First slide if we could. We have Ronald Reagan, and we talked about the disruptions of the 1960s, the social changes in the towards 1970s suburbanization. We talked about nixon and carter and the desire so Many Americans silence, tot, for escape the disruption, to escape the conflicts. Ronald reagan coming into office in the early 1980s, elected in november 1980, represented what Time Magazine is saying here, a fresh start. A positive disposition. His hero was Franklin Roosevelt. Ronald reagan was of a different party, but his hero was roosevelt because he grew up listening to him on the radio. I will talk about that more and a couple of minutes. He saw and roosevelt a figure who helped to restore hope to americans and the sense of better days ahead, someone who restored a sense of can do spirit in america. That is what reagan was all about. He came of age not just in the shadow of the Great Depression and the cold war but also the vietnam war, the disruptions of the 1970s and 1960s, and for reagan, there had to be a better way, a more positive perspective. It was not enough to put up or shut up, not enough to accept things as they were. There had to be a better way. He brought a new infusion of idealism Many Americans were looking for after a decade, decade and a half following the vietnam war and disruptions of the 1960s when people were escaping rather than seeking major fundamental changes. He believed now change could be initiated, change which was different from the ways that have been pursued before. He argued as a conservative that in fact many changes had gone too far and it was time to reverse some of these changes. He argued new changes were necessary in line with american idealism, less selfcritical, more patriotic, more attached to certain core ideas of americanism. He appealed to a post vietnam war desire to find a new source of selfconfidence. The vietnam war shook the confidence of americans in their power abroad, the righteousness in the cold war. If the vietnam war made americans question what they were about as did the Civil Rights Movement and the many disruptions of the 1960s and if the suburbanization was an escape, Ronald Reagan was looking for a way to reassert what america was about. He was going to step in and help americans redefine who they were and wanted to do that by going back to traditions. Look at this image. The sunny, the sunny optimism, looking forward to a bright horizon. He appealed to those who had moved to the suburbs. His core group were these very suburbanites we talked about in the last lecture. These were liberals who had been mugged in the cities. These were liberals who were upset about all of the changes happening around them. They did not want their kids sent to schools with kids they did not want their kids going to school with. They moved to the suburbs. They considered themselves moderates and racially progressive and believers in basic american ideals but they were looking for a new figure to protect their way of life at the same time. They wanted to be idealistic and conservative. They want protection for their way of life while embracing the best of american ideals. They were not isolationist, but they were not cold warriors. They were not opposed to civil rights, but they were not civil rights activists either. To instill a sense of values and they were looking for someone to instill a sense of values and protecting their way of life, to mix old with the new and to protect their self interests in the context. They were racial moderates, policy moderates who believed in opportunity but wanted particular opportunity for themselves. They wanted lower taxes, more choice in where they send their kids to school, they wanted to make it easier to live in the suburbs and easier for kids to have idyllic lives they wanted for them. They did not deny that to people who were different from themselves. They believed in that for everyone. In this sense, they were traditional republicans but also believed there should be protection for their way of doing it and they believed race issues had gone too far. Ronald reagan, one of his first Major Campaign addresses is the story behind this. One of his first Major Campaign addresses was a trip to mississippi in 1980, the site of one of the worst civil rights massacres where four civil rights workers were killed during the movement. He went to nashoba, mississippi to a county fair where no National Politician had gone before and he yelled and articulated to this crowd about the importance of states rights. He argued for local control. He never defended racial segregation or hatred. He was personally opposed to those activities. But he embraced the arguments of states rights, people should choose where they live and have personal freedom, personal choice in their suburban lives and rural lives wherever they choose to live. This was a movement in the mainstream of american thinking. If we saw after the civil war conflict over the question of who would control new resources and in the early 20th Century Progressive sets of reform with movement now to more government intervention, this was an effort under reagan to empower local communities again, to be free from the intervention and disruption coming from around them, to live the lives they wanted to live, to be left alone and attach that belief not to escape but to a sense of greater selfrighteousness, greater sense of american purpose, to be found living in your own local community. A return to a sense of states rights and a return to a sense of local control. This was not married to the same race hatred but it did have many of those implications. So we have three topics we are going to talk about today. We are going to talk about reagan and the new right. It is the beginnings of a new republican party, the new american right. And were going to talk about the cold war and the end of the cold war. We will talk more about that in a lecture next week as well. We will talk about the early end of the cold war and Ronald Reagans role in that as well as Mikhail Gorbachevs and others as well. Lets start with reagan and the new right. We can go to his biography. Here have Ronald Reagan and his first job. Really his second job. His first was as a lifeguard. His second as a radio announcer in des moines, iowa. His career was largely a career in entertainment, not in policy, in entertainment, in radio and in movies. Inwas born Ronald Reagan dixon, illinois. It was a Rural Community where farmers came in to buy supplies, sell their goods, etc. And then at a young age he became a fan of Franklin Roosevelt and began his life as a teenager who was a new deal democrat. This was largely because of the experiences his father had his family had. His father jack reagan, as you can tell from the name was a descendent of irish immigrants. He was a fast talking , backslapping shoe salesman. Well loved. And as a shoe salesman, he went door to door. He actually sold, went to peoples homes to sell shoes to them. I dont think they were wearing nike hightops. We dont know. During the Great Depression his father lost his job. Quite literally. It is hard to imagine, people stopped buying shoes. His father lost his job. His father became an even heavier drinker. This is a common story from the new deal. People did not simply lose their jobs, they lost their sense of purpose and connection and control over their lives. It was particularly difficult for men. It is difficult for anyone but particularly men at a time when they were the assumed bread earners of their families. 25 of americans were unemployed in 1933. Most of them were from single wage earning families. Men defined who they were by bringing home income to their family, and when they could not do that, they had lost masculinity and manhood. His father, like many men dealing with this depression, became a deeper drinker, developed a serious drinking problem and began having problems with reagans mother and family. Reagan described later in life the horror of one day opening the door and seeing his father face planted in front of the house not having made it back into the home the night before. Ronald reagan believed as a young man that his family was saved by Franklin Roosevelt. The new deal saved his family. His father after being unemployed got a job working for a new deal agency while working for the Works Progress administration, taking small amounts of money from the federal government to put people to work. His father was perfect for this because as the popular shoe salesman, he knew everyone. He knew how to find everybody and put them to work. The new deal gave his father a family and income. It gave him a sense of purpose. Growing up as a young man Ronald Reagan wanted to be someone who brought purpose to others and embody that hope and went into entertainment. He was a radio announcer. He had moved to des moines from dixon, illinois, moved from iowa, local radio station, he was a sportscaster. They used to send in the scores from baseball games by telegraph. They did not have video screens, and he would read the scores. It was his job to tell the story. He became a great storyteller, explaining what was happening in the chicago cubs game or the yankees game or whatever he was covering. After doing radio for a while, and radio was also Franklin Roosevelts means of communication, Ronald Reagan moved to hollywood. He never made it to the top of hollywood. He never became lauren bacall, humphrey bogart, although those were his friends. He was a b grade movie star. I dont know who would be the b grade movie stars today. People we recognize but they are not brad pitt. Youtubers . Dr. Suri i would say they are like the d list. All right. They have moved up. Recently. Dr. Suri who are the supporting actors in a lot of movies . Whatever they are, that is who you recognize in movies but usually arent the stars. He never quite made it to the top. And then, he became involved with the work of actors to protect their pay. He was very concerned, Ronald Reagan was, that actors like himself, especially those not at the top, were being exploited by the movie studios. This is the way things worked at that time. It was also this way in sports. You as an actor or baseball player were owned by the studio or the team you played for. Babe ruth played his entire career after being traded by the red sox, he played his career for the yankees because they owned him. Most actors in the 1950s all works for the stems the same studio because the studio owned them. Reagan got involved with the creation of what some of you know now, what some people watch, when the actors get awards, they pretend to cry and thank their grandmothers, the Screen Actors Guild. Which was essentially the first union for actors. The first union for actors. The Screen Actors Guild was designed to provide actors with the ability to bargain to be paid better and not to be owned by their studios. Reagan became president of the Screen Actors Guild and spent as much of his career as he would in hollywood negotiating as he did acting. This is important because he developed the sense of Free Enterprise and unions. Throughout our course unions have played an important role. Think of a Philip Randolph and the brotherhood of sleeping car porters and the importance of the civil rights union. Unions were crucially important to hollywood and sports. It is the Major League Baseball union which allowed the creation and negotiation for free agency. Baseball players are not owned by their team when the contract is up. They can go somewhere else and negotiate with another team to be paid more. You all believe in free agency, none of you want to graduate and sell your entire career to one company. Most of you will work for multiple people and you are talented so often many of you will be at a job in one place, google, and apple will offer you more money and you will want to be able to leave to get more money. That is what being a free agent is all about. The negotiation for free agency was done by the Screen Actors Guild. He became well known as a b grade actor but an effective spokesperson for freedom and entrepreneurship, protecting values for actors and others and was hired by General Electric , which makes dishwashers and washing machines, to be a spokesman for them. He went around the country advocating for entrepreneurship in companies. General electric of the 1960s was like google today. We are bringing you the future. Embrace freedom. In 1964 he decided he would support a republican candidate. Not a democrat. He supported Barry Goldwater against Lyndon Johnson. Ronald reagans belief was what Lyndon Johnson was doing in support of the Civil Rights Movement, what Lyndon Johnson was doing was creating too many restrictions on the freedom of individuals like himself. He did not oppose civil rights but he opposed the federal government getting too involved in peoples lives. Limiting their ability to live as they wish. Where they sent their kids to school, where they want to work. He saw Lyndon Johnson and others as over regulating the economy and society. And he became the first celebrity to get elected to office. Barry goldwater did not win in 1964 but Ronald Reagan was elected governor of california in 1966. He defeated the most recent california governor, jerry brown, he defeated jerry browns dad. We have a couple questions. One is a comment. Carly likes your shirt. Dr. Suri thank you. I like it too. What do you think, do you like my shirt . I do. I do a lot of blue on blue. Dr. Suri i have surpassed you today. Sometimes we end up wearing the same thing. It is a higherquality shirt. It is wonderful you mention this because it was brought to me by my relatives from india. I am wearing my indian internationalism in a stylish way today. What about your shirt, by the way . It has been a while and no one has commented on the shirt. It is very summery. Dr. Suri doesnt it remind you of a jungle . I thought it was camouflage. Join the marines. It is important to me. Dr. Suri doing the facial hair. We have to work on you without. Is it not possible . It was weird. A weirdo. There was a real question. I like to vamp a little. Students appreciate it. Dr. Suri we dont want to be too serious. Nathan would like to know if reagan became popular because of his sense of humor. Dr. Suri it wasnt just reagans sense of humor. He was famous for his ability to tell jokes. Humor is important because being humorous is able to show you dont take yourself too seriously. If you do, it is hard to get other people to connect with you. We connect with people who we feel are open. He conveyed a sense of humor but it was not the only source of his popularity. A lot of it was his authenticity. Even though he was an actor, they believed they were getting the real person. He was humane. One of the things we have to remember is being the smartest in the room is not always the best way to connect with people. You should be smart and also be humane. People connect with others who they feel they can identify with. His humor, storytelling, all of these things allowed him to do that. He gained a lot of experience talking to people. One of the things he learned as radio broadcaster, a movie actor, a union leader, a campaigner, speaking for General Electric around the country, he learned how to talk to lots of audiences. One thing you should learn in your careers is dont just travel widely but talk to different kinds of people. If there are people out there you have not figured out how to talk to, you need to because one day they will be important. Even if they see the world differently. You have to be able to talk to different audiences. One of the ways we do that is with humor. We break the tension in a room. Another way is by revealing some of ourselves, being vulnerable and telling stories. It is far more effective. This is why history is so valuable. It is more valuable to tell a story then to tell people what to do. During the 1970s, reagan campaigned on renewing americas story, renewing who we are. He was upset that we had forgotten who we were. We had gotten so caught up in the crises and controversies about civil rights, about vietnam we forgot who we were. This concept of a new right was a concept at the time of creating a return to what made america great, made america what it was. Return to basic humanitarian values. A return, as reagan said in the 1970s and then in the 1980s, using force in limited ways but using it to win. He was a big fan of the rambo movies. I know eddie is a fan. Have you seen all of them . All of them. Dr. Suri you like the rambo movies too . Sure. He loved the rambo movies, sylvester stallone, because in those movies unlike in vietnam, the Good American finds a way to win. The problem is the government officials who dont understand and the enemy is on the ground. The good, strong, idealistic american finds his way to win. There is a famous moment in 73 or 74 where he is communicating back with home and he says can we win this time . Reagan used that line all the time. Yes, we can win this time. His belief was, and the new right was an argument that the left had done so much to make American Society better and control American Society it had lost its sense of American Freedom