Identity After 1980
The three threads, measured
- 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.
The method for this objective is the same as in...
Rank against a stated criterion.
Politics: a shifted centre, an unmoved boundary
- Change: tax cuts, continued deregulation, and conservative beliefs about traditional social values and a reduced role for government advancing in politics.
- Continuity: efforts to shrink government met with inertia and liberal opposition, as many programmes remained popular with voters.
- So the argument 3.9 opened about the federal boundary is still open, with the centre of gravity moved.
Match each criterion to what it favours.
Say which criterion you chose.
Economy: transformed, and unequally
- Change: digital technology transformed daily life, employment moved to services, and participation went worldwide.
- Continuity: growing economic inequality, which 6.7 recorded in the Gilded Age and 8.9 named as persistent poverty.
- The difference from 6.7 is that real wages stagnated rather than rose — inequality with fewer gains to offset it.
Politics, economy, or role in the world?
Sort each change after 1980.
The federal-boundary argument stayed open because...
The centre of gravity moved; the argument did not close.
Rank against a stated criterion — the same method as 5.12, 7.15 and 8.15. By reach, the digital transformation touched nearly every daily life; by self-understanding, the end of the Cold War removed the frame the country had used for forty years. Say which criterion you chose.
The difference from 6.7's Gilded Age is that real wages...
Inequality with fewer gains to offset it.
Role in the world: unsettled again
- Change: the Cold War's organising criterion expired, and each intervention now needs its own justification.
- Continuity: the country remained the world's leading superpower, and the debate over the appropriate use of American power continued.
- 7.1's promise of renewed domestic debates has now been renewed four times across two units, which is the pattern to name.
A course ending in the present cannot report a verdict.
The arguments it describes are still being had.
Relative significance, one last time
- The objective is the relative significance of the effects of change in the period after 1980 on American national identity.
- Rank against a stated criterion, as in 5.12, 7.15 and 8.15 — durability, reach, or effect on self-understanding.
- By reach, the digital transformation touched nearly every daily life; by self-understanding, the end of the Cold War removed the frame the country had used for forty years.
A course that ends in the present cannot report a verdict, because the arguments it describes are still being had by people alive now. Saying that plainly is more accurate than inventing a conclusion.
After 1980, politics moved right on tax and regulation while the federal-boundary argument stayed open, since many programmes remained popular with voters; the economy was transformed by digital technology with real wages stagnating amid growing economic inequality; and the country's role in the world was forced into redefinition when the Cold War's criterion expired, while it continued as the world's leading superpower. Rank these against a stated criterion — reach favours the digital transformation, self-understanding favours the Cold War's end.