The 1980's Political History.

Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980. Many conservatives celebrated, and many progressives knew what would happen next. Many Hollywood celebrities voted for Reagan and celebrated his victory like Frank Sinatra (who was once a liberal Democrat back in 1968). His 1981 inauguration was large. Ronald Reagan was the 40th American President and he was an honorary 33rd Degree Freemason. Ronald Reagan was definitely an ally of the establishment. Many people supported him when he enacted some of the cruelest policies against working class and poor people in American history. There is no other way to put it. The chief Justice Warren Earl Burger administered the oath to Ronald Reagan. On that day, the hostages held in Iran were released, which was good news. Later, celebrations came about in America. Reagan promoted the Registration program. Immediately on January 21, 1981, the Reagan administration made it clear what they wanted to do economically. Reagan promoted Reaganomics which is nothing more than supply side economics. Supply side economics believe that if taxes are reduced on the super wealthy, then that wealth would trickle down to everyone else including the poor. Today, we know that supply side economic doesn’t work to end income inequality or poverty, but back then that supply side economic doctrine was popular. Congress passed the Economic Recovery Act of 1981. It reduced taxes by 25 percent over three years. The richest Americans had the largest tax cuts. Reagan allowed massive cuts to social programs in cutting $40 billion. Reagan further deregulated other industries in airline, telecommunications, and banking institutions. Historically, government investments have increased demands for people to buy goods and services (which grow economic output in factories and factories. This has increased employment, reduced unemployment, increase consumer demands, grow services, and forms an economic recovery which existed form 1945-1975). March 30, 1981 was when Ronald Reagan survived an attempted assassination attempt. One man was responsible and he is John Hinckley Jr. (he wanted to gain the favor of actress Jodie Foster. To this day, Hinckley is in prison since he almost killed one U.S. President). Reagan survived and keep on going on with his Presidency. Hate crimes in the 1980’s saw resurgence along with some of the law enforcement's harassment of black activists.

Reagan reduced affirmative action regulations. Reagan reduced investments in food stamps. Reagan opened consulates of apartheid South Africa in Seattle, Denver, and Cleveland. He massively expanded the military budget. Ronald Reagan’s policies caused civil rights federal investigations to be reduced. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reduced the amount of food serviced to children in schools. Reagan's first term was horrible and he caused more than 4000,000 to be removed from federal and state welfare protections. By 1981, 23.4 Americans or one fifth of all workers were unemployed. Reaganism was an attack on social programs, and racists exploited conservativism to promote their evil agendas. Reaganism is an affront to democracy. The recession lasted from 1980 to 1982. Inflation declined by 1983. More people came into America. The rich got richer. His Presidency saw the increase of the budget deficit and the national debt. Later, the 1984 election came about. It was an unsung election since it had historic significance and the end result was Reagan winning re-election.   While this was going on, tons of black people in America rose up in the anti-apartheid movement and people worldwide fought out for freedom worldwide too. In 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court. She was the first Supreme Court Justice in the court that was a woman. The irony is that Reagan wanted O'Connor to be conservative, but Sandra Day O'Connor was centrist in her jurisprudence on the Supreme Court. The Equal Access Act was passed to allow any group equal access to public facilities at schools. Conservative Christians love the law since it allowed religious groups to meet on school property. The Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional in the Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens.

The early Reagan administration had to deal with many issues. One was when Air Traffic Controllers strike. Thousands of workers heroically protested. Reagan refused to negotiate with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO). He fired the striking workers since he said that the striking workers violated federal law. Like Dr. King has said, not all laws are just and opposing an unjust law is righteous. Social Security had rising costs during the 1980’s. So, Reagan supported the compromise of the Social Security Reform Act that increased the minimum retirement age and increased payroll taxes in order to fund Social Security. Conservatives promoted wanted vouchers to pay parents to send students into private schools, so competing against public school would grow. Liberals said that vouchers just stripped money from public schools. AIDS or the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome first was discovered by mainstream scientists in 1981 (yet, AIDS existed long before 1980). It attacked tons of communities back then including the LGBTQIA+ community and drug users. Back then, many people had ignorance about HIV/AIDS and some scapegoated gay people for the disease. Reagan was silent on HIV/AIDS until later on in his Presidency (especially after Rock Hudson passed away). George H. W. Bush’s President saw the massive rise of investments in fighting HIV/AIDS. In 1983, 241 U.S. Marines killed by suicide bomb in Lebanon. This further exposed to America the reality of terrorism overseas. By 1984, the drug problem intensifies as crack (a smokable form of cocaine) is first introduced into the Los Angeles area. The crack epidemic and the War on Drugs harmed black and poor communities nationwide. In 1985, World awareness of famine in Third World countries spark "We Are the World" and Live Aid. Also, awareness of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is raised with the death of actor Rock Hudson. In the same year, Country music singer Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp organize the first Farm Aid concert to raise money for family farmers facing financial crisis. 


