Conservatism, Change, Redefinition
Three claims for the present
- A newly ascendant conservative movement achieved several political and policy goals during the 1980s and continued to strongly influence public discourse in the following decades.
- Moving into the 21st century, the nation experienced significant technological, economic, and demographic changes.
- The end of the Cold War and new challenges to U.S. leadership forced the nation to redefine its foreign policy and role in the world.
'Newly ascendant' differs from 'new' because 8.14 dated the movement to...
A twenty-year run-up.
'Newly ascendant' but not new
- 8.14 dated the conservative challenge to the 1960s, so 9.1's movement is ascendant, not newborn.
- Achieved several political and policy goals in the 1980s is the change; continued to strongly influence public discourse is the continuity.
- So the CED gives the movement a twenty-year run-up and a multi-decade afterlife in one sentence.
Select all three kinds of change the second claim names.
They interact: technology changed which jobs existed and where people lived.
Three kinds of change at once
- Technological, economic, and demographic — 9.4 supplies the first two and 9.5 the third.
- The CED lists them together because they interact: digital technology changed which jobs existed and where people lived.
- Significant is a strong word for the CED, and it licenses treating this as a genuine transformation.
Which of unit 9's threads?
Sort each statement into its thread.
'Forced the nation to redefine' removes...
The organising principle went with the rival.
"Newly ascendant" is not the same as new. 8.14 dated the conservative challenge to the 1960s — so the 1980s are when a twenty-year-old movement achieved several political and policy goals, and it then continued to strongly influence public discourse in the following decades.
Select all three conditions of this context.
Each was produced by unit 8.
Redefinition was forced, not chosen
- Forced the nation to redefine its foreign policy and role in the world — the verb removes the element of choice.
- 8.2's four Cold War aims had organised policy for forty years; when the rival disappeared, the organising principle went with it.
- 7.1's thread had promised renewed domestic debates over the nation's proper role, and 9.3 delivers the latest round.
The movement's continuity is that it continued to strongly influence public ____.
In the decades following the 1980s.
Writing the context
- The objective is the context in which the United States faced international and domestic challenges after 1980.
- Conditions: a conservative movement two decades in the making, declining confidence in government from 8.14, and a Cold War about to end.
- Each was produced by unit 8, which makes this context a continuation rather than a break.
A movement that wins an election after twenty years of organising has not appeared; it has arrived. Dating it from the victory hides the two decades that made the victory possible.
Unit 9 opens three claims: a newly ascendant conservative movement achieved several political and policy goals during the 1980s and continued to strongly influence public discourse in the following decades; moving into the 21st century, the nation experienced significant technological, economic, and demographic changes; and the end of the Cold War and new challenges to U.S. leadership forced the nation to redefine its foreign policy and role in the world.