A Conservative Insurgency - Document Overview

Please read this document and answer the following questions.

During 1979 President Jimmy Carter and his Democratic administration first became disabled and then grew impotent. The stagnant economy remained sluggish, double-digit inflation continued unabated, and failed efforts to free the American hostages in Iran prompted critics to criticize the administration as being indecisive and incapable of bold action. Complicating matters was the endless bickering among the president’s key advisors. Carter’s inability to mobilize the nation behind his ill-fated energy program revealed mortal flaws in his reading of the public mood and his understanding of legislative politics.

While the lackluster Carter administration was foundering, a phalanx of Republican conservatives were forging a plan to win the White House in 1980. Those plans centered on the popularity and charisma of Ronald Reagan, the Hollywood actor turned California governor and political commentator. He was not a deep thinker, but he was a superb analyst of the public mood, an unabashed patriot, and a committed advocate of conservative principles. Reagan was also charming, cheerful, and funny, a likable politician renowned for his relentless anecdotes and deflecting one-liners. Where the dour Carter denounced the evils of free enterprise capitalism and tried to scold Americans into reviving long-forgotten virtues of frugality, a sunny Reagan promised a "revolution of ideas" designed to unleash the capitalist spirit, restore national pride, and regain international respect. As a true believer and an able compromiser, Reagan combined the fervor of a revolutionary with the pragmatism of a diplomat. One commentator recognized that he was unique in "possessing the mind of both an ideologue and a politician."

Reagan credited Calvin Coolidge and his treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, with demonstrating that by reducing taxes and government regulations, the elixir of free-market capitalism would revive the economy. Like his Republican predecessors of the 1920s, he wanted to unleash entrepreneurial energy as never before. By cutting taxes and domestic spending, he claimed, a surging economy would produce more government revenues that would help reduce the budget deficit. As it turned out, the Reagan administrations failed to cut government spending—indeed, the federal budget deficit increased dramatically during his presidency. But inflation and unemployment subsided, and public confidence returned.

At the same time that Reagan was promoting his domestic agenda he was pursuing an aggressive foreign policy. He sent American marines into war-torn Lebanon, launched a bombing raid on terrorist Libya, provided massive aid to the anticommunist Contra rebels in Nicaragua, authorized a marine invasion of Cuban-controlled Grenada, and authorized the largest peacetime defense budget in American history.

In 1983 Reagan escalated the nuclear arms race by authorizing the Defense Department to develop a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). It involved a complex anti-missile defense system using super-secret laser and high-energy particle weapons to destroy enemy missiles in outer space. To Reagan its great appeal was the ability to destroy weapons rather than people, thereby freeing defense strategy from the concept of mutually assured destruction that had long governed Soviet and American attitudes toward nuclear war. Journalists quickly dubbed the program "Star Wars" in reference to a popular science-fiction film. Despite skepticism among the media and many scientists that such a "foolproof" celestial defense system could be built, SDI forced the Soviets to launch an expensive research and development program of their own to keep pace.

Reagan easily won reelection in 1984, and his personal popularity helped ensure the election of his successor, Vice President George Bush, in 1988. Just how revolutionary the Reagan era was remains a subject of intense partisan debate. What cannot be denied, however, is that during the 1980s Ronald Reagan became the most dominant—and beloved—political leader since Franklin Roosevelt. His actions and his beliefs set the tone for the decade and continue to affect American political and economic life.

Historians are only just beginning to assess the legacy of the nation’s fortieth president. Contrasting assessments place the accent on different aspects of the Reagan administration. The scandals involving his cabinet members and White House aides revealed how dangerously detached he was from the daily operations of his staff. Yet Ronald Reagan left the White House satisfied with the knowledge that he had redefined the national political agenda and accelerated the conservative insurgency that had been developing for over twenty years. More than any other president since Roosevelt, Reagan redirected the thrust of both domestic and foreign policy. Just as Truman and other Democrats in the post–World War II era defined themselves by reference to Roosevelt’s New Deal, political figures in the 1980s and early 1990s defined themselves by reference to the Reagan Revolution.

