Divided Government and Beyond

 For Wednesday, read Rosenfeld, ch. 8 and conclusion.

The "Welfare Shift"

Before the 1970s, tax cuts were not central to the GOP message.  In fact, Republicans opposed JFK's tax but proposal!

Oil shocks (1973 OPEC and 1979 Iran) begat inflation, which begat rising nominal property values and bracket creep, which begat Prop 13 (1978) and Kemp-Roth


"Of a sudden, the GOP has become a party of ideas."  -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1981

By the end of the decade, liberal calls abounded for the explicit emulation of conservative organizational innovations from the 1960s and 1970s" (Rosenfeld 248)

Democratic Social Organizing Committee (Rosenfeld 230-233) begets Democratic Socialists of America

The 1980s and the Legacy of the Reverends

• Pat Robertson (very brief mention on 203) 1988 Campaign and the Christian Coalition, which succeeds Moral Majority
• Jesse Jackson, symbolic race in 1984, serious race in 1988.
• A familiar figure supports Jackson
• ...and remained in the Democratic Party

The 1988 election seemed to confirm the four-party system.

• Bush won by a bigger margin than anyone who succeeded him.
• Democrats retain Senate, winning in Texas, Tennessee, and Virginia. Republicans win California, Delaware, and Rhode Island.
• Democrats gain seats in the House.  One third of districts split between House and presidential races.

But things are about to end the four-party system.

• The Cold War will end with the closing of the USSR on Christmas Day 1991.
• Reagan signs immigration reform (with amnesty!) in 1986.  lmmigration will increase.
• Educational attainment and the new class.
• A recession dooms Bush in 1992.  The paradox of the fortunate fall:  as Gingrich said, the outcome represented a "liberation from the tentacles of the Bush administration."  Presidential parties weaken over time.