agmentation of the liberal consensus occurred, we still need to look at how this fragmentation gave rise to the conservatism, culminating in the election of Reagan in 1980. In order to do this we must look at how the events of the 1970's give shape and understanding to the turn from the liberal consensus to conservatism. To do this it is important to look at three specific issues that arose during the 1970's: the downturn of the American economy, the Watergate scandal, and the rise of materialism.The downturn of the American economy is probably the most important issue in the rise of conservatism by the 1980 election. From 1969 to 1980 the United States went through three major economic recessions. The effect of this on the rise of conservatism stems from two primary issues: unemployment and the failure of the government to provide economic growth. Unemployment had a large effect on the psyche of the American populace. Hodgson writes that in the 1970's,Inflation had taken hold. Recession threatened. The balance-of-payments deficit was horrendous. The United States was becoming ominously dependent on foreign oil and raw materials and on foreign markets. And these objective problems bred new attitudes. For the first time since the thirties, people were no longer sure that corporate business was beneficent. For a generation, it had provided jobs. Now unemployment was beginning to rise Rates of actual unemployment remained fairly low until the energy crisis bit hard in 1973-74. But the unemployment rate, which measures the number of people out of work on a given day seriously underestimates the number of workers with reason to fear for their jobs.The fact that unemployment was up and that individuals were in fear for their jobs created a backlash against the actions that the liberal consensus took to stem the problems of civil rights and the reaction that had in part caused the fragmentation of the liberal consensus. The back...
