Paper #2.
Formulate a question that is answerable, given what we are learning from the assigned readings, and preferably is arguable and insightful. In the heading for the paper include:
Name
Format
Word Count
Your prompt (question).
It's important that you write your prompt because I'm not going to assume anyone is necessarily responding to the prompts below exactly as they are written. Feel free to change and adapt the prompt as you write like you will be doing when you write your research paper.
Number your pages. Also, you might want to consider reading my very good "ask better questions" web page. In all seriousness, my web site has all the keys to the historian kingdom.
Some suggestions for prompts (questions) that might serve as a good starting point.
1. Make sense of the breakup of the New Deal coalition.* Pick one of these propositions and tell us to what extent you agree.
A. Perlstein portrays Nixon as political Svengali who lured Democratic voters into his conservative party, but the destruction of the New Deal coalition has more to do with the weaknesses on the left, such as extremism, elite condescension, and political missteps. (Or maybe it had more to do with dirty tricks).
B. Nixon was the right man at the right time to win white working class voters away from the Democratic Party.
C. There was nothing Democrats could do to keep voters like the Hard Hat rioters on their side once the Party had come out in favor of Civil Rights. The latent racism of white people was bound to arise in defense of the white privilege.
2. Perlstein writes of the “piety and rage” of Orthogonians; Betty Freidan writes about the rage of “young radical feminists.” Anti-war demonstrators and counter-demonstrators, Black Power advocates, urban rioters, and others also seem to be acting out of anger in the late 60s. Explore the historical significance of this anger: its causes, its consequences, how political leaders responded to it. . . .
3. Assess Nixon’s handling of foreign policy as represented in the assigned readings and considering the situation he inherited from LBJ.
4. Which of these characterizations seems more apt to you: The Watergate scandal was emblematic of an administration that was rotten to the core; or It was an unfortunate mistake that brought down a fairly successful presidency.
5. Jerome Rosow told Nixon that the story of Blue Collar workers' political alienation could be divided into two halves. His report formed the "germ of a revolution in the Republican's message," according to Perlstein (498). Explain what this revolution was, and how Democrats might have countered it without giving in to racist sentiments among working class voters.
Other possible themes/questions could be built around: Nixon's motives--public good, political gain, personal insecurities and resentments? Old v. New politics. New Morality. Fragmentation. King and Rustin v. Carmichael.
NOTES
Gallup Poll 1965-1971: Sending U.S. Troops to Vietnam Was …
*New Deal Coalition: According to Wikipedia, beginning in the 1930s, it “included labor unions, blue collar workers, racial and religious minorities (such as Jews, Catholics, and African-Americans), farmers, rural white Southerners, and urban intellectuals.”
“The coalition fell apart largely due to the declining influence of labor unions and a backlash to racial integration, urban crime, and the counterculture of the 1960s. Meanwhile, Republicans made major gains by promising lower taxes and control of crime. During the 1960s, new issues such as civil rights, the Vietnam War, affirmative action, and large-scale urban riots tended to split the coalition and drive many members away. In addition, the coalition lacked a leader of the stature of Roosevelt.”