Yet Reagan’s policies did not actually constitute a revolution. Although he had declared in his 1981 inaugural address his intention to "curb the size and influence of the federal establishment," the New Deal welfare state remained intact when Reagan left office. Neither the Social Security system nor Medicare was dismantled or overhauled, and the federal agencies that Reagan threatened to abolish, such as the Department of Education, not only remained intact in 1989, their budgets had grown.

Reagan’s administration did succeed in bringing inflation under control and in the process helped stimulate the longest sustained period of peacetime prosperity history. Such economic successes, coupled with the nuclear disarmament treaty as well as Reagan’s efforts to light the fuse of freedom in eastern Europe and set in motion forces that would soon cause the collapse of Soviet Communism, put the Democratic party on the defensive, and force conventional New Deal "liberalism" into a panicked retreat. The fact that Reagan’s tax policies widened the gap between the rich and poor and created huge budget deficits for future presidents to confront did not seem to faze many voters. Most observers, even Democrats, acknowledged that Reagan’s greatest success was in renewing America’s soaring sense of possibilities. As columnist George Will recognized, what the United States need most in 1981, when Reagan was sworn in, was to recover "the sense that it has a competence commensurate with its nobilities and responsibilities."

Please answer the following questions.

Click here for sample answers | Read the document again

Observation

1. What type of document is this? (Ex. Newspaper, telegram, map, letter, memorandum, congressional record)

2. For what audience was the document written?

Expression

3. What do you find interesting or important about this document?

4. Is there a particular phrase or section that you find particularly meaningful or surprising?

Connection

5. What does this document tell you about life in this culture at the time it was written?

Submit to Gradebook:

First Name:
Last Name:
Your Email Address:
Your Professor's Email Address:

Listen America (1980), Jerry Falwell

Please read this document and answer the following questions.

The Reverend Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979 to counter what he considered to be both the creeping socialism of the welfare state and the moral decline evidenced in the excesses of the youth revolt. Americans, he insisted, "are s and tired of the way amoral liberals are trying to corrupt our nation." Coupling fundamentalist Christianity with conservative Republicanism, the Moral Majority emerged as a major political and social force in the 1980s—and a major ally of Ronald Reagan.

---

We must reverse the trend America finds herself in today. Young people between the ages of twenty-five and forty have been born and reared in a different world than Americans of years past. The television set has been their primary baby-sitter. From the television set they have learned situation ethics and immorality—they have learned a loss of respect for human life. They have learned to disrespect the family as God has established it. They have been educated in a public-school system that is permeated with secular humanism. They have been taught that the Bible is just another book of literature. They have been taught that there are no absolutes in our world today. They have been introduced to the drug culture. They have been reared by the family and the public school in a society that is greatly void of discipline and character-building. These same young people have been reared under the influence of a government that has taught them socialism and welfarism. They have been taught to believe that the world owes them a living whether they work or not.

I believe that America was built on integrity, on faith in God, and on hard work. I do not believe that anyone has ever been successful in life without being willing to add that last ingredient—diligence or hard work. We now have second-and third-generation welfare recipients. Welfare is not always wrong. There are those who do need welfare, but we have reared a generation that understands neither the dignity nor the importance of work.

Every American who looks at the facts must share a deep concern and burden for our country. We are not unduly concerned when we say that there are some very dark clouds on America's horizon. I am not a pessimist, but it is indeed a time for truth. If Americans will face the truth, our nation can be turned around and can be saved from the evils and the destruction that have fallen upon every other nation that has turned its back on God.

There is no excuse for what is happening in our country. We must, from the highest office in the land right down to the shoe shine boy in the airport, have a return to biblical basics. If the Congress of our United States will take its stand on that which is right and wrong, and if our President, our judiciary system, and our state and local leaders will take their stand on holy living, we can turn this country around.

