{"id":5212,"date":"2021-05-01T00:53:56","date_gmt":"2021-05-01T00:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/?p=5212"},"modified":"2021-05-09T03:23:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-09T03:23:37","slug":"oral-history-project-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/2021\/05\/01\/oral-history-project-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Oral History Project Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Whittemore<\/span><\/p>\n

Oral History Project Interview\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4\/29\/2021<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked my Father, Arthur Snow Whittemore III about the 1980’s; which correlates with the American Yawp Chapter 29. At first I asked my father if he would consent to answering my questions and he did.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> What was your opinion on Reagan\u2019s political movement the \u201cNew Right?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A: I believe that a focus on conservative values and personal responsibility is an excellent foundation.\u00a0 I agree with Jefferson that the government that governs best is the government that governs least and with Ford that a government that is able to give you everything you want will take from you everything that you have.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> How did the \u201cNew Right\u201d affect your life?<\/span><\/p>\n

A: The reascent of conservative principles, especially with regard to reduced taxation provided a huge economic uplift – a rising tide that lifted all boats.\u00a0 Perhaps more importantly, though, the engineered demise of communism fundamentally changed the world.\u00a0 We no longer fear global nuclear war — there are other terrors – but the unthinkable is no longer a threat.\u00a0 That is thanks to Ronald Reagan more than anyone else.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q: <\/b>How did the media portray Jerry Falwell and the moral majority?<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

A: I didn\u2019t pay much attention to the Moral Majority or any of their ilk.\u00a0 They were conservatives for a different reason that I was.\u00a0 But the evangelicals were necessary to create the voting bloc we needed to slow the tide of progressiism.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> Is the religious right more powerful today than in the 1980\u2019s in your opinion?<\/span><\/p>\n

A: I don\u2019t think the religious right has much sway today right now.\u00a0 So No.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> Did you notice the difference between President Carter\u2019s \u201cNew Deal\u201d and President Reagan\u2019s \u201cNew Right?\u201d If so, what are they?<\/span><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 The New Deal was FDR not Carter.\u00a0 And the differences between the New Deal (and also the Great Society of the sixties) and the conservative movement of the eighties and nineties is a stark contrast.\u00a0 The success of the conservative movement changed the democratic party from a new deal \/ great society mindset to a more business focused type of democrat.\u00a0 As your article says, the democrats of the nineties looked and talked a lot like the republicans of the sixties.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> Do you think that the moral majority is still a force in the Republican Party and have they become more radical?<\/span><\/p>\n

A: I really don\u2019t think the evangelicals have much sway.\u00a0 The conservative pundits on FoxNews still defend religious freedom, and point out injustices against christians, but the thought leadership is not there — it\u2019s about economic ideology not religious ideology.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> Do Political Action Committies (PAC) have more influence today than they did in the last 1970\u2019s early 1980\u2019s?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 Sure — they didn\u2019t really exist until the eighties when the campaign finance laws changed.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> Do you remember the Energy Crisis? How were you and\/or anyone you knew affected by the crisis?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A: Gas prices rose by a factor of five and even then you couldn\u2019t get any.\u00a0 You sat in line in your car to fill your tank and could only get gas on even or odd days depending on your license plate.\u00a0 But it went way beyond the energy crisis.\u00a0 The 70s (despite some good music) was a period of terrible malaise in America — first Watergate, then Stagflation and the Carter Years, including the loss of American exceptionalism around the globe.\u00a0 We were on the verge of falling apart.\u00a0 Reagan comes with both good ideas and great optimism.\u00a0 It really changed the trajectory.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t permanent.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> My textbook states: \u201cAmericans increasingly embraced racial diversity as a positive value but most often approached the issue through an individualistic\u2014not a systemic\u2014framework.\u201d Do you think race relations were better when Reagan was in office or are they better now? Why do you think this?\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A: Race relations have been on a steady improvement over time.\u00a0 I think they were better in the 80s than in the 60s and I know they are better today than they were in the 80s.\u00a0 Forget all the George Floyd riots.\u00a0 Look at neighborhoods.\u00a0 Look at mixed marriages.\u00a0 My son-in-law is black.\u00a0 My grandchildren are mixed race.\u00a0 That would not have happened a generation ago.\u00a0 And certainly not two generations ago.\u00a0 Things are getting better every day.\u00a0 The left just doesn\u2019t want us to believe that — perhaps they think the pace of change is not fast enough – but the direction of change is one of constant improvement.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> Do you remember what it was like when Democratic candidate Walter Mondale named his running mate Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to ever run in a debate?<\/span><\/p>\n

A: In my opinion, her gender was irrelevant.\u00a0 She just wasn\u2019t qualified.\u00a0 I would have voted for plenty of women for VP if they were qualified.\u00a0 So her gender wasn\u2019t a factor for me, and I really didn\u2019t think it mattered to most voters.\u00a0 It was a curiosity but I don\u2019t think her sex affected the election.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> How did your life change when the The Apple II computer came out in 1977?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A: Not much.\u00a0 My first computer was an IBM PC in 1985.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had a computer ever since.<\/b><\/p>\n

Q:<\/b> What changed in the \u201850s and \u201860s and \u201870s that fueld the rise of conservatism?<\/span><\/p>\n

A: The fifties were a soft and easy time in America, but with a looming threat from the USSR.\u00a0 The sixties were a time of radical change (much as now) that left much of middle America uneasy, but unsure where to go.\u00a0 Nixon called them the silent majority, but they were unable to make a difference.\u00a0 So in the sixties we saw the Great Society BS and riots and hippies.\u00a0 It came really fast as a reaction to a failing war in Viet Nam.\u00a0 Nixon came along and tried to slow it, but then the Watergarte scandal put the conservatives on the run.\u00a0 But there were no real conservatives thenn.\u00a0 It was the failure of economic policy and foreign policy under Carter that brought us to the point where conservatism could truly emerge.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Whittemore Oral History Project Interview\u00a0 4\/29\/2021 I asked my Father, Arthur Snow Whittemore III about the 1980’s; which correlates with the American Yawp Chapter 29. At first I asked my father if he would consent to answering my questions and he did. Q: What was your opinion on Reagan\u2019s political movement the \u201cNew Right?\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4703,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}