Reagan The Teflon President 1980s and 1990s Election of 1980 the New Right and the Moral Majority develop when conservatives viewed the 1960s as turmoil They are opposed to the increasing visibility of gays and lesbians premarital sex divorce abortion and out of wedlock sex all of which are on the rise during the 70s These people support a new surge in Fundamentalist Christianity In 1977 Harvey Milk an openly gay man was elected to the city council of San Francisco Religious Fundamentalists viewed this as a decline in our society and they sought to restore traditional family values Ronald Reagan appealed to the New Right and Moral Majority because he supported states rights on Civil Rights issues and because he criticized forced bussing which is how they were integrating schools He was against affirmative action and commonly referred to single mothers as welfare queens and he opposed federal legislation of poverty and civil rights Reagan is known as the Teflon President because there were a number of scandals during his presidency but he never got in trouble for them Reaganomics Reagan believed in supply side economics which meant that you reduce taxes on the wealthiest Americans to weaken any possibility of a recession and increase the amount of money flowing through the economy One problem was that this idea did not work and actually caused a slight recession It also caused massive inequality in America the rich people got richer and the poor people got poorer However eventually Reaganomics did great things for the country Foreign Policy o Reagan Doctrine Reagan believed that freedom is a universal right The Doctrine stated that the US would provide support for any country fighting for freedom if it was viewed as self defense for the US He supported anti communist regimes whether or not they were democratic or committed injustices in their own countries o INF Treaty 1987 at the end of the Cold War Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union Him and Reagan met and agreed to the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty INF Treaty They both agreed to destroy nuclear weapons and allowed each other to inspect the others weapons Most people credit Reagan with ending the Cold War o Iran Contra Scandal Reagan had always refused to negotiate with terrorists He finally admitted that he negotiated with Iran to sell them US weapons in exchange for the release of hostages in Lebanon The plan developed by Oliver North was that we would sell a bunch of weapons to the Israelis who would then ship them to Iran so that it wouldn t look like we were involved He then decided that if we sold them directly to Iran we could mark up the price by 15 million However there were two problems One was that we had an arms embargo against Iran meaning we couldn t sell them weapons Second Iran sent their money to Nicaraugua which was under control of the Sandinistas a socialist group Another group in Nicaragua the Contras were fighting against the Sandinistas and we had the money sent there to support the Contras However in 1984 Congress had passed a law that banned us from supporting the Contras There were highly publicized hearings following the scandal and Congress came to the conclusion that Reagan was not fully aware of what Oliver North was doing but that he did not ensure that the law was followed Reagan was never impeached or charged with any crime but 14 members of his staff were indicted 11 of which were eventually convicted Oliver North was granted immunity for his testimonies George H W Bush Bush had a lot of political experience he was a WWII veteran was elected to the House served as an ambassador to the UN and was the director of the CIA His approval ratings were even higher than Reagan s No New Taxes during his campaign he promised to not impose any new taxes However when he became president there was a deficit in the economy and he had to raise them He was mocked for this for the rest of his presidency Close of the Cold War official end in 1991 o Berlin Wall there was a rise in the movements for democracy in Eastern Europe A number of East Germans moved to West Germany The Wall was viewed as a symbol of division because it prevented people from moving freely between East and West Berlin Protestors started to tear down the wall in 1989 but it did not completely come down until 1990 o Eastern Europe a number of countries Poland Hungary Czechoslovakia Bulgaria and Romania overthrew their communist regimes In response Soviets withdrew from Hungary Afghanistan and East Germany o Soviet Collapse the Soviet Union was in a severe period of stagflation and they needed to focus all their efforts on their own country In 1990 Latvia Lithuania and Estonia declared their independence from the Soviet Union Despite their efforts to keep their countries intact the Soviet Union collapsed completely in 1991 and all the countries became independent o Iraq invades Kuwait 1990 on August 2 1990 Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded Kuwait He had a history of brutality and had used chemical weapons against his own people The US and Russia became allies against Iraq during the Gulf War o Desert Shield and Desert Storm Desert Shield August 7 1990 the US slowly moved forces into Saudi Arabia to Desert Storm February 1991 after Hussein threatens to invade Israel we o Ceasefire the war lasted only four days and on March 1 1991 Iraq agrees to a protect Kuwait from Iraq begin our ground assault ceasefire Gulf War