A Young People's History of the United States

Here, the author reiterates a theme prevalent throughout the book: that the Establishment—American political and economic systems and those that control those entities—consistently resists fundamental change that would upset traditional power dynamics. Zinn writes, “Toward the end of the twentieth century, government power swung back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, but neither party offered a new vision of how things could be” (348). The guiding principles to policy were still capitalism and nationalism.

Democrat Jimmy Carter became president after Gerald Ford, and though Carter “moved America toward the left, toward liberalism,” Zinn later qualifies Carter’s politics as “faint liberalism” (349, 352). On the surface, Carter offered “gestures” that hinted at a more humane politics (349). He spoke out against segregation in South Africa, appointed a Black civil rights activist as the US United Nations Ambassador, and presented himself as more or less a regular person (he was famously from a peanut farming family). However, he “refused to give aid” to a recovering Vietnam, “continued US support for oppressive governments in Iran, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Indonesia,” and “did not solve people’s economic problems” (351).

The White House returned to Republican control with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, which represented the apex of 20th-century conservativism.