I personally feel that the home and the family are still held in reverence by the vast majority of the American public. I believe there is still a vast number of Americans who love their country, are patriotic, and are willing to sacrifice for her. I remember the time when it was positive to be patriotic, and as far as I am concerned, it still is. I remember as a boy, when the flag was raised, everyone stood proudly and put his hand upon his heart and pledged allegiance with gratitude. I remember when the band struck up "The Stars and Stripes Forever," we stood and goose pimples would run all over me. I remember when I was in elementary school during World War II, when every report from the other shores meant something to us. We were not out demonstrating against our boys who were dying in Europe and Asia. We were praying for them and thanking God for them and buying war bonds to help pay for the materials and artillery they needed to fight and win and come back.

I believe that Americans want to see this country come back to basics, back to values, back to biblical morality, back to sensibility, and back to patriotism. Americans are looking for leadership and guidance. It is fair to ask the question, "If 84 per cent of the American people still believe in morality, why is America having such internal problems?" We must look for the answer to the highest places in every level of government. We have a lack of leadership in America. But Americans have been lax in voting in and out of office the right and the wrong people.

My responsibility as a preacher of the Gospel is one of influence, not of control, and that is the responsibility of each individual citizen. Through the ballot box Americans must provide for strong moral leadership at every level. If our country will get back on the track in sensibility and moral sanity, the crises that I have herein mentioned will work out in the course of time and with God's blessings.

It is now time to take a stand on certain moral issues, and we can only stand if we have leaders. We must stand against the Equal Rights Amendment, the feminist revolution, and the homosexual revolution. We must have a revival in this country. . . .

As a preacher of the Gospel, I not only believe in prayer and preaching, I also believe in good citizenship. If a labor union in America has the right to organize and improve its working conditions, then I believe that the churches and the pastors, the priests, and the rabbis of America have a responsibility, not just the right, to see to it that the moral climate and conscience of Americans is such that this nation can be healed inwardly. If it is healed inwardly, then it will heal itself outwardly. . . .

Americans have been silent much too long. We have stood by and watched as American power and influence have been systematically weakened in every sphere of the world.

We are not a perfect nation, but we are still a free nation because we have the blessing of God upon us. We must continue to follow in a path that will ensure that blessing. . . .

Let us never forget that as our Constitution declares, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. It is only as we abide by those laws established by our Creator that He will continue to bless us with these rights. We are endowed our rights to freedom and liberty and the pursuit of happiness by the God who created man to be free and equal.

The hope of reversing the trends of decay in our republic now lies with the Christian public in America. We cannot expect help from the liberals. They certainly are not going to call our nation back to righteousness and neither are the pornographers, the smut peddlers, and those who are corrupting our youth. Moral Americans must be willing to put their reputations, their fortunes, and their very lives on the line for this great nation of ours. Would that we had the courage of our forefathers who knew the great responsibility that freedom carries with it. . . .

Our Founding Fathers separated church and state in function, but never intended to establish a government void of God. As is evidenced by our Constitution, good people in America must exert an influence and provide a conscience and climate of morality in which it is difficult to go wrong, not difficult for people to go right in America.

I am positive in my belief regarding the Constitution that God led in the development of that document, and as a result, we here in America have enjoyed 204 years of unparalleled freedom. The most positive people in the world are people who believe the Bible to be the Word of God. The Bible contains a positive message. It is a message written by 40 men over a period of approximately 1,500 years under divine inspiration. It is God's message of love, redemption, and deliverance for a fallen race. What could be more positive than the message of redemption in the Bible? But God will force Himself upon no man. Each individual American must make His choice. . . .

Americans must no longer linger in ignorance and apathy. We cannot be silent about the sins that are destroying this nation. The choice is ours. We must turn America around or prepare for inevitable destruction. I am listening to the sounds that threaten to take away our liberties in America. And I have listened to God's admonitions and His direction—the only hopes of saving America. Are you listening too?

