108 Final Exam Study Guide
Note that the final exam should focus on content you have studied in the the course. The content for the essay topics should be taken from readings from the Oakes text and the mini-lecture. The final exam is NOT intended to be a research project. In other words, you should not go out on the Internet and bring in information that is not found in the curriculum I have provided. Rather, the essay is intended to assess your knowledge of the information in our class work Although this is a general rule of thumb, try to keep the essay to no more than five pages, double-spaced with one inch margins. Make sure to review the definition of plagiarism and let me know if you have any questions regarding it. Also, please notify me if you need any accommodations to better enable your performance on the exams. Please send the essay via email. Do not send as a file attachment. Instead, save your essay on a Word document and copy and paste it into an email.
Final Exam Topic:
Read the mini-lecture on Conservatism and assigned text readings provided below. Then write an essay on the following topic:
What was new and revolutionary about the "Reagan Revolution"? How did the Reagan presidency change the nature of American politics?
Make sure to draw support for your discussion from the assigned readings. Good luck!
Final day to send exam: Thursday, December 15, 4 pm
Conservatism
We might tend to think of the 1960s as the dawn of the hippie and antiwar movements, the heyday of civil rights and the climax of liberalism and social reform. However, if we look at it from another perspective, the 1960s can also be viewed as the beginning of contemporary conservatism. With the Election of 2000 fresh in our minds, it should be noted that Richard Nixon only lost the Election of 1960 by about 100,000 votes. How different our interpretations of the sixties might have been had Nixon and the Republican Party won that election. Yet despite the losses of candidates like Nixon, if we look closely at this era, we can find much of what will define the political themes of the 1980s and the Reagan Revolution
Just as civil rights accelerated the liberalism of the Democratic Party, it also helped create the new conservative movement. The desegregation policies championed by civil rights groups and later by the federal government, alienated many white southerners who up to the 1960s were primarily solid members of the Democratic Party. Many of the old arguments used against the Republican Party following the Civil War were used against the Democrats in the late 1950s and 1960s. Although initially racist, the arguments later become focused under the issue of states rights and the problems of excessive federal control. George Wallace, who would be the Governor of Alabama through much of the 1960s is a fascinating study of how a once liberal, new deal democrat became an ardent segregationist and champion of states rights.
The social reform, antiwar and hippie movements of the 1960s also created a backlash that helped further new conservatism. The excesses of counterculture, shutdowns of campuses, antiwar protests and other manifestations of the social reform movement tended to alarm older and more conservative Americans who at first might have supported something like civil rights. Indeed, the mid and late 1960s did have a very chaotic feel and it was easy for many to feel that society was beginning to spin out of control. It was Americans that were feeling this type of unease that Richard Nixon and the Republican Party reached out to in the Election of 1968. Nixon called these Americans the "Silent Majority" and he called on this group to lend support to programs that would emphasize law and order, the government's handling of the Vietnam War and a pullback from social reform. Although the "Silent Majority" triumphed in the 1968 and 1972 elections, it should be noted that Nixon and his followers were in many ways centrists that still embraced some of the old tenets of liberalism. Truer forms of the new conservatism were found elsewhere.
Instead of the emergence of Nixon in 1968, a better portrait of who would comprise the new conservatism can be found with Barry Goldwater's nomination as the Republican's presidential candidate in 1964. Upsetting the favorite, old-style republican Nelson Rockefeller, Goldwater was a preview of the Reagan Revolution. Instead of representing the traditional east coast wealthy like Rockefeller, Goldwater, the Arizona millionaire, represented the new demographic of sunbelt suburbanites. These were folks who were oftentimes homeowners who resented property taxes, lived in neighborhoods that didn't support forced busing, were nonunion workers or worked in the defense industry, and who belonged to evangelical Christian organizations that were concerned over the apparent growth of moral relativism in American culture. Along with this general demographic, the new-style of conservatism had its strongest appeal to white men who felt that besides defense spending, large and active government tends to restrict freedoms and muddle the economy rather than then help the quality of one's life. While this new alliance was able to take over the Republican Party Convention in San Francisco, their ultimate triumph would be in the presidential election of 1980 with the candidate from California, Ronald Reagan.
When you read about the Ronald Reagan presidency consider what was new about it. In many ways, Reagan might be comparable to Franklin Roosevelt. Both are figures that new coalitions rallied around that transformed the nature of their respective political parties. Indeed, not only were their own parties affected by their ideas and supporters, but their rivals were also be forced to respond to their power and influence. Both had important influences in international affairs. Both had media skills that tended to project favorable public images and both tended to rely on the ideas of others within their cabinets. Finally, both men brought fairly innovative approaches to the operation of the federal government and both certainly had a lasting impact on the dialog concerning what is the proper role of government in our lives.
Readings: Oakes, Chapter 30