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Well, hey there and welcome back
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to Heimler's History and, furthermore,
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welcome to the first topic video of Unit
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9 of the AP US History curriculum.
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[INHALES] Mmm,
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we are so close to the end.
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Can you smell it?
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Anyway, Unit 9 covers the time period
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from 1980 to roughly the present.
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So, this video is about the resurgence
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of conservatism in America,
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and the crowning achievement
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of that movement was
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the election of Ronald Reagan.
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So, if you're ready to get them brain cows
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milked very conservatively,
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then let's get to it.
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So, in this video I'm just aiming to do one thing:
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explain the causes and effects
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of continuing policy debates about the
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role of the federal government over time.
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And just as a reminder,
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as we're getting closer to AP exam time,
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you might wanna have a look
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at my APUSH Ultimate Review Packet,
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which has everything you need to get an A
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It is so tasty, it is
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Okay, so this resurgence of conservatism
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did not happen in a vacuum because
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in nearly all cases, conservatives
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of any size cannot fit into a vacuum.
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Nailed it.
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Anyway, the conservative movement really
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began with some of the events we talked
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about in the last unit,
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starting with the 1964 presidential
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campaign of Barry Goldwater who gave
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a name to the movement,
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namely The New Right.
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And thanks to all the sorrows
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of the Democratic presidency
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of Jimmy Carter, the conservatives
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would have an easy time unseating him.
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On Carter's watch,
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the nation dealt with the economic turmoil
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of stagflation and then there was the Iran
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hostage crisis, and then the cherry on top
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was the longstanding energy crisis due
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to Middle Eastern oil exporters
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cutting off the supply to the US.
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So, in the 1980 election,
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here comes Ronald Reagan to save the day.
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Reagan was a former actor and, thus, was
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very savvy with televised media
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and, therefore, came off very likable.
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And Reagan was essentially the embodiment
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of the three prongs of attack that The
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New Right had been developing for years.
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First, there was Cold War conservatism
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which desired to resist the spread
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of communism abroad, and we'll talk
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more about this in the next video.
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Second, conservatives of the New Right
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described themselves as
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pro-business economically.
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This meant that they wanted to roll back
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the regulations that liberal
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administrations had put on big businesses
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and then decrease corporate taxes
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and create an economic environment
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in which big business could flourish.
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Third was the moral
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and religious prong of attack.
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As I mentioned in the last unit,
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conservatives were pooping their modest
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pants over all the cultural upheaval
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occurring in the '60s and '70s.
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You had the counterculture movement,
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women's liberation, Roe versus Wade,
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and the gay liberation movement, just
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to name a few, and all of this felt
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to the conservatives like an attack
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on their traditional values.
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And so, with Ronald Reagan at their head,
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The New Right won a massive
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victory in the election of 1980.
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Reagan won 489 electoral votes compared
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to Carter's 49 electoral votes.
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And so, with all the context I've just laid
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out for you, it won't be a surprise
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for you to hear that many historians
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understand the election of Ronald Reagan
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as a large-scale rejection of all
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the social changes that occurred
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in the previous couple of decades.
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Now, let's talk about some of Reagan's
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policies and how they achieved
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the aims of The New Right.
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First let's talk about Reaganomics,
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and hey, you gotta respect the kind
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of chutzpah that drives a man to rename
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an entire field of study after himself.
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Anyway, the more accurate term
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for Reagan's economic policies
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was supply side economics.
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The idea here is that American prosperity
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will be achieved through tax cuts
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and decreased federal spending.
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If those two things happen,
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then the idea is that there would be more
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investment in the private sector
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which would lead to an increase
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in productivity and jobs.
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And if you're listening carefully,
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you can hear that this is a fundamental
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rejection of the more liberal Keynesian
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economics which dominated American
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economics throughout a big chunk
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of the 20th century,
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and it argued that prosperity was achieved
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through increased government spending.
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Reagan argued that if you get
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the government out of the economy,
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then businesses would flourish
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and that prosperity would
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trickle down to everyone below.
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So, to this end, a conservative Congress
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passed the Economic Recovery Act of 1981,
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which cut income taxes by 25%
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over the next three years.
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It also provided for cuts in corporate
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income taxes, capital gains taxes,
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and inheritance taxes.
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And, in case, you don't know what
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any of those are, don't worry.
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All you really need to know is that these
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are taxes that the very
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wealthy have to contend with.
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And so, it's enough to know
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that, in general,
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the wealthy disproportionately benefited
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from those Reagan-era tax cuts.
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And that makes sense
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according to Reaganomics.
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If the top tier are prosperous, then that
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prosperity will trickle down to others.
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Before you go canceling Reagan over that,
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you should know that such a thing did kind
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of happen in the prosperity of the 1920s,
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so it's not without precedent.
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But I should mention that while Reagan
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worked hard to cut federal spending,
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it really depends on what kind
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of federal spending you're talking about.
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His administration did cut federal
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spending on welfare programs like food
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stamps and public transportation,
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and that saved the federal
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budget about $40 billion.
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But here's where I tell you
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that Ronald Reagan did enjoy getting
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the federal wallet out and spending metric
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butt loads of government money, just as
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long as that money was
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spent on the US military.
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While he saved 40 billion on food stamps,
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he simultaneously racked up 150 billion
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in military spending over
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the course of his two terms.
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So, when I say that Reagan wanted
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to decrease federal spending,
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it really depends on the kind of federal
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spending you're talking about.
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And with this kind of spending,
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the federal budget began running a 200
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billion to 300 billion dollar deficit a year.
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And with that kind of deficit,
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that meant that any new talk about social
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programs to aid the welfare of lower-income
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Americans was really off the table.
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And furthermore, deregulation was a key
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tenet in Reagan's economic policy.
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Remember, by Reagan's reckoning,
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the private sector was king, and anything
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he could do to get the stinking
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government out of it was a win.
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He led the charge on reducing regulations
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on the auto industry by lowering standards
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of car emissions and safety regulations.
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Additionally, Reagan's administration
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opened federal lands for coal mining
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and lumber extraction and also opened
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offshore waters for oil drilling.
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Remember, there was a big push
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for environmental regulations in the few
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decades prior to 1980,
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and so Reagan was like,
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"[LAUGHTER] Y'all so crazy."
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And went ahead and rolled back dang
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near every one of those regulations.
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It was truly a massive shift in policy.
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Okay, now let's look at how the Reagan
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administration manifested the moral
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and religious aims of the New Right.
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One of the key strategies in conservative
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groups like the Moral Majority was to have
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conservative judges appointed
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to the Supreme Court, and oh baby
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did Reagan deliver on this one.
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He appointed no less than four judges
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to the Supreme Court: Sandra Day O'Connor,
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William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia,
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and Anthony Kennedy.
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This major conservative victory led
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to the scaling back of that nemesis
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of conservatism known as affirmative
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action and the state-level restrictions
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of abortions, which rolled
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back the provisions of Roe v.
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Wade, which is why if you ask any
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conservative since 1980 what they think
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of Ronald Reagan, their response is,
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"[CRYING] I love him so much."
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Anyway, the point is this: the presidency
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of Ronald Reagan was a watershed moment
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in the modern history of American politics
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because it was a fundamental rejection
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of the liberalism that dominated
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the '60s and '70s.
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Okay, that's what you need to know about
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Unit 9 Topic 2 of the
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AP US History curriculum.
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If you want help getting an A in your
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class and a five on your exam in May,
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then click right here and grab
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a free preview packet.
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If you want me to keep making these
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Heimler out.