The 1984 election was long. It dealt with Ronald Reagan defeating the Democratic candidate Walter Mondale (and Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate. Ferraro was the first woman to serve on either major party’s national ticket). The election dealt with the economy, foreign policy matters, and other issues. Reagan said that he had a strong economic recovery and a national revival of confidence and prestige. The problem is that income inequality grew and poverty was still widespread in many communities nationwide. Reagan used TV ads, and other methods in getting his victory. Mondale opposed Reagan’s supply-side economic policies and budget deficits. Walter Mondale wanted a nuclear freeze and ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. By 1984, Ben Fernandez and Harold Stassen had a primary challenge against Reagan on the Republican side. Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination easily with him getting over 98 percent of the popular vote. Reagan was re-nominated by a vote of 2,233 delegates (two delegates abstained). For the only time in American history, the vice presidential roll call was taken concurrently with the presidential roll call. Vice President George H. W. Bush was overwhelmingly re-nominated. This was the last time in the 20th century that the vice presidential candidate of either major party was nominated by roll call vote. The Democratic primary for the 1984 election was more competitive. Jesse Jackson ran for President in 1988 too. Other people who ran in the Democratic primary were Reubin Askew (former Governor of Florida), Alan Cranston, John Glenn, Gary Hart, Ernest Hollings, and George McGovern.  The Democratic primary race was headed by votes among Mondale, Jackson, and Hart. Mondale raised more money. Jesse Jackson and Gary Hart had massive popularity too. Jesse Jackson was the second African-American (after Shirley Chisholm) to mount a nationwide campaign for the presidency, and he was the first African-American candidate to be a serious contender. He got 3.5 million votes during the primaries, third behind Hart and Mondale. He won the primaries in Virginia, South Carolina, and Louisiana, and split Mississippi, where there were two separate contests for Democratic delegates. Through the primaries, Jackson helped confirm the black electorate's importance to the Democratic Party in the South at the time.  Also, Jesse Jackson made a remark about Jewish people that he later apologized (since it was an anti-Semitic slur) and that event derailed his campaign for the nomination. If that incident didn’t exist, Jackson would win much more support. Jackson ended up winning 21% of the national primary vote but received only 8% of the delegates to the national convention, and he initially charged that his campaign was hurt by the same party rules that allowed Mondale to win. He also criticized Mondale, saying that Hubert Humphrey was the "last significant politician out of the St. Paul-Minneapolis" area. Gary Hart was a prelude to Bill Clinton. Hart wanted to promote moderate Democratic Party policies while condemning old fashioned New Deal (which saved millions of human lives. The New Deal is a whole lot better than Hart’s centrism). Mondale defeated Hart since he said that Hart had no specific positions to solve problems. At a roundtable debate between the three remaining Democratic candidates moderated by Phil Donahue, Mondale and Hart got into such a heated argument over the issue of U.S. policy in Central America that Jackson had to tap his water glass on the table to help get them to stop.

