us_ch14_info

=**Globalization and a World With Terrorism Background Information**=

**“Change You Can Believe In”****:**
In 2008, the Democrat Party experienced a tough primary election between frontrunner Hillary Clinton and newcomer to federal politics Barack Obama. Senator Obama was known to be an eloquent speaker and ran as a moderate (even though his views were much more liberal than Hillary’s). His campaign slogan was “Change You Can Believe In.” Hillary Clinton began to catch up and win some major states after tapes came out about Obama’s minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was a radical and preached Black Liberation Theology, that the white man was holding the black man down. Evidence also came out that Obama had ties to Bill Ayers, former member of the radical bomb throwing Weather Underground. However, Obama had the votes going into the convention and got the nomination. The Republicans went with Vietnam veteran, Senator John McCain, who was responsible for pushing for the successful surge in Iraq. McCain chose Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, a conservative who pushed for drilling for oil in Alaska. The liberal biased media personally attacked Governor Palin and made their bias obvious by endorsing Senator Obama. CEO of General Electric Jeffery Immelt was a major Obama endorser. GE owned MSNBC at the time and made it the cable networks mission to endorse Senator Obama. Obama defeated McCain and became the first African-American president. Joe Biden became Vice President and Hillary Clinton would be Secretary of State.

One of President Obama’s first policies was another economic bailout of major industries including the auto industry. Nearly $900 billion was borrowed to bailout struggling companies. However, the economy continued to get worse. Tougher regulations were passed on financial firms, which further limited their abilities or incentives to loan money. A major economic stimulus package was signed in 2009 that would increase spending by hundreds of billions of dollars aimed at bringing the U.S. economy out of the recession. Financial regulations over banks and lending firms would increase. The Dodd-Frank Bill (signed in 2010) put heavy restrictions on banks. Banks could not make bad loans. However, the bill didn't define a bad loan. Banks would be leery of lending as a result in fear of being punished. This did more to harm lending than fix problems that led to the financial crisis to begin with. In 2010, Obama’s major focus was on the area of health care. He favored a government run option. Critiques claimed that such a measure would bankrupt the treasury and collapse the health care industry and move the U.S. towards socialized medicine (like in Britain where people are put on waiting lists for medical procedures, which are rationed based on age). By the end of the summer a plan was put together by the Democrat controlled Congress opposed by all Republicans. Public opinion polls began to show that the majority of Americans were opposing the health care bill (nicknamed Obamacare) especially since it seemed that Democrats wanted it passed without giving members of Congress a chance to read the bill (which was over 2,000 pages). It passed, but the public wasn’t happy, especially with the individual mandate – part of the bill requiring that everyone purchase health care and if one can’t afford it, the government will pay (this would be in addition to Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor). As a result, the Republicans regained control of the House in the 2010 midterms and gained seats in the Senate. The Supreme Court upheld the government's ability to force people to buy health care under the power to tax. Some good points of the law is that people cannot be denied care due to pre-existing conditions and some who could not afford health care will get it paid for by the government. Negative unintended consequences developed however. Americans who had coverage began to lose coverage or less coverage since premiums increased. Also hours were cut and/or layoffs due to the rule in the law that said anyone with 50 or more full time (30 or more hours) employees had to provide health care for those employees. Businesses that couldn't afford this either had to cut hours or lay people off to pay for the health care. The individual mandate would be examined by the Supreme Court and in June of 2012 in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the mandate. The Court allowed a major increase in the power of the federal government. The Republican House pushed for spending cuts and maintaining the Bush tax cuts while the Democrat Senate along with President Obama fought for higher taxes. Another major issue in the nation was what to do about illegal immigration. The Republicans wanted to secure the border with the National Guard, which was opposed by Democrats who wanted to allow the illegal immigrants to have citizenship without any penalties. President Obama did set timelines for withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, but is credited with ordering the mission that killed Osama bin Laden and for aggressively ordering drone attacks on al Qaeda terror sites in the Middle East.

In 2011, the U.S. supported the overthrow of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak was a harsh and oppressive dictator, but he was friendly with the U.S. and didn't allow terrorists in Egypt. However, the Obama Administration supported his overthrow for democracy in Egypt. However, the Muslim Brotherhood would take power in elections. The Muslim Brotherhood is a terror group with radical Islamic beliefs. However, the Muslim Brotherhood was forced out of power by the people in 2013 since the Egyptian economy was struggling (Egypt relies heavily on tourism, which slowed up a lot when the Muslim Brotherhood took power - not too many people were willing to tour a country with radical Muslims in charge). On September 11, 2012 terrorists attacked the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The Libyan government was new after the ousting of Muammar Qaddafi (the U.S. and NATO helped the rebels overthrow Qaddafi...this brought a mixed reaction in America since Qaddafi was a thug who ruled for 42 years and was sympathetic to terrorists, but in 2003 when the U.S. went after Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi stopped his support of terrorists). The new Libyan government would be friendly to the U.S., but didn't have the ability to quell terror groups. In terms of the terror attack on the Benghazi embassy, the Obama Administration made it clear that this was a spontaneous uprising by a group that was upset since a YouTube video was put out that criticized radical Muslims. Evidence began to surface that this attack was a well-orchestrated terrorist attack that had been planned for some time and that the administration wasn't truthful about the attack. Opponents of President Obama say that he denied extra security in Benghazi and failed to send in military to try to save the ambassador and that he misled the nation on it being a terror attack since the election was a few months away and he was running on al Qaeda not having power to launch such an attack. Supporters of the president claimed that this was a tragedy and Obama's opponents were merely trying to discredit him.