---

[From Listen America by Jerry Falwell, pp. 17–23. Copyright © 1980 by Jerry Falwell. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.]

Please answer the following questions.

Click here for sample answers | Read the document again

Observation

1. What type of document is this? (Ex. Newspaper, telegram, map, letter, memorandum, congressional record)

2. For what audience was the document written?

Expression

3. What do you find interesting or important about this document?

4. Is there a particular phrase or section that you find particularly meaningful or surprising?

Connection

5. What does this document tell you about life in this culture at the time it was written?

Submit to Gradebook:

First Name:
Last Name:
Your Email Address:
Your Professor's Email Address:

Common Ground and Common Sense (1988), Jesse Jackson

Please read this document and answer the following questions.

The most prominent black politician in the nation during the 1980s was the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1941, Jackson attended the University of Illinois on a football scholarship but transferred to North Carolina A&T University. He attended the Chicago Theological Seminary and was ordained a Baptist minister. In 1965 he joined the civil rights movement as an assistant to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He went on to direct Operation Breadbasket and subsequently founded Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) in Chicago and the National Rainbow Coalition, organizations promoting economic empowerment and educational and economic opportunities for disadvantaged and minority communities. In 1984 Jackson ran a strong third in the Democratic primaries. Four years later he won 7 million votes in the primaries before losing the nomination to Michael Dukakis. A rousing orator, Jackson delivered an uplifting address at the 1988 Democratic Convention.

---

Tonight we pause and give praise and honor to God for being good enough to allow us to be at this place at this time. When I look out at this convention, I see the face of America, red, yellow, brown, black, and white, we're all precious in God's sight—the real rainbow coalition. . . .

We meet tonight at a crossroads, a point of decision. Shall we expand, be inclusive, find unity and power; or suffer division and impotence. We come to Atlanta, the cradle of the old South, the crucible of the new South. Tonight there is a sense of celebration because we are moved, fundamentally moved, from racial battlegrounds by law, to economic common ground. . . . Common Ground! Think of Jerusalem—the intersection where many trails met. A small village that became the birthplace of three great religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Why was the village so blessed? Because it provided a crossroads where different civilizations could meet and find common ground. When people come together, flowers always flourish and the air is rich with the aroma of a new spring. . . . Many people, many cultures, many languages—with one thing in common, the yearning to breathe free. Common Ground! . . .

That is the challenge to our party tonight. Left wing. Right wing. Progress will not come through boundless liberalism nor static conversation, but at the critical mass of mutual survival. . . .

The good of our nation is at stake—its commitment to working men and women, to the poor and the vulnerable, to the many in the world. With so many guided missiles, and so much misguided leadership, the stakes are exceedingly high. Our choice, full participation in a Democratic government, or more abandonment and neglect. And so this night, we choose not a false sense of independence, not our capacity to survive and endure.

Tonight we choose interdependency in our capacity to act and unite for the greater good. The common good is finding commitment to new priorities, to expansion and inclusion. . . . A commitment to new priorities that ensure that hope will be kept alive. . . .

Common Ground.

America's not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth. When I was a child growing up in Greenville, S.C., and grandmother could not afford a blanket, she didn't complain and we did not freeze. Instead, she took pieces of old cloth—patches, wool, silk, gabardine, crockersack on the patches—barely good enough to wipe off your shoes with. But they didn't stay that way very long. With sturdy hands and a strong cord, she sewed them together into a quilt, a thing of beauty and power and culture. Now, Democrats, we must build such a quilt. Farmers, you seek fair prices and you are right, but you cannot stand alone. Your patch is not big enough. Workers, you fight for fair wages. You are right. But your patch labor is not big enough. Women, you seek worth and pay equity. You are right. But your patch is not big enough. Women, mothers, who seek Head Start and day care and prenatal care on the front side of life, rather than jail care and welfare on the backside of life, you're right, but your patch is not big enough. Students, you seek scholarships. You are right. But your patch is not big enough. Blacks and Hispanics, when we fight for civil rights, we are right, but our patch is not big enough. Gays and lesbians, when you fight against discrimination and cure for AIDS, you are right, but your patch is not big enough. Conservatives and progressives, when you fight for what you believe, right-wing. Left-wing, hawk, dove—you are right, from your point of view, but your point of view is not enough.

But don't despair. Be wise as my grandma. Pool the patches and the pieces together, bound by a common thread. When we form a great quilt of unity and common ground we'll have the power to bring about health care and housing and jobs and education and hope to our nation. We the people can win. We stand at the end of a long dark night of reaction. We stand tonight united in a commitment to a new direction. For almost eight years, we've been led by those who view social good coming from private interest, who viewed public life as a means to increase private wealth. They have been prepared to sacrifice the common good of the many to satisfy the private interest and the wealth of a few. We believe in a government that's a tool of our democracy in service to the public, not an instrument of the aristocracy in search of private wealth. We believe in government with the consent of the governed of, for, and by the people. We must not emerge into a new day with a new direction. Reaganomics, based on the belief that the rich had too much money—too little money, and the poor had too much. That's classic Reaganomics. It believes that the poor had too much money and the rich had too little money. So they engaged in reverse Robin Hood—took from the poor, gave to the rich, paid for by the middle class. We cannot stand four more years of Reaganomics in any version, in any disguise.

How do I document that case? Seven years later, the richest 1 percent of our society pays 20 percent less in taxes; the poorest 10 percent pay 20 percent more. Reaganomics. Reagan gave the rich and the powerful a multibillion-dollar party. Now, the party is over. He expects the people to pay for the damage. I take this principled position—convention, let us not raise taxes on the poor and the middle class, but those who had the party, the rich and the powerful, must pay for the party! I just want to take common sense to high places. We're spending $150 billion a year defending Europe and Japan 43 years after the war is over. We have more troops in Europe tonight that we had seven years ago, yet the threat of war is ever more remote. Germany and Japan are now creditor nations—that means they've got a surplus. We are a debtor nation—it means we are in debt. Let them share more of the burden of their own defense—use some of that money to build decent housing! Yes some of that money to educate our children! Use some of that money for long-term health care! Use some of that money to wipe out these slums and put America back to work!

I just want to take common sense to high places. If we can bail out Europe and Japan, if we can bail out Continental Bank and Chrysler . . . we can bail out the family farmer. I just want to make common sense. It does not make sense to close down 650,000 family farms in this country while importing food from abroad subsidized by the U.S. government. Let's make sense. It does not make sense to be escorting oil tankers up and down the Persian Gulf paying $2.50 for every $1.00 worth of oil we bring out while oil wells are capped in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. I just want to make sense.

Leadership must meet the moral challenge of its day. What's the moral challenge of our day? We have public accommodations. We have the right to vote. We have open housing. What's the fundamental challenge of our day? It is to end economic violence. Plant closing without notice, economic violence. Even the greedy do not profit long from greed. Economic violence. Most poor people are not lazy. They're not black. They're not brown. They're mostly white, and female and young. But whether white, black, or brown, the hungry baby's belly turned inside out is the same color. Call it pain. Call it hurt. Call it agony. Most poor people are not on welfare. Some of them are illiterate and can't read the want-ad sections. And when they can, they can't find a job that matches their address. They work hard every day, I know. I live amongst them. I'm one of them.

I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day. They raise other people's children. They work every day. They clean streets. They work every day. They drive vans with cabs. They work every day. They change the beds you slept in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work every day. No more. They're not lazy. Someone must defend them because it's right, and they cannot speak for themselves. They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the bodies of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bedpans. They clean out their commode. No job is beneath them, and yet when they get sick, they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day. America, that is not right. We are a better nation than that. We are a better nation than that. . . .

