George W. Bush

Served as President from 2001-2008
Era: The Present Era
American Identity and Culture
During Bush’s presidency, the infamous 9/11 occurred where planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It was an act of terrorism that devastated the entire nation. There were also other terrorist attacks on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the downing of a fourth plane in Pennsylvania. Altogether, these events claimed the lives of over three thousand Americans and pushed the American public to call for war.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
Congress passed a $1.35 trillion tax cut to be spread over ten years in 2001. This bill gave taxpayers and immediate $300 or $600 rebate, reduced all tax brackets, and increased both child credit and limits for IRA and 401(k) contributions. When the tax cut passed, the government ran a surplus and the stock market was at a high. Unfortunately, the stock market crashed in 2000 and experienced its first recession in 2001 since the early 1990s. The unemployment rose to six percent in 2002 while the number of people living in poverty also increased. To fight the recession, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to 1.25 percent which was the lowest in fifty years. By 2004, there was more than a $400-billion annual deficit.
Environment
President Bush’s conservative agenda included drilling for gas and oil in the Alaska wildlife refuge and voluntary environmental standards. In 2002, he announced the Clears Skies Act which was aimed at amending the Clear Air Act to reduce pollution of emission trading programs. Critics argued that this only succeeded in weakening the original legislation because it allowed higher emission rates of pollutants that were previously illegal. In 2007, Bush pledged to rely less on foreign oil by reducing fossil fuel consumption and working toward increasing alternative fuel production. However, due to high oil prices in 2008, he lifted a ban on offshore drilling.
Politics and Citizenship
The largest government reorganizations since the creation of the Department of Defense after World War II occurred during Bush’s presidency. The Homeland Security Department combined over twenty federal agencies with one-hundred seventy thousand employees, including Customs, Immigration and Naturalization, the Coast Guard, and the Secret Service. However, the FBI and CIA were left out of the new department. They were also criticized by a bipartisan national commission on terrorism for not being able to uncover the September 11 plot. Under increasing pressure from the public, Congress finally passed a majority of the commission’s recommendations which included the creation of a Director of National Intelligence to coordinate the intelligence activities of competing bureaucracies.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
Within the Bush administration, Condoleeza Rice was the first female African American secretary of state. She was also the first woman to be named as National Security Advisor (during Bush’s first term). In 2003, the Washington Post reported that Rice was important in forming Bush’s position on race-based preferences. Rice has stated that "while race-neutral means are preferable," race can be taken into account as "one factor among others" in university admissions policies. Also in 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the use of race in admissions decisions. It reaffirmed that universities could take race into consideration as one factor among many when selecting incoming students.
War and Diplomacy
In January 2002, in his first State of the Union address, President Bush called the nations of Iraq, North Korea, and Iran as the “axis of evil.” Although American intelligence failed to find a link between Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration pursued an attack on Iraq before Hussein could build and distribute “weapons of mass destruction,” both nuclear and biological, to terrorists. It was criticized for going to war with faulty intelligence, but defended the war as a part of the campaign against terrorism and bringing democracy to the Middle East. In 2005, the Iraqis held their first free election and created a national assembly, which selected a prime minister, cabinet ministries, and a committee to write a new constitution.

