy of dog
whistle racist politics bush
infamously released a political ad
featuring the face of willie horton
a black massachusetts man and convicted
murderer who raped a woman after taking
advantage of a massachusetts prison
furlough program during dukakis's tenure
the program that the ad referred to as
the weekend pass program allowed
prisoners to leave prison for a day or
more to work or visit home
it was introduced to massachusetts by a
republican governor and most states had
similar programs including california
during republican ronald reagan's tenure
as governor
so when you actually look at the issue
here it's not a great one for
republicans to go after there's a lot of
weaknesses to this
argument and that they use it because it
is so
easy to turn this issue into one of
racist politics
and that southern strategy of the
republican party
so you're going to watch two clips uh in
the lecture next the first is from
bush's convention address including his
very famous line read my
lips and the second is the infamous
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