Hi, I’m John Green, this is CrashCourse
U.S. history and we’ve finally done it we
have reached the moment where we get to talk
about the presidency of George HW Bush.
The 2nd most important man named George Bush
ever to be President of the United States.
A man so fascinating that we did not give
him a face.
Mr. Green, Mr. Green, so we’re almost in
the present?
Well we’re never really gonna get to the
present Me From The Past because we’re always
in the past.
But you are like 20 years in the past which
is soon going to create a time paradox that
I can not possibly deal with.
So I’m just going to let Hank deal with
that over on the science shows.
Intro
Anyway despite like calendars and everything,
the 1990s really began in 1988 with the election
of George Herbert Walker Bush, who had probably
the best resume of any presidential candidate
since Teddy Roosevelt.
I mean he was a war hero, having enlisted
in the Navy upon graduating from high school
and then going on to become the youngest pilot
in Navy history.
He flew 58 missions in the Pacific during
WWII and received the Distinguished Flying
Cross for completing a mission in a burning
plane before ditching into the sea.
So just consider that the next time you complete
a heroic mission in Call of Duty 4.
After the war Bush went to college at Yale,
and then moved to Texas where he made millions
in the oil industry.
Then, he became a Congressman, and then ambassador
to the UN, and then director of the CIA, and
then Vice President.
The guy had more careers than Barbie!
Plus like every great American politician
George Bush grew up in hardscrabble poverty
working his way through the Depression…
just kidding he was the son of Connecticut
Senator Prescott Bush.
But I guess after like 20 years of peanut
farmers and former actors, America was ready
to have an aristocrat at the helm again, as
long as he pretended to be from Texas.
Like certain Crash Course teachers wearing
striped polo shirts George HW Bush was an
old school Episcopalion so he was never totally
comfortable with like public professions of
faith.
So when it came down to pick his vice presidential
candidate, Bush chose J Danforth Quayle aka
Dan.
A young, family values, senator from right
here in Indiana.
Now these days of course Dan Quayle is primarily
known for getting in an argument with a fictional
television character named Murphy Brown, and
also for not being able to spell the word
potato, but once upon a time he was a promising
young Republican.
Bush’s opponent in that 1988 was Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis, who was perceived
as competent but kinda heartless and weak
and a little bit clueless.
As this famous picture of him in a tank indicates
he was not a war hero.
But at the beginning of the Democratic primary
the leading contender was actually the reverend,
Jesse Jackson, who had a legitimate shot at
being the first African American Democratic
Presidential nominee.
That would have to wait.
Because instead the Democrats chose the northern,
liberal governor Dukakis and paired him with
Texas Senator Lloyd, I’m gonna make Dan
Quayle look good, Bentsen.
Which I bring up primarily to point out that
Texas actually used to have Democrats.
So negative campaign ads had existed before
1988 but the 1988 election took it to an entirely
new level and ushered in an era of going negative
in politics.
Like everybody says they hate negative ads,
but they also work like the Bush campaign’s
efforts to make Dukakis look weak on defense
and crime were brutally effective.
The most infamous ad featured Willie Horton
who while on furlough from prison committed
rape and murder.
And even though Dukakis’ Republican predecessor
had actually started the furlough program,
the Horton crime occurred while Dukakis was
governor.
The ad featured a terrifying photo of Horton
and prisoners walking through a revolving
door and it worked.
Dukakis was regarded as a liberal who was
weak on crime.
In fact, it was George HW Bush who was the
first to use the word liberal as an insult
in American politics, which represents the
larger shifts that were happening.
So in retrospect, possibly the most important
thing about the 1988 campaign was George Bush’s
famous pledge at the Republican convention:
“Read my lips, No New Taxes!”
No way that’s gonna come back to bite him.
So once he was President, it’s not surprising
that Bush focused more on foreign policy than
domestic concerns.
I mean that was his background with the UN
and at the CIA.
But it also makes sense in the larger historical
context because the Cold War actually ended
during Bush’s presidency.
Even though no one ever gives him credit for
it.
I mean the Berlin Wall came down, Poland’s
military rule ended, the Velvet Revolution
happened in Czechoslovakia during Bush’s
watch.
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble
The end of the Cold War was really a failure
on the part of the USSR rather than the result
of successful American policies.
But it left the U.S. in something of a policy
limbo.
I mean after all, the idea of a super-powerful
malevolent Bowser Boss Soviet Union poised
to destroy the American Way of Life provided
a comfortable structure for all our foreign
relations for almost 50 years as well as providing
the reason for massive military build up and
all the jobs that came with it.
One positive result of the end of the Cold
War was a reduction in nuclear weapons.
Under Bush the U.S. and USSR negotiated and
implemented the START I and START II treaties,
which limited the number of warheads each
country could possess to between 3,000 and
3,500.
I mean that was still enough to end human
life on Earth several times over but it was
amazing progress.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and end of
the Cold War led the president to declare
the dawn of a New World Order, but calling
it a New World Order didn’t make foreign
policy any easier.
Without the Cold War to orient us foreign
policy issues were much more confusing and
messy.
So for example, Bush kept the United States
out of Yugoslavia, which disintegrated in
1991, turning into a bloodbath.
But he sent troops into Somalia to help deliver
food aid, resulting in the botched operation
described in the movie, and book, Black Hawk
Down.
And then there was the foreign policy crisis
that Bush handled decisively: Saddam Hussein’s
invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
Bush brought the issue to the UN and ushered
through a Security Council resolution that
set a deadline for Saddam to leave Kuwait.
When he didn’t meet the January 15, 1991
deadline, the U.S. had already put together
a coalition of 34 nations ready to make him
leave.
America first launched a spectacular air war
that destroyed much of the Iraqi defense capability.
And then our technological prowess was on
display for the world on CNN, which featured
coverage of “smart bombs” blowing stuff
up.
When ground troops led by General Norman z
finally moved in, they were able to defeat
the Iraqi army in just 100 hours.
Thanks Thought Bubble.
So the Iraq war, I guess we now have to say
first Iraq war, was a huge military success.
America lost fewer than 300 soldiers.
Iraq suffered somewhere between 1500 and 9500
killed in action.[1]
And the US’s military objectives had been
achieved clearly and quickly.
And Bush claimed that the victory had forever
banished the so called “Vietnam Syndrome,”
the reluctance to use American military power
for fear of becoming bogged down in another
“quagmire.”
Now in hindsight, if the Americans had supported
Iraqi efforts to topple Saddam Hussein and
build a new Iraq, we might have achieved that
objective as well, but the mission under the
UN resolution was to get Iraqis out of Kuwait
and so that’s what we did.
Bush didn’t want to take it any further.
Oh it’s time for the Mystery Document?
The rules here are simple
I read the mystery document.
I either guess the author correctly or I get
shocked.
“Five of the seven agree with President
Bush that the war is just or at least necessary.
But not one wants to fight in it.
All are opposed to a draft, though a few said
one might be necessary as a last resort.
They said they would gladly serve in non-military
public service jobs.
“This might sound selfish, but I think it
would be a shame to put America’s best minds
on the front line,” said Jason Bell, 20,
a junior English major from Elizabethtown,
KY.
“If we have to go, we have to go, but I
think it would be a shame.”
[2]
Yeah, Jason Bell, that does sound selfish.
Alright Stan this is from like a newspaper
or magazine.
I assume that you are using it to call attention
to the fact that this was really the first
big American military initiative without a
draft.
And it also reminds us that the war was not
universally popular, I mean at least before
it was fought, after it was fought it pretty
much was.
But I have no idea who actually wrote the
piece in the mystery document, how would I
know that?
Is it a famous journalist?
Is it like David Halberstam?
No?
David Maraniss?
Who the hell is that?
Does he have a Wikipedia article?
Meredith does he have a Wikipedia article?
Alright apparently he does have a Wikipedia
article.
He even won a Pulitzer Prize so congratulations
sir.
Ahhh!
So the Gulf lifted the President Bush’s
approval rating to an unheard of 89%.
And in April 1991 it looked like there was
no way that George HW Bush would lose his
re-election bid, but he didn’t consider
the domestic issues that were kind of important
to Americans.
We are very happy to talk about all the wars
that we are fighting unless and until someone
raises our taxes!
So Bush wasn’t much interested in putting
together a domestic agenda – he once called
it “the vision thing” – and anyway he
would have had a hard time getting anything
through the Democratically controlled Congress.
So Congress continued to pass New Deal style
“liberal” legislation including expanded
funding for Head Start and welfare, as well
as a Family and Medical Leave bill (which
Bush vetoed twice) but eventually passed nonetheless.
With the Family Medical Leave Act of course
America joined every other country in the
world in offering paid maternity and paternity
leave to new parents.
What’s that?
We didn’t?
We still don’t?
We still don’t have that?
We still don’t have paid leave?
Oh god..
However you are no longer allowed to be fired
for 12 whole weeks while you take unpaid leave
to care for your child.
That’s why Stan couldn’t replace me with
text-to-voice software after my daughter,
Alice, was born.
But in news that actually was sort of cutting
edge Congress also enacted the Americans With
Disabilities Act in 1991.
Before I talk about the recession that ended
George Bush’s presidency I want to talk
about Rodney King.
Because this revealed huge fissures in the
American population and called into question
the achievements of the rights revolution.
In April 1992 an all white jury in Simi Valley
found three of four policemen not guilty of
beating black motorist Rodney King, even though
the incident had been recorded on videotape.
After the verdict, Los Angeles erupted into
the deadliest riots seen in America since
the New York City Draft Riots.
52 people were killed and 2,300 injured in
rioting that caused $1billion in property
damage.
So obviously race remained a volatile issue
in the U.S.
It was also an issue that Bush seemed unprepared
to deal with like he toured burned out LA
neighborhoods but had little in the way of
real comfort to offer, contributing to the
perception that he was this millionaire, Ivy
League-educated, Washington insider who was
out of touch with regular Americas.
But the biggest issue to most Americans was
money.
America fell into recession in 1990 and the
slump lasted until 1992.
It might have been caused by the end of the
Cold War and the subsequent reductions in
defense spending, or by Fed Chairman Alan
Greenspan’s sluggish refusal to lower interest
rates, or maybe the economy just needed to
reset at a lower number after growing every
year since 1982, or maybe macroeconomics is
more complicated than who is President and
sometimes people unjustly get blamed or credited
for things that they had very little to do
with.
Regardless, 4.5 million Americans lost their
jobs and the unemployment rate rose from 5.3%
in 1989 to 7.5% in 1992, its highest level
in almost a decade.
Along with the many thousands of manufacturing
workers who lost their jobs in America’s
continuing de-industrialization, white-collar
workers were thrown out of work, too, and
college graduates, of whom there were record
numbers, couldn’t find work as they came
out of school.
Stop me if any of that sounds familiar.
One person who struggled to find a job after
graduating during the Bush Recession was none
other than CrashCourse writer Raoul Meyer,
who after sending 100 resumes out got 3 job
interviews and ended up working at a small
independent school in Alabama, where he became
the teacher of … Me From the Past.
Now the recession was certainly bad for Bush
politically, but what probably destroyed Bush’s
re-election hopes was the whole taxes thing.
In 1991, with tax receipts dropping and spending
not slowing very much, President Bush did
something that now seems unthinkable: he authorized
a tax increase.
And in doing this he called his conservative
credentials into question.
Especially in the eyes of small-government-wanting-libertarian-leaning
republicans.
They had never really trusted the faux Texan
Bush anyway, but he had said, “Read my lips..”
and they believed him but it turned out he
had no lips!
Now when coupled with Bush’s lukewarm support
of the evangelical wing of the republican
party and his running mate’s inability to
spell the word potato it all prompted a primary
challenge from conservative commentator Pat
Buchanan.
Which he beat back easily, however some of
the GOP voter base, especially the evangelical
Christians, stayed home on Election Day.
Then there was also a third party candidate,
Texas Billionaire and muppet impersonator
H. Ross Perot, who won 19% of the vote (the
best third-party performance since Teddy Roosevelt
in 1912)
All of this came together to open the door
for a pudgy lad from Hope, Arkansas, who had
never inhaled marijuana, and didn’t cheat
on his wife except for sometimes, named William
Jefferson Clinton.
Looking back from today the fascinating thing
about the George HW Bush administration is
that it seems like a weird interruption in
a larger narrative.
For a couple decades we had seen increasing
conservatism and rising partisanship and then
suddenly George HW Bush comes along and everybody
kind of works together.
They didn’t always make good decisions when
working together, but they did make decisions!
But what’s really fascinating to me is that
if you’re from Eastern Europe or China this
period was one of the most important in history.
Whereas if you’re American arguably the
most important thing the leader of this era
ever did was raise George W Bush.
For better and for worse America didn’t
really change that much as a result of the
end of the Cold War.
But we’re creeping up now on the growth
of the Internet which would change the way
that Americans and everyone else imagines
history and everything else forever.
Thanks for watching.
I’ll see you next week.
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________________
[1] source for these numbers is Patterson,
Restless Giant p. 235.
[2] From “It’s Their War, Too” by David
Maraniss Washington Post, 2/11/91