Leadership. What difference will we make? Leadership can not just go along to get along. We must do more than change presidents. We must change direction. Leadership must face the moral challenge of our day. The nuclear war build-up is irrational. Strong leadership cannot desire to look tough, and let that stand in the way of the pursuit of peace. Leadership must reverse the arms race. At least we should pledge no first use. Why? Because first use begat first retaliation, and that's mutual annihilation. That's not a rational way out. No use at all—let's think it out, and not fight it out, because it's an unwinnable fight. Why hold a card that you can never drop? Let's give peace a chance. Leadership—we now have this marvelous opportunity to have a breakthrough with the Soviets. Last year, 200,000 Americans visited the Soviet Union. There's a chance for joint ventures into space, not Star Wars and the war arms escalation, but a space defense initiative. Let's build in space together, and demilitarize the heavens. There's a way out.

America, let us expand. When Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev met, there was a big meeting. They represented together one-eighth of the human race. Seven-eighths of the human race was locked out of that room. Most people in the world tonight—half Asian, one-half of them are Chinese. There are 22 nations in the Middle East. There's Europe; 40 million Latin Americans next door to us; the Caribbean; Africa—half-billion people. Most people in the world today are yellow or brown or black, non-Christian, poor, female, young, and don't speak English—in the real world.

This generation must offer leadership to the real world. We're losing ground in Latin America, the Middle East, South Africa, because we're not focusing on the real world, that real world. We must use basic principles, support international law. We stand the most to gain from it. Support human rights; we believe in that. Support self-determination; we'll build on that. Support economic development; you know it's right. Be consistent, and gain our moral authority in the world.

I challenge you tonight, my friends, let's be bigger and better as a party. . . . I'm often asked,"Jesse, why do you take on these tough issues? They're not very political. We can't win that way." If an issue is morally right, it will eventually be political. It may be political and never be right. Fannie Lou Hamer didn't have the most votes in Atlantic City, but her principles have outlasted every delegate who voted to lock her out. Rosa Parks did not have the most votes, but she was morally right. Dr. King didn't have the most votes about the Vietnam war, but he was morally right. If we're principled first, our politics will fall in place. Jesse, why did you take these big bold initiatives? A poem by an unknown author went something like this: We mastered the air, we've conquered the sea, and annihilated distance and prolonged life, we were not wise enough to live on this earth without war and without hate.

As for Jesse Jackson, I'm tired of sailing by little boat, far inside the harbor bar. I want to go where the big ships float, out on the deep where the great ones are. And should my frail craft prove too slight, the waves that sweep those billows o'er, I'd rather go down in a stirring fight than drown to death in the sheltered shore. We've got to go out, my friends, where the big boats are.

And then, for our children, young America, hold your head high now. We can win. We must not lose you to drugs and violence, premature pregnancy, suicide, cynicism, pessimism and despair. We can win.

Wherever you are tonight, I challenge you to hope and to dream. Don't submerge your dreams. Exercise above all else, even on drugs, dream of the day you're drug-free. Even in the gutter, dream of the day you'll be up on your feet again. You must never stop dreaming. Face reality, yes. But don't stop with the way things are; dream of things as they ought to be. Dream. Face pain, but love, hope, faith, and dreams will help you rise above the pain. . . .

Wherever you are tonight you can make it. Hold your head high, stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don't you surrender. Suffering breeds character. Character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint. You must not surrender. You may or may not get there, but just know that you're qualified and you hold on and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive. On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive. I love you very much. I love you very much.

---

[From Jesse Jackson, "Common Ground and Common Sense," Vital Speeches 54 (15 August 1988):649–53.]

Please answer the following questions.

Click here for sample answers | Read the document again

Observation

1. What type of document is this? (Ex. Newspaper, telegram, map, letter, memorandum, congressional record)

2. For what audience was the document written?

Expression

3. What do you find interesting or important about this document?

4. Is there a particular phrase or section that you find particularly meaningful or surprising?

Connection

5. What does this document tell you about life in this culture at the time it was written?

Submit to Gradebook:

First Name:
Last Name:
Your Email Address:
Your Professor's Email Address: