New Conservatism Dbq Essay

New Conservatism DBQ Beginning with John F. Kennedy in 1961 and ending with the Reagan Administration in 1989, the United States was headed by believers of a new conservatism throughout these three decades. These conservative leaders returned the country to the moral roots of its founding and prosperity following years of economic downturn, civil frustration, and foreign and domestic struggles for the nation as a whole. A new type of leader was desired for by the American people, and one emerged with the new conservatism of the late 1900s. As citizens wanted to grow and improve, they felt subject to a government that was limiting their opportunity to do so, resulting in dissatisfaction with the leaders of the nation. The widespread opposition

Document 3, a letter to Nelson Rockefeller, the Republican governor of New York, sent in 1971, announces, “This letter is written to you by a law abiding citizen who feels she is discriminated against in favor of dope addicts…I can no longer walk on the streets and when I am afraid in my own home.” This letter refers to the failure of the government to address the problems of urban danger and criticizing the failure of the government policies and social welfare programs hat aided the lower classes of society rather than the contributing working class. This practice of providing to these noncontributing members of society stimulated crime and frustrated those, like the individual in Document 3, who “works every day, pays taxes, and lives by the rules.” There was a lack of law and order present throughout the nation along with greater civil unrest as well, as is seen in President Johnson’s plans for a “Great Society,” designed to eliminate poverty and racial injustice, that resulted in riots, especially in inner cities, including Chicago and Washington, such as the five-day Watts riot that resulted in deaths and the injury of thousands, and the 1966 Detroit riots that killed 43 individuals. These protests were active displays of the frustration of the American people in the leaders of the decade and their lack of assistance to the working class of the nation. While these were domestic struggles of the presidential administrations of the era, Document 5 looks at the international failures of the government of the United States, saying, “Never before in modern history has the United States endured as many humiliations, insults, and defeats as it has during the past four years.” As the Republican Party declared, the United States lacked strength on an