Jesse Jackson won many support among grassroots black people (including progressives and other minorities) while some black people supported Mondale because they believed that Jackson wouldn’t win or for other reasons. Hart won the California primary. By the time of the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco on July 16, Mondale received the overwhelming support of the unelected super delegates from the party establishment to win the nomination. This race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination was the closest in two generations, and, as of 2017, it was the last occasion that a major party's race for the presidential nomination went all the way to its convention. Jesse Jackson gave a stirring speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention. It was a historic speech that called for unity among Americans like a rainbow to combat Reaganism. Also, Mondale said that he and Reagan will raise taxes. That was taboo since Presidents do raise taxes, but Presidents rarely said such things in a convention speech. U.S. Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro was the Vice Presidential running mate. Ferraro worked with New York Governor Mario Cuomo. Reagan had his campaign. John Anderson was running in the National Unity Party. The Citizens Party and the Libertarian Party plus the Communist Party (Angela Davis ran for President) ran their candidates.  Mondale ran a liberal campaign by supporting a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and economic solutions to the unfairness of Reagan’s economic policies. Critics came after Ferraro for her political views and allegations about her husband, John Zaccaro. The Reagan campaign briefly used "Born in the U.S.A.", a song criticizing the treatment of Vietnam War veterans (which they mistakenly thought was devoid of anti-war content), as a campaign song, without permission, until Springsteen, a lifelong Democrat, insisted that they stop. Some people questioned Reagan’s age while being President. His second debate ended that issue by his comments. Ronald Reagan was re-elected in 1984 by November 6, 1984. Reagan won in a landslide. He won a record 525 electoral votes total (of 538 possible), and received 58.8% of the popular vote; despite Ferraro's selection, 55% of women who voted did so for Reagan, and his 54 to 61% of the Catholic vote was the highest for a Republican candidate in history. Mondale's 13 electoral college votes (from his home state of Minnesota—which he won by 0.18%—and the District of Columbia) marked the lowest total of any major presidential candidate since Alf Landon's 1936 loss to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mondale's defeat was also the worst for any Democratic Party candidate in American history in the Electoral College. Reagan Democrats helped to send Reagan to the White House again. Many of them were made up of southern whites and northern blue collar workers. Some of them believed in scapegoating poor and minority people for the problems of the middle class. They believed that they had an economic recovery. Reagan lost Minnesota. By the second term of the Reagan administration, tax reform laws were passed and other events came about.




During the Reagan Presidency, the Cold War reached its zenith and it ended. Stalinism declined because of many reasons. The Soviet Union extended its military aid so much in Afghanistan and in other places that investments in domestic areas declined. Massive violations to civil liberties existed in the Soviet Union and protests in many Soviet areas grew up the movement to end the Soviet Union. A combination of factors made it clear that the Soviet Union was dying. Yet, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and claimed that the Soviets were the biggest threats on Earth. Reagan massively expanded the U.S. military since he wanted to combat the perception that America lost its way militarily after the Vietnam War. He also wanted a military build up to combat the Soviets and end their existence. Reagan was overt in wanting the Soviet Union to end starting in Eastern Europe. He always condemned Communism in his speeches for decades. He supported covert actions to combat communism worldwide. So, Reagan sent billions of dollars to fund B-1 bombers, B-2 bombers, MX missile systems, and SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative using missiles to combat a nuclear attack). Reagan placed nuclear missiles in Europe which was protested worldwide as some wanted a nuclear freeze. Reagan aided anti-Communists in Afghanistan, Central America, etc. That is why Reagan backed the Contras. The problem with the Contras was that they were brutal, vicious, and authoritarian. A right wing regime in El Salvador was funded by Reagan’s people as well. El Salvador had such of a bad human rights record that even Congress wanted funding to that nation dependent on its human rights record. In October 25, 1983, U.S. forces invaded Grenada to stop a left wing movement from governing the nation. The troops protected American medical students. There were controversial legal questions about the invasion (in seeing whether it was legal or not), but most Americans supported the decision to invade Grenada. By 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was the President of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was a more moderate Soviet leader and worked with Reagan to resolve Cold War issues. Gorbachev followed glasnost and perestroika in order to have a less state ruled economy. He wanted reforms since the Soviet Union was in economic chaos. Factories were down and workers suffered economic tribulations. Reagan moderated his stance on the Soviet Union. Both leaders talked about nuclear weapons in START I negotiations. Reagan wanted the Berlin Wall to come down in his famous 1987 speech in Germany. In 1987, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. President Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev. Reagan and Gorbachev toasted each other in Moscow. By the end of the 1980’s, Eastern Europe became free from Stalinism. Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary had democratic elections. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Communism soon ended in Romania and Bulgaria by 1989. The beginning of the end of the Cold War was unexpected, quick, and it wasn’t bloodless though. Romania was a nation with massive bloodshed involving them leaving the Soviet Union. Poland had bloodshed too. It is no secret that the CIA and the Vatican worked together to promote the Solidarity movement in Poland in order for Communism to end in Poland. Stalinism is antithetical to socialism since Stalinism sought authoritarianism (i.e. workers were denied to collectively bargain, Stalin destroyed religious buildings, and Stalin murdered independent socialist leaders) at the expense of political and social freedoms. The Cold War finally over sent a new sense of change to people worldwide. The Cold War made it known that the emancipation of the working class and all oppressed people must be enacted. Challenger broke apart after launch in 1986, killing all crew on board. Drunk driving awareness raised after a drunk driver's car crashes into a church bus near Carrollton, Kentucky, killing 27 in 1988. 1988 was the year when  Discovery launched as first post-Challenger Space Shuttle flight. In 1988, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty goes into effect.

By Timothy