The 1980s

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The 11th-grade level American History course podcast for BESD.

America was tired.
We covered quite a bit last time — the chaos of Vietnam, Watergate, Nixon's resignation, the energy crisis. By the late 1970s, Americans had been through a lot. And now they were dealing with another problem: the economy under President Jimmy Carter was rough. Prices were high, interest rates were brutal, and people were frustrated.
And here's a rule of politics that seldom fails: angry voters vote for the other party.
So in 1980, America turned to the Republican governor of California, a former actor named Ronald Reagan.
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The Conservative Revolution 00:48
Reagan's rise wasn't just an American thing. At the same time, voters in Britain elected Margaret Thatcher, and in West Germany they elected Helmut Kohl. All of them shared a similar political vision. Historians call this shift the Conservative Revolution.
Here's the big idea behind it: After World War II, Western governments believed they could and should actively manage their economies. They set rules, regulated industries, and spent tax money – all in the hope of preventing another Great Depression. But by the late 1970s, with inflation running wild, many Americans had decided that government intervention in the economy wasn't working. They blamed the economic mess on too much government interference.
The conservative solution was deregulation. If regulation is the idea that the government should interfere with the economy by making rules, deregulation is the opposite. Deregulation is the idea that government should get out of the way and let the economy run more freely.
In a related vein, conservatives also took a hard line on communism. Communism is the ultimate government intervention in the economy – it goes well past intervention into a place where the government controls the economy completely. Communism, then, is the opposite of capitalist deregulation – and the opposite of what the conservative revolution was trying to accomplish.
Also, after years of the Cold War dragging on, many Americans wanted a president who would push back — and push back firmly.
 
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The Iranian Hostage Crisis 02:38
Now, before we get too far into Reagan's presidency, we need to back up just a little and explain one of the most dramatic stories of the whole era. And so we’re going to pop back to the world under Jimmy Carter.
It begins with a revolution.
For years, Iran had been ruled by a man called the shah. The shah was a dictator, but he was a dictator who was backed by the United States. (Remember during the Cold War the U.S. would back anyone who fought communism.) Iranians grew to resent both the shah and American influence in their country. In 1979, they held a coup and overthrew him. The new government became a theocracy — a government ruled by religious leaders under religious law — led by a figure called the Ayatollah, which means Supreme Leader.
And the new Iranian government was not happy with the United States.
In November 1979, Iranian revolutionaries stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage. Those hostages were held for 444 days while Carter tried desperately to negotiate their release.
The crisis was humiliating. An entire nation watched, helpless, as American diplomats sat in captivity.
The hostages were finally released on January 20, 1981. Why does that date matter? Because that’s the date of Reagan’s inauguration. The hostages were released right after Reagan took the oath of office. Not the day before. Not the day after. But that same afternoon.
And this, as a historian, is where things get genuinely fascinating.
Why did they release the hostages at that exact moment? It depends on who you ask. Reagan's supporters said the Iranians were afraid of Reagan — that they released the hostages because he was now in charge. Carter's supporters said something else: that Iran released them to spite Carter, denying him the victory of bringing them home himself. (Congress actually investigated that possibility in the 1990s.)
And this is why it’s an interesting historical question: With what we know now, we don’t have the ability to get the answer. We don't really know Iran's true motives. And it's entirely possible both things were true at the same time. That's often how history works. It’s messy, it’s complicated, and it’s open to interpretation.
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Reagan's Economy 05:35
Reagan came into office promising to turn the economy around. His approach centered on deregulation. He felt that this would free up businesses from government restrictions. He thought that this, in turn, would free up the businesses to hire more people. A popular saying at the time compared the economy to a marina: “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
The economy did improve during Reagan's presidency. But people endlessly debate how much credit Reagan actually deserves for that. Some point to actions by the Federal Reserve. Others credit Reagan's policies directly.
But here's one thing Reagan undeniably had going for him: he was an actor. And that matters more than you might think. Presidents aren't just policy managers — they're also the Chief of State, meaning that they’re the symbolic face of the nation. People look to the president to read the mood of the country. Reagan was exceptional at this. He told Americans things were good. He exuded confidence. And in a capitalist economy where people spend more when they feel optimistic, making people feel what you want them to feel matters a great deal.
But whether because of deregulation or the federal reserve’s policies, the economy definitely improved in the 1980s.
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The Election of 1984 07:08
By 1984, Reagan was running for reelection under a campaign slogan that became iconic: "It's morning again in America."
It worked.
The Democrats nominated Walter Mondale for president and — here's the historically significant part — Geraldine Ferraro for vice president. Ferraro was the first woman ever nominated for national office by a major political party. That was a genuine milestone in American history. Even though her party lost. Big time.
What happened next was a landslide. Mondale only won one state — his home state of Minnesota — plus Washington, D.C. Reagan won everything else. It was one of the most lopsided election results in American history, and it showed just how popular Reagan had become.
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The Challenger Disaster 08:03
Other things happened in the 1980s besides politics.
1986 brought one of the most heartbreaking days in American history.
The Space Shuttle Challenger had prepared for a historic mission to space. One of the crew members, Christa McAuliffe, was a teacher. She was bringing science experiments and demonstrations with her. Schoolchildren would ask her questions, and she would respond. The shuttle would become a science classroom for America’s children.
On January 28th, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched from Cape Canaveral. Practically every child in America watched as, seventy-three seconds after liftoff, the shuttle exploded. All seven crew members were killed.
The cause? An O-ring — a rubber seal on one of the solid rocket boosters — failed in the cold morning temperatures. It was very small – and it was something that engineers had warned NASA’s leaders about. But the leaders ignored the engineers and the shuttle suffered a catastrophic failure.
The nation was stunned. Now — here's where this gets personal for us, specifically. Morton Thiokol, the company that manufactured those solid rocket boosters, was located a few miles west of us (it’s since been bought by Northrup Grummon). The Challenger explosion hit our communities especially hard. Thousands of jobs, an entire community's economy, and the pride of a local aerospace industry — it all took a serious hit. The investigation that followed scrutinized Thiokol's role in the disaster, and the economic fallout was felt locally for years.
Nationally, NASA halted shuttle flights for nearly three years while it redesigned the booster system and safety procedures. The disaster forced a painful reckoning about how decisions get made under pressure – and how much say engineers should have in regards to space launches. It hasn’t been until very recently that NASA has once again began expanding its space endeavors.
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Reagan and Gorbachev 10:13
Meanwhile, on the world stage, something remarkable was happening.
Reagan was famously tough on communism. He saw the Soviet Union as what he called an "evil empire," and he wasn't shy about saying so. But — and this is important — he also managed to build a genuine friendship with the new Soviet leader: Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.
That combination sounds like a contradiction. But it wasn't. It turns out that someone can hate someone’s opinion and love the person behind it.
In 1987, Reagan stood at the Berlin Wall — the symbol of the Iron Curtain dividing the free world from the communist world — and delivered one of the most famous lines in modern presidential history: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
Some people credit Reagan with single-handedly ending the Cold War. That's overstating it. But here's what did matter: the relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev was real. Reagan critiqued communism — loudly — while still finding ways to engage with its leader. And that relationship helped push Gorbachev toward greater openness inside the Soviet Union.
We'll talk more about where that led in our next episode. But for now, understand this: Reagan and Gorbachev talking to each other — genuinely, not just through clenched diplomatic teeth — helped set in motion the most dramatic political collapse of the 20th century.
That's a pretty good legacy for a decade that started with a hostage crisis and an imploding economy.