Bill Clinton

Served as President from 1993-2001
Era: The Conservative Resurgence
American Identity and Culture
During President Clinton’s presidency, the United States was becoming more and more racially and culturally diverse. At the same time, life spans were increasing meaning people were living to older ages. By the year 2000, more than 35 million Americans were over the age of 65 and an even larger amount of Americans over the age of 85. With more people living to an older age, there was more emphasis on concerns such as health care, senior retirement homes, social security, and prescription of drugs. During this time, another concern that escalated was the fact that the numbers of single parent households in America were increasing, while the traditional family ideal was decreasing. In the year 2000, families ran by a single mother had hit a staggering amount of 17.6 percent of the American population which is equivalent to 12.8 million families.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
During President Clinton’s presidency, there was a dramatic increase in communications, trade, and capital spreading around across the world due to globalization. Globalization advocated for more development in regional and global economic establishments.In 1994, the World Trade Organization was created to make sure trade rules were being followed, to supervise trade agreements, and to settle any economical disputes. The same year, the International Monetary Fund was created as well as the World Bank. Together, these organizations gave out loans and enforced commercial policies in nations that were stuck in debt.In 2002, 12 nations inthe European Union, which was a union in which 15 nations agreed to have a unified market, decided to have one currency (the euro) that will be accepted in any of the 12 participating nations.
Environment
During President Clinton’s presidency,President Clinton supported many environmental causes. As President, President Clinton used his presidential powers to draft more than 10 new monuments in the United States. These national monuments preserved over 4.6 million acres of land. In 2000, President Clinton personally visited Bangladesh to publicly tell everyone that he has set aside 84 million dollars to help clean energy in areas of South Asia.President Clinton focused on creating alternative energy sources and thus his administration created more than fifty programs to help improve the efficiency of energy and to develop new renewable sources of energy. President Clinton enforced the Safe Drinking Water Act by forcing over 55 thousand water companies to provide reports by their customers explaining the quality of the water. Due to President Clinton’s actions, approximately 90 percent of the water Americans drink are up to par with the federal government’s standards.
Politics and Citizenship
During President Clinton’s first term as President, the Democratic Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993. Also in 1993, President Clinton passed the “motor-voter” law that allowed citizens of the United States with a driver’s license to be able to vote. In his Brady Handgun bill, the bill established that a person must wait for five-days before being able to buy a handgun. The following year, Congress passed President Clinton’s Anti-Crime Bill which gave 30 billion dollars to fund more police and anti-crime programs. To aid in crime prevention, Congress prohibited the sale of any weapons deemed “dangerous” or that could be used to assault anyone.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
As the first president to be from the baby boom generation, President Clinton had received much support for the African Americans living in the United States. As one of President Clinton’s main beliefs, Clinton wanted to improve relationships between different races. In the year 1998, famous New York writer Toni Morrison calls President Clinton the “first Black president” because he grew up raised by one parent, born in a poor middle class family. Also because President Clinton loves eating McDonalds, knows how to play the saxophone, and because President Clinton has experienced people stereotyping him which is an experience many African Americans go through.
War and Diplomacy
In 1993, President Clinton sent troops to Somalia for humanitarian missions. Many of the American troops died there. In 1994, President Clinton sent 20 thousand troops to Haiti in hopes of restoring the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In 1998, the United States helped compromise a stop to British control over the island of Northern Ireland. Asia during the 1990s, became increasingly scary as more Asian nations began experimenting with nuclear weapons. At the time North Korea had many prominent nuclear developing programs going on, but agreed to stop development of nuclear weapons after negotiating with President Clinton’s administration. Despite giving agreement, North Korea continued the development of nuclear weapons in secrecy. In 1995, the United States formed a military alliance with Vietnam. At the same time, the United States also were signing commercial agreements with China in hopes of strengthening more diplomatic relationships with Asia.