The year 2011 also marked the start of a protest movement called Occupy Wall Street. The "Occupiers" claimed to be protesting corporate and investment greed with those working on Wall Street being the prime culprits. This movement began as a legitimate protest, but transcended into a far left/secular-progressive movement that was anti-capitalist. In the Occupy encampments, in New York City's Zuccotti Park as well as other cities, there was heavy drug use, sexual assaults, rape, and countless arrests for illegal behavior. Occupiers refused to leave and it became evident that those who were "occupying" weren't workers, but were looking for socialism and policies that favor redistribution of wealth - a major sense of entitlement was common among occupiers.

Going into the 2012 election, the nation was very divided among conservatives who pushed for self-reliance, a balanced budget, deficit reduction, and tax and spending cuts against liberals who wanted even more government-reliance and more progressive government control over individual choices even if the debt continued to increase. Europe was providing a glimpse of what would happen if a nation continued out of control spending…first in Greece which the World Bank had to bailout since they were on the verge of financial collapse due to their debt. President Obama would seek re-election against either Mitt Romney. Americans were given a clear choice: Obama with record spending and high deficits along with a Secular-Progressive agenda vs. Romney and small government, lower taxes, spending cuts, and getting the debt under control. Romney had some baggage himself since, as governor of Massachusetts, he signed a bill that began a health care system in that state similar to Obamacare. Romney's response was that the states could handle their own health care systems and not something for enlarging the federal government. The weekend before the election, a major storm hit the New Jersey coast - Super Storm Sandy. Of course President Obama went to New Jersey to assess the damage and photographs were taken of him with New Jersey governor, and Romney supporter Chris Christie. To many, this made Obama seem bipartisan and many (according to exit polls) claim they voted for Obama since he appeared bipartisan. In addition, Romney was not willing to go after Obama on issues of spending, energy, health care, and Benghazi. Obama was re-elected. Obama's second terms saw a push for gun control after a crazed gunman stormed into an elementary school in Sandy Hook, CT and shot elementary students. Awareness of domestic terrorists grew after radicals set off bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in 2013. The year 2013 was full of a lot of gridlock in Washington with the Republicans still controlling the House and the Democrats controlling the Senate. The Republican House aimed to cut taxes and spending as well as either repeal or roll back Obamacare while the Democrat Senate saw tax increases on the wealthy as necessary and continue the spending as well as the rollout of Obamacare. October 2013 was to be the start of the Obamacare sign ups, however there were major glitches with the website and the rollout was disastrous for the president. It would eventually get fixed and signups for the new health care system were underway. Some of the negative impacts that were predicted were taking place - rising costs of health care premiums, deductibles increasing for policy holders (those who already had health care) as well as co-pays. Some Americans were losing their health care altogether due to standards in the new law and were forced to sign up for Obamacare. This led to an increase in those who were against the law. There were Americans who didn't have health care, however, who were able to get it for free through the new law. It's impacts would not be seen or realized though until full implementation by the end of 2014.

In terms of foreign affairs, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were winding down. The surge in Iraq in President Bush's last full year was able to secure the Iraqi border and stop the insurgency which was the cause for a lot of violence in Iraq. The good part about looking to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq is that our soldiers would be coming home. The negative is that as once we leave, the Taliban would look to retake Afghanistan and Iran would look to increase its influence in Iraq. In 2013, rebels tried to remove the leader of Syria, dictator Bashar Assad. Similar to Egypt in 2011 and Libya in 2011-12, the U.S. supported the rebels and a chance at democracy especially since Assad was allies with Iran. Russia, however, was also friendly with Syria and Assad and provided weapons. The U.S. and NATO was not getting involved in Syria like they did against Qaddafi in Libya. The Obama Administration warned Assad that if he used chemical weapons on rebels that this would be a red line the U.S. wouldn't allow him to cross. Syria did use chemical weapons, but America did not punish Assad. Many in America didn't want to get involved in another conflict, plus radical terrorists had joined the Syrian rebels and basically enemies of the U.S. were killing each other. However, Syria, Iran, and more importantly Russia saw this as a sign of weakness and that America wouldn't back up its aggressive rhetoric. Iran was continuing its growing threat by working on its nuclear program. A growing problem was Russia, who took over the Crimean Peninsula, which was part of Ukraine and was threatening to take more of Ukraine. The U.S. pushed for sanctions against Russia and some were imposed, but nothing that would truly hurt Russia as the leaders of Europe were unwilling to take a strong stance against the Russians, mostly because some of the major European nations get oil and natural gas from pipelines controlled by Russia. So, Iran was a growing problem and friendly with Syria while Russia was an ally of both and increasing its influence in eastern Europe and the Middle East, while the U.S. