Deck 29: Conservatism Resurgent, 1974-1989

Question 1

Why did President Jimmy Carter eliminate tax breaks for private schools like the "Christian academies" popular in the South?

A)They practiced racial discrimination.
B)He was a Northeasterner and could not stand the South.
C)As an agnostic, he had no sympathy for organized religion.
D)He was committed to closing the federal deficit.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The underlying cause of the political upheaval of 1980 was

A)a generation of mismanagement and economic decline.
B)a decade-long erosion of public faith in government.
C)years of foreign policy blunders with the European Union.
D)an entire era of minimal and unresponsive government.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What pushed many blue-collar ethnic voters into the Republican Party?

A)fear of crime committed by blacks
B)the corruption and political dishonesty of Democrats
C)the Democrats' lack of attention to the poor
D)the Democrats' cozy relationship with big business

Answer 3

A

Question 4

In 1975, what economic value fell for the first time in 25 years?

A)profits
B)prices
C)wages
D)taxes

Question 5

Who was Jimmy Carter's running mate in the 1976 presidential election?

A)Nelson Rockefeller
B)Hubert Humphrey
C)Walter Mondale
D)Geraldine Ferraro

Question 6

What had been Jimmy Carter's position on race-relations when he was first elected governor of Georgia?

A)He ordered busing for schools nationwide.
B)He made the renewal of the voting rights act of 1965 his singular priority.
C)He ordered a ban on the so-called "English only" provisions.
D)He entered office as a segregationist sympathizer but then pledged to end discrimination.

Question 7

What undermined even the short-term benefits of Congress's energy bill of 1978?

A)the incident at Three Mile Island
B)the Iranian revolution
C)California's Proposition 13
D)Paul Volcker's interest rate hikes

Question 8

In foreign affairs, President Jimmy Carter voiced support for peaceful efforts to

A)democratize the People's Republic of China.
B)move Saddam Hussein out of office in Iraq.
C)reunite East Germany and Western Germany.
D)replace the white regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia.

Question 9

Why did the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan in December 1979?

A)Afghan mujahideen had provoked the invasion with a series of bomb attacks in Moscow.
B)The Soviet Union wanted to push out US development agencies working in the Helmand Valley.
C)Soviet forces wanted to shore up the teetering procommunist government in Kabul.
D)The Soviet Union was afraid that US-supported Pakistan would absorb Afghanistan.

Question 10

How many Cubans arrived in the United States with the boat lift from the fishing port of Mariel in October 1980?

A)130
B)13000
C)130,000
D)300,000

Question 11

Why did the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein order his army to invade neighboring Iran in September 1980?

A)CIA operatives has urged him to do so.
B)He feared the religious fanaticism of Iran.
C)He wanted to seize Iran's oil, water, and territory.
D)Iranians provoked the attack with suicide bombs in Baghdad.

Question 12

By 1980, many Americans felt that

A)Jimmy Carter and congressional Democrats debated issues unconnected with everyday life.
B)Republicans were at fault for utterly destroying public trust in federal government.
C)Washington's focus on communism and foreign policy was completely misplaced.
D)The federal government was spending too much money on the middle class, and nothing on the poor.

Question 13

How did the University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman intend to ensure prosperity and freedom?

A)reduced government spending and stringent control of the money supply
B)deficit spending and countercyclical demand management
C)the abolition of all consumer and environmental regulations
D)a return to 19th century protective tariff barriers and the gold standard

Question 14

Which of the following is NOT true about Phyllis Schlafley?

A)She was a Republican activist.
B)She was a devout Catholic and organizer of the Eagle forum.
C)She strictly adhered to a woman's role as a homemaker.
D)She had worked as a lawyer and led the fight against the ERA.

Question 15

Traditionally, white evangelicals voted in lower numbers or

A)for members of the church.
B)for the Republican Party.
C)for the Democratic Party.
D)not at all.

Question 16

Who or what did conservatives blame for the rising crime rates in the 1970s?

A)better statistical reporting
B)job losses in cities
C)permissive judges appointed by Democrats
D)the bulging cohort of teenagers and young men

Question 17

Complete the following quotation from President Ronald Reagan: "in the present crisis government is not the solution to a problem,

A)business is."
B)you are."
C)faith is."
D)government is the problem."

Question 18

What was Ronald Reagan's political orientation until the late 1940s?

A)Socialist
B)Republican
C)Democratic
D)Libertarian

Question 19

At the same time that the first Congress under president Ronald Reagan cut federal income taxes by about 25 percent, lawmakers also voted to

A)establish Medicare.
B)eliminate the food stamp program.
C)increase military spending.
D)privatize Social Security.

Question 20

Which of the following decades saw the highest number of immigrants arriving in the United States?

A)1960s
B)1970s
C)1980s
D)1990s

Question 21

The Simpson-Rodino immigration law enacted in 1986

A)expanded the number of legal immigrants.
B)established detention centers for undocumented immigrants.
C)guaranteed amnesty to all undocumented immigrants.
D)drastically reduced the number of eligible immigrants.

Question 22

In its enforcement of the 1980 Refugee Act, refugees from which nations generally received preferential treatment under the Reagan Administration?

A)Catholic nations
B)communist nations
C)European nations
D)Latin American nations

Question 23

What was the result of Ronald Reagan's tax increase or "revenue enhancements" in 1982 and 1983?

A)Wealthy Americans had to pay a higher share.
B)Antipoverty programs remained well-funded.
C)The federal government avoided a deficit.
D)The total tax bite barely changed for most Americans.

Question 24

Which of the following, President Ronald Reagan believed, could best reduce poverty in the United States?

A)state governments
B)the federal government
C)the United Nations
D)market forces

Question 25

Rulings by the Supreme Court in the late 1980s

A)expanded protections of criminal defendants.
B)made it harder to sue for job discrimination on grounds of race, sex, or age.
C)further cemented the women's right to terminate a pregnancy.
D)suspended state death penalty laws for violating the eighth amendment.

Question 26

Which of the following did Congress support in the 1980s as a means of reducing births to teenagers?

A)"chastity clinics"
B)free contraceptives
C)increased access to abortion
D)federal funding for sex education

Question 27

Which event motivated president Ronald Reagan to appoint an advisory panel on combating the AIDS epidemic in 1985?

A)the growing number of victims in the gay community
B)Patrick Buchanan's dubbing AIDS the "gay plague"
C)the death of actor Rock Hudson from AIDS
D)the diagnosis of AIDS in one of Reagan's children

Question 28

Why did the Soviet Union object to the American Strategic Defense Initiative?

A)The KGB was alsodeveloping a similar system.
B)The system might be able to destroy a handful of Soviet missiles.
C)The Soviet Union had placed a series of spies in the SDI program.
D)The system threatened the safety and well-being of Soviet citizens.

Question 29

Why did the United States deploy Navy vessels off the Libyan coast and fight Libyan planes in the early 1980s?

A)Libyan agents had bombed a Berlin nightclub frequented by Americans.
B)Libyan agents had planted a bomb that destroyed a US airliner over Scotland.
C)Libya's Muammar Qaddafi bought Soviet weapons for terrorist groups.
D)Libya and the US conducted this military exercise to intimidate Algeria.

Question 30

Why did Congress cut off aid to the Nicaraguan Contras in 1982?

A)The new Democratic Congress was soft on communism.
B)The new Democratic Congress wanted to damage Reagan's reputation.
C)Congress learned that the Contras had killed thousands of civilians.
D)Republicans in Congress began getting serious about closing the deficit.

Question 31

How did Baptist minister Jerry Falwell describe the gay pride parade?

A)"a delightful spectacle"
B)"an impressive display of American manhood"
C)"an affront to god"
D)"not my cup of tea"

Question 32

Which nation did Islamists dub the "the great Satan"?

A)the Soviet Union
B)Israel
C)Germany
D)the United States

Question 33

What kept unions weak and labor costs low in the American South throughout the 1960s and 70s?

A)minimum-wage laws
B)welfare capitalism
C)illegal immigrants
D)right-to-work laws

Question 34

How did conservatives in the United States view the Helsinki Accords of 1975?

A)They attacked the agreement as a cave-in.
B)They celebrated the accords as a tool for reform.
C)Disillusioned, they began to disengage from politics.
D)They welcomed the agreement for its easing of travel restrictions.

Question 35

What provoked the "English only" movement starting in the 1970s?

A)The combination of immigration and civil rights resulted in voting materials in foreign languages.
B)Conservatives were aghast at hearing languages such as Chinese or Farsi spoken in public places.
C)White Americans resented the Native American revival of local languages and customs.
D)American moviegoers were tired of subtitles and insisted on the dubbing of foreign films.

Question 36

What was the level of inflation in the United States in 1979?

A)3 percent
B)6 percent
C)11 percent
D)21 percent

Question 37

Jimmy Carter became the first president to visit

A)the Soviet Union.
B)Sub-Saharan Africa.
C)the People's Republic of China.
D)Cuba.

Question 38

Many Iranians detested Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi because he

A)welcomed the immigration of Kurds from Iraq.
B)was surrounded by corruption and restricted political freedom.
C)failed to recognize the importance of the nation's oil resources.
D)kept the nation's military weak and susceptible to an Afghan invasion.

Question 39

How many people died in the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988?

A)50,000
B)200,000
C)2 million
D)5 million

Question 40

Why were government regulation and federal taxes easy to live with between World War II and the early 1970s?

A)GDP was growing at about 4 percent per year.
B)Americans knew they lived better than the rest of the world.
C)Americans were happy to see their tax dollars spent on defense.
D)Federal regulations were minimal and taxes were very low.

Question 41

How did American manufacturers try to boost profit margins from the 1970s on?

A)They introduced scientific management strategies.
B)They invested in a positive and collegial work culture.
C)They specialized in high skill manufacturing only.
D)They shifted production to cheaper foreign locations.

Question 42

What was the goal of the Eagle forum?

A)create a national list of endangered species
B)make Boy and Girl Scout programs mandatory
C)introduce "patriotism classes" in elementary school
D)block the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment

Question 43

How did Republican candidates woo the formerly faithful Democratic constituency of ethnic white Americans into the GOP?

A)they promised to increase taxes on the rich
B)they vowed to return to segregation
C)with appeals for law and order
D)through insistence on the separation of church and state

Question 44

What was a major cause for the disproportionate incarceration of black and Latino men from the 1980s onwards?

A)They had a higher propensity for violent crime.
B)Their culture encouraged criminality more than that of whites.
C)New drug laws made their incarceration more likely.
D)The large number of illegal immigrants among them made them likely prisoners.

Question 45

Which of the following statements best assesses the election of 1980?

A)a resounding victory for Reagan but a defeat for Republicans in Congress
B)a narrow win for Reagan and utter stalemate in Congress
C)a victory for Reagan and solid gains for congressional Republicans
D)a defeat for Ronald Reagan, and a victory for congressional Democrats

Question 46

Which of the following was NOT a job Ronald Reagan once held?

A)corporate spokesman
B)actor
C)union chief
D)legislator

Question 47

Which of the following best assesses the second term of President Ronald Reagan?

A)He disappointed those who hoped he would complete a conservative agenda.
B)He honored his many campaign pledges to conservatives.
C)He steered the nation's economy into a deep depression.
D)He surprised Americans with a flurry of reform legislation.

Question 48

What did the 1986 Tax Reform Act do?

A)It expanded the number of tax brackets.
B)It closed many loopholes and tax shelters.
C)It dramatically cut taxes for the rich.
D)It offered new opportunities for corporate profiteering.

Question 49

Which of the following became a major source of income in Latin America in the 1980s?

A)the aerospace and airline industry
B)software and computer programming
C)money transfers from emigrants to the U.S.
D)green energy production

Question 50

Which of the following is the most likely reason for the economic recovery after 1982?

A)a steep drop in oil prices
B)a steep drop in the unemployment rate
C)deregulation
D)privatization

Question 51

Which of the following was NOT an example of the deregulation that was part of "Reaganomics"?

A)privatization of federal lands in the West
B)allowing S & L institutions into commercial real estate
C)reducing the stringency of automobile safety features
D)increasing antitrust suits against corporate giants

Question 52

What did Wall Street trader Ivan Boesky tell business majors at a graduation ceremony at the University of California in Berkeley in 1986?

A)"follow your dreams"
B)"carpe diem"
C)"greed is good"
D)"go be wealthy"

Question 53

Which of the following TV series was not part of the 1980s celebration of wealth and consumption?

A)Roots
B)Dynasty
C)Dallas
D)Life Styles of the Rich and Famous

Question 54

How did Congress try to address the issue of teenage pregnancies in the 1980s?

A)increased funding for Planned Parenthood
B)chastity clinics that stressed abstinence
C)providing contraceptives free of charge
D)offering affordable college loans

Question 55

How did Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General C. Everett Koop defy the President's call for less regulation?

A)He mandated that fast food chains list calories on menus.
B)He prohibited drinking on college campuses.
C)He freely distributed condoms to teenagers.
D)He issued a series of reports highlighting the dangers of smoking.

Question 56

Which of the following best describes what has sometimes been called the "Reagan doctrine"?

A)American military superiority was a source of international tensions.
B)America had to maintain military superiority and support anti-communism.
C)Democracy in Africa was the central foundation for economic prosperity.
D)The United States was only going to pursue international policy unilaterally.

Question 57

Which of the following most alienated public opinion on the Soviet Union in Western Europe, Japan, and the United States in the mid-eighties?

A)the frail nature of Soviet leaders
B)the war in Afghanistan
C)the military build-up in Cuba
D)Its alliance with South Africa

Question 58

Why did the United States invade the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada in October 1983?

A)Cuban forces threatened to take over the important sugar producer.
B)Soviet missiles on the island were threatening Florida and the Gulf Coast.
C)The Grenadian dictator Daniel Noriega was refusing to step down.
D)Reagan feared the island's Marxist leaders might hold U.S. students hostage.

Question 59

Why did the Tower Commission investigate President Ronald Reagan?

A)They suspected his knowledge of Oliver North's weapons deals.
B)Reagan was accused of tax fraud in the years prior to his presidency.
C)The congressional committee disapproved of the invasion of Grenada.
D)They suspected the Reagan had secretly funneled weapons to the Sandinistas.

Question 60

Which of the following was the most likely motivation behind Mikhail Gorbachev's radical change of course for the Soviet Union after March 1985?

A)Ronald Reagan's hard line
B)Margaret Thatcher's personal charm
C)Socio-economic problems in the Soviet Union
D)The successful insurgency of the Contras

Question 61

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. "Me Decade"
2. Helsinki Accords
3. "malaise speech"
4. Saddam Hussein
5. televangelists
6. James A. Baker III
7. Reaganomics
8. Holocaust
9. "Star Wars"
10. Iran-Contra Scandal

Question 62

Who openlysupported the Solidarity movement in Poland?

A)Leonid Brezhnev
B)the CIA
C)the Catholic Church
D)Mikhail Gorbachev

Question 63

How did President Gerald Ford anger conservatives early in his presidency?

A)He appointed former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller as vice-president.
B)He pardoned Richard M. Nixon without requiring him to come clean about Watergate.
C)He signed a treaty with Panama that would return the canal zone to the Latin American nation.
D)He appointed the disgraced former vice-president Spiro Agnew as head of National Security.

Question 64

How did President Jimmy Carter anger powerful members of Congress?

A)He conferenced frequently with Republican leaders.
B)He brought more lobbyists to Washington D.C. than any other president.
C)He abruptly cancelled fourteen dam and irrigation projects for cost reasons.
D)He pardoned former president Richard M. Nixon for his role in Watergate.

Question 65

Tensions between the United States and the nation of Iran went back to

A)1919.
B)1943
C)1953
D)1979.

Question 66

How did the war with Iraq affect the situation of U.S. hostages in Iran in 1980?

A)The captors turned increasingly violent and abusive.
B)With Iranian forces called to the front, the hostages were able to escape.
C)The costs of war made Iran receptive to trading hostages for frozen assets.
D)U.S. support for Iraq further tightened the regime's grip on the hostages.

Question 67

What share of evangelicals was voting the Republican ticket in the South by 1988?

A)40 percent
B)55 percent
C)80 percent
D)94 percent

Question 68

Which of the following did Ronald Reagan NOT do as governor of California between 1967 and 1975?

A)He effectively legalized most abortions.
B)He doubled the state budget.
C)He signed a pioneering no-fault divorce statute into law.
D)He cut taxes for all income groups.

Question 69

Why were the 16 million added new jobs between 1982 and 1988 not as impressive as the number might suggest?

A)Employment had grown faster in the 1930s.
B)Employment mostly excluded wives and young mothers.
C)Real wages declined dramatically for most Americans that time.
D)The new jobs in the service sector paid less than those lost in manufacturing.

Question 70

The AIDS virus had most likely originated

A)in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.
B)in isolated parts of Africa.
C)in a CIA laboratory.
D)In the Walter Reed Veterans hospital.

Question 71

Which nation had received tacit approval from the United States in the 1980s to develop its own nuclear weapon?

A)India
B)France
C)Germany
D)Pakistan

Question 72

Why did affirmative action become such a controversial policy in the 1970s?

Question 73

What triggered the change in the predominant economic theory in the 1970s?

Question 74

What prompted Ronald Reagan's move from liberal Democrat in the 1940s to Republican in 1962?

Question 75

Why did the federal deficit expand during the Reagan Administration?

Question 76

Why did Robert MacFarlane and Lt. Col. Oliver North develop their weapons deal with Iran and Nicaragua?

Question 77

Discuss the opportunities and limits of the Carter administration. Did Carter's own failures explain his defeat in 1980, or was he the victim of circumstances? Discuss.

Question 78

Who or what ended the Cold War? Consider both American foreign policy as well global developments and the internal dynamics of the Eastern Bloc.

Question 79

Identify who, what, where, when, and/or why the following are important:
1. Solidarity
2. Right-to-work-laws
3. Affirmative action
4. "revolution from above"
5. James A. Baker III
6. "welfare queens"
7. Simpson Rodino Bill (1986)
8. "revenue enhancements"
9. Rock Hudson
10. Mikhail Gorbachev

Question 80

How did Americans react to President Jimmy Carter's admonition to adjust to a future of limits?

A)They valued his candor.
B)They were willing to follow his leadership.
C)They failed to see these limits in their lives.
D)It made them feel even worse about their troubles.