George H. W. Bush

Served as President from 1989-1993
Era: The Conservative Resurgence
American Identity and Culture
During George Bush’s presidency there were much advancement in the American culture. For example, in 1992 Hollywood became the leading film market in the entire world. There was also a new great film known as Schindler’s List. This award-winning film won many Golden Globes and Academy Awards for being the Best Motion Picture – Drama and also the Best Screenplay along with the Best Director. The director of this movie and also the author of the original story was Steven Spielberg. Along with advancements in culture, there were also new scientific advancements such as the Internet. The internet expanded and became the World Wide Web that we all know today in 1993. The United States also lost to Japan in making automobiles as Japan took over the world’s auto-making capabilities. This shaped the United States as we have come to now use lots of Japanese cars such as Suzuki, Honda and others.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
After Ronal Reagan, the United States was left in large deficits. In 1990 the federal government deficit was at $220 billion. Bush focused most of his presidency on trying to curb the deficit and believed that America had to fix the problem or else it could not be a world leader. Bush ended up raising tax revenues even though in his campaign to become president, he campaigned that he would have no new taxes. Because of this, Republicans defeated his new proposals that would have cuts and would have taxed people, reducing the deficit by over $500 billion in the next five years. In the end, Bush put higher taxes and put more spending. He increased the marginal tax rate and stopped giving exemptions to people who were high-income.
Environment
During the presidency of George H. W. Bush there were many restrictions in the environmental policy. The first thing that he did was appoint William Reilly to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. He also appointed many other people that were very strong environmentalists to high positions in the EPA. Bush also created the Council on Competitiveness to negotiate with the EPA. In one negotiation, they had rulings that redefined the wetlands and also brought the budget in dealing with toxic chemicals that were in landfills. Along with this they also brought many relief efforts in trying to help the environment.
Politics and Citizenship
It was during 1989 that there was the end of Communism as we saw the Soviet Union crumble slowly. During the same year, the Berlin Wall that separated West and East Berlin also crumbled as the Soviet Union finally agreed to end the Berlin Wall that was there. The leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev, also ceased his rampage on democracy and ended his reign of communism, meaning he also stopped supporting other countries that were communistic or were under communistic influence such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. After this ending of the communism, Bush later tried to end the arms race as he made both the Soviet Union and the United States try to limit production of more nuclear warheads and dismantle many nuclear weapons. This was known as START I and START II.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. This act was very pro-civil rights legislation. This bill established a strong prohibition of discrimination that is based on anything near disabilities. This strongly went for the civil rights activists in America as it had now stopped discrimination towards Americans with disabilities. There were also other new bills worked with the federal government into trying to increase the federal spending for civil rights in education, childcare and also in technology. This Immigration Act was also signed in the same year, 1990 which increased the legal immigration of immigrants into the United States by over 40%.
War and Diplomacy
During 1990, Saddam Hussein led an invasion as they invaded Kuwait near Iraq for its oil. Because of this invasion, George Bush began his rampage in Iraq as he began to rally it in Iraq and in the United States. This began the Gulf War in Kuwait. Iraq began violently attack Kuwait and they refused to leave. This led to the military decision to bomb them as we dropped more than 4,000 bombs in the area by aircraft. We began to push towards Kuwait City as we tried to push towards it we gained more and more casualties which was unneeded though many critics. People though we should have stopped, and there are others who believed we should have kept on going, but if we had done this we would have to occupy Baghdad and in the end, rule over Iraq as well. Along with the Gulf War, Bush also faced the Somali Civil War. The United Nations had to create the UNOSOM I in 1992 to aid the humanitarians in Somalia. Bush approved aid to the area because the project by the United Nations failed.

Ronald Reagan

Served as President from 1981-1989
Era: The Conservative Resurgence
American Identity and Culture
During Reagan’s presidency, an era of conservatism reemerged. A loose coalition of economic and political conservatives, religious fundamentalists, and political action committees (PACs) rose. These groups opposed big government, new Deal liberalism, gun control, feminism, gay rights, welfare, affirmative action, sexual permissiveness, abortion, and drug use. They saw these issues as the cause of the decline in family and religious values, work ethic, and national security. Three best-selling novels written by Tom Clancy portray the Reagan Era: The Hunt for Red October (1984), Red Storm Rising (1986), and The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988). They reflect values from the Cold War and were used to ideas of national security to the public.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
Regan emphasized supply-side economics (also known as “Reaganomics”) which argued that tax cuts reduced government spending, increased investment, and led to increased production, jobs, and prosperity. Congress passed most of the tax cuts suggested by Reagan which included a twenty five percent decrease in personal income taxes over three years. There were also cuts in the corporate income tax, capital gains tax, and gift and inheritance taxes. The top income tax rate was reduced to twenty eight percent. Republicans cut over $40 billion from domestic programs, which included food stamps, student loans, and mass transportation. However, the savings allowed a dramatic increase in military spending in its place.
Environment
The Reagan administration followed up on its promise of “getting government off the backs of the people” by reducing federal government regulation on business and industry (deregulation). This also meant that the government eased up its restriction on issues like environmental protection. For example, to help America’s struggling auto industry, regulations on emissions and auto safety were reduced. Secretary of the Interior James Watt also opened federal lands to increase coal and timber production and offshore waters for oil drilling.
Politics and Citizenship
The Reagan administration’s conservative agenda called for a stronger military, lower taxes, fewer social programs, and traditional cultural values. This helped the Republicans to become the majority party. In his approach to combating the Cold War, Reagan increased spending for defense and aid to anticommunist forces in Latin America. For example, his administration increased spending on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which was a plan for building a high-tech system of lasers and particle beams to destroy enemy missiles before they could reach U.S. territory. This shows that Reagan’s political focus were on conservative goals and the Cold War.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
During years of recession, white males blamed their problems on “reverse discrimination” due to the government’s support of racial and ethnic quotas. An example of this was the Supreme Court case of Bakke v. Regents of the University of California (1978) where Allan Bakke, a white male, sued saying that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race. The Supreme Court upheld the university’s use of race in its admissions decisions, but it also found that Bakke should have been admitted and banned the use of racial quotas alone. After this event, conservatives worked even harder to end preferential treatment based on racial and ethnic backgrounds.
War and Diplomacy
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the new Soviet leader and introduced two major reforms: glasnost (openness) to end political repression and perestroika, or restructuring of the economy by introducing some free-market tactics. In order to achieve his reforms, Gorbachev needed to end the costly arms race. As a result, in 1987, Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to remove and destroy all intermediate-range missiles (the INF agreement). To further reduce Cold War tensions, Gorbachev removed Soviet troops from Afghanistan and even cooperated with the United States in pressuring Iran and Iraq to end their war. Relations had improved so much that the end of the Cold War seemed close.

Jimmy Carter

Served as President from 1977-1981
Era: The Seventies
American Identity and Culture
During the 1970s, minorities began to protest and implement their own movements in the United States to achieve discrimination relief and recognition by the American public.Before World War II, Hispanic Americans generally resided in southwestern states. However in the years after World War II, Hispanic Americans began to come from Cuba, South America, Puerto Rico, and Central America and inhabit the Midwest and East. During the 1950s to 1960s, Mexican workers assumed agricultural jobs that paid very little. In 1975, Caesar Chavez led boycotts in which achieved rights for farm workers. Mexican Americans, also known as Chicanos, also achieved federal mandates for Hispanics to be taught Spanish and English. During the 1980s, many Hispanic Americans were able to obtain positions, such as being a mayor of a city, in the public office. As a result, Hispanics became America’s biggest minority group.
In 1968, the American Indian Movement was established to obtain self-determination and to bring back traditions of Native American tribes. The efforts of the American Indian Movementled Congress to pass the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975 which allowed tribal lands and reservations to have more control over programs, education, and laws.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
During President Carter’s presidency, one of the main problems Carter faced was the increasing inflation rates in the United States. Initially, President Carter tried to fix the inflation rates by conserving the usage of oil energy and instead going back to the usage of the coal industry to replace oil energy. However, the efforts of Congress failed to try to decrease the amount of usage of oil energy. Between 1979 and 1980, inflation increased to 13 percent, a rate that was never seen before by the American public.The inflation rates reduced economic growth because businesses and consumers could not afford the interests rates that were on expensive products. In 1980, Paul Volcker from the Federal Reserve Board wanted to increase the inflation rate to 20 percent. The increase in the inflation rate affected the car industry as well as the construction industry. As a result, many businesses were forced to lay off thousands of workers.In 1980, the government deficit was almost 60 billion dollars which finally hit Americans with the reality that the standard of living in the United States was slowly beginning to decline.
Environment
In 1970, the first ever Earth Day was established. On the national event, approximately 20 million citizens of the United States participated.Earth Day focuses on the amount of pollution and destruction of forests, wild life, etc. in the United States. The event of Earth Day spurred the question of whether or not if advancements in technology were really made. The American public soon became against the idea of constructing more nuclear power plants after an incident in the Three Mile Island power plant located in Pennsylvania. The American public was also scared of incidents like a deadly explosion. For example, like what happened in Soviet Union when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded.As a response to these growing fears over the future environment, conservationists urged for Congress to pass laws and policies to stop any more pollution from being generated and the destruction of the wild life. Congress soon passed the Clean Air Act in 1970 and created the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1972, Congress also passed the Clean Water Act. In 1980, the establishment of the Superfund sought to clear-out toxic dumps. For example the Love Canal located in Niagara Falls, New York.
Politics and Citizenship
Despite the achievements made by President Carter, his actions in handling the crisis of hostages in Iran and his actions in trying to fix the declining economic crisis has led him to be known as an incapable president. In 1979, President Carter made a speech known as the “national malaise” speech. In his speech, President Carter directly blamed the issues of the United States on the American public. As a result, President Carter’s popularity decreased dramatically and thus aided him in his loss of the election of 1980.
In 1978, Allan Bakke, a white man in his 30s, applied to attend the University of California, Davis twice as he was rejected the first time. Bakke was rejected the second time and wondered why he had been rejected when his grades had exceeded the requirement level. Bakke was also curious as to why he was rejected when many of the applicants who were admitted had significantly lower grades than him. In the year 1974, the University finally admitted that they were only looking for applicants whose races were considered a minority in the United States. Angered, Bakke sued in which his case soon was taken under the provisions of the Supreme Court. In the case, known as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court ruled that the university’s actions were unconstitutional and it is illegal to not admit an applicant based on race.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
President Carter was a supporter of civil rights for African Americans. One of President Carter’s main achievements in his foreign policies was his take on human rights. President Carter selectedAfrican American Andrew Young to become the United States ambassador in the United Nations. As ambassador, Andrew Young greatly contributed to the cause of human rights by criticizing the cruelty towards the African Americans in Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe, and South Africa. With human rights being violated in Latin America by the governments of Chile and Argentina, President Carter stopped sending United State help to them.
War and Diplomacy
In 1978, President Carter was able to settle a peace treaty for Egypt and Israel. In 1977, Anwar Sadat (President of Egypt) went to Jerusalem to visit Menachem Begin, the Israel Prime Minister. With Sadat’s brave move, President Carter invited Begin and Sadat to Camp David, Maryland for a presidential getaway retreat. Together, they were able to agree to the Camp David Accords which called for peace between the two countries. As a result of the peace treaty, Egypt became the first nation of Arabia to acknowledge Israel as a nation. In response to the new found recognition, Israel sent word for their troops to be removed from the territory of Sinai which was taken by Egypt in the Six-Day War in 1967. Despite peace between Egypt and Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organization as well as a majority of the Arab nations was strongly against the peace treaty.In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini and his Islamic followers put an end to the dictatorial government of the shah. In the 1970s, the shah provided the West oil, but due to his actions much of the Iranian population became alienated. With Khomeini in power, the oil being sent to the West stopped causing President Carter to have to step in and handle the crisis. In 1980, President Carter allowed for a rescue mission. However because the helicopters in the desert of Iran broke down, the mission was cancelled. As a result, President Carter’s failed actions to rescue the hostage became a symbol of him being a failure president.

Gerald R. Ford

Served as President from 1974-1977
Era: The Seventies
American Identity and Culture
During Gerald Rudolph Ford’s presidency there was a major scientific advancement in the field of Astronomy and Aeronautics. This advancement was the landing of the Viking 1 and Viking 2 on Mars. These two satellite Rovers on mars have now landed and could now take pictures of the terrain of Mars, yielding new information on the red planet that no one else knew about. There were also new cultural developments such as the creation of Star Wars by George Lucas. George Lucas published it in 1977. There were also other new movies such as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, an award winning film by Reiner Werner Fassbinder.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
The first thing that Gerald did for the Economy was to create the Economic Policy Board. Gerald Ford’s biggest goal was to lower the inflation in America. He started the “Whip Inflation Now” program where he publicized it with buttons and other things. The program asked United States citizens to try and limit their spending and consumption of consumer items made by factories and others. He even made a speech to start his campaign for the Whip Inflation Now Program. Although people though the speech was fake and it was only to appeal to the public, the actual point from that speech was to introduce a new plan that would last one year where five percent of all income tax increases would be on corporations and also the wealthy people.
Environment
During the Gerald Ford administration, the United States had to face the swine flu pandemic. This flu, named H1N1 was a form of flu that was thought to only affect pigs, however it had crossed over to humans now. Public health officials now began the mysterious prevention of combating this Swine Flu. People wanted Gerald Ford to ask for every United States citizen to be vaccinated. Even though the vaccination was given to the Americans, there were more deaths from the vaccines than from the actual disease itself.
Politics and Citizenship
After Richard Nixon resigned from office, the Vice President did not become president, instead it was Gerald Ford who did. Gerald Ford was not the Vice President nor was he voted into the position, being the first to do this. As soon as Gerald Ford became president, he pardoned Nixon from prison for any crimes that he may have committed in the past, partly because of Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandals. Because of this pardon, there were many critics who believed there was a “corrupt bargain” that had gone on between Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. People thought that Gerald Ford only pardoned Richard Nixon because he Nixon was the one who allowed him to become the president so that he could later pardon him when Ford went into office as the president.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
In 1977 there was a new law known as the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1977. This new legislation ended discrimination in places such as the workplace, school, and also in other public serves. This new law now promoted the social equality whether this discrimination was racial, towards the disabled or because of different sexes. Gerald Ford also agreed with this as he believed that discriminating people in jobs was bad and that he hoped the Republican Party would stop this discrimination.
War and Diplomacy
During Gerald Rudolph Ford’s presidency, the Vietnam War had ended with Southern Vietnamese Nationalists surrendering to the Northern Vietnamese Communists. Since the Northern Vietnamese had won the war, it was finally over for the United States and they had left the country for good. As soon as Gerald Ford went into office, the northern Vietnamese invaded the south and Ford gave $522 million dollars for aiding the south in the war. Although Ford wanted to give it to them, Congress voted strongly against it and in the end, President Thieu in Southern Vietnam blamed the loss of their territory on the United States for not supporting them at all. Even though no money was given to them for military aid, a lot of money was given to help citizens leave the country and evacuate into safer places. American soldiers helped 5,595 Vietnamese citizens evacuate into the Southern Vietnamese Democratic capital of Saigon in the Operation named Frequent Wind.

Richard Nixon

Served as President from 1969-1974
Era: The Sixties
American Identity and Culture
During the years 1969 through 1974 there were many new things in the United States that dealt with the American culture. For example, people were now experiencing many different things. One of these was the discrimination of females and males in universities and other forms of higher education. To counter this, in 1972 a law was passed that ended sex discrimination in any higher level form of education, including colleges and universities. There were also scientific advancements such as the United States winning in the race to land people on the moon. In 1969, the United States successfully landed Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on the moon.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
During Richard Nixon’s presidency, because of the Korean War and the Great Society from Johnson, the United States was under a large debt and had many large budget deficits. His largest goal however, was to reduce inflation. He made a New Federalism as he gave federal grants to lots of states but a lot of this grant money was lost in the process of congressional budget. At Camp David, Nixon announced for temporary wage and price controls and also allowed the United States dollar to float against other country’s currencies. He also ended the ability for United States citizens to convert their money back into gold. In 1973, Nixon was still controlling prices and these produced many food shortages. In the end, Richard Nixon had failed to control inflation in America, and along with that failure the controls also ended.
Environment
During Richard Nixon’s presidency, he established the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1970 the first Earth Day had also taken place. Nixon also made the Clean Air Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to further his support for the conservation movement. The Environmental Protection Agency that Nixon made required many Federal projects to have environmental impact states. Even though Nixon had passed many of these environmental things for the conservational movement, there was one legislation that Richard Nixon did not pass. In 1972 he had vetoed the Clean Water Act of 1972 because he though it objected the policies goals of the EPA and because it also would have cost a lot of money which the federal government did not have at that time.
Politics and Citizenship
During Richard Nixon’s presidency, he enacted the “New Federalism.” This program devolved a lot of power to the state governments and also the few local officials that are elected. Congress, however, was very hostile and skeptical about these ideas. Richard Nixon also eliminated lots of people from the United States Post Office Department of the federal government who were in the cabinet-level. In 1971 the Post Office Department also changed into the United States Postal Service. One large political thing though was the Watergate Scandal. This term came from the illegal activities that had gone on during the Nixon administration. In this Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon ordered people to harass many activist groups and people like the FBI, the Internal Revenue service and others. It was later known that Richard Nixon’s aides were the ones who were trying to sabotage the democrats in high positions.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
It was starting in Richard Nixon’s presidency that many schools in the south that were public allowed the integration in such a large scale. Richard Nixon’s Vice President Agnew lead a force of local leaders in the Southern towns to try and work with the integration of both African American kids and white kids in public schools. Although Richard Nixon appointed the Vice President to do the work, it was really Labor Secretary George Shultz who did it. Nixon also implemented a large plan for civil rights known as the Philadelphia Plan in 1970. This plan was the first federal action to be an affirmative action program. He endorsed a new amendment known as the Equal Rights Amendment and he tried to get it ratified in the United States.
War and Diplomacy
During Richard Nixon’s presidency the United States was still at war in the Southeast Asia. In 1970 and 1971 the invasion of Cambodia and Laos took place, respectively. The Vietnam War is also still going on, where the Northern Communistic forces were fighting the nationalists of the South. Richard Nixon even bombed Cambodia in suspicious that there were Viet Cong bases there. Nixon also went to South Vietnam and started the process strategy known as Vietnamization. This process was to start by replacing the American troops with troops from Vietnam. In the end, the United States withdrew from the Vietnam War because of the heavy casualties that the American people have faced. Along with the withdrawal they also agreed to cease fire and stop supporting the Southern Vietnamese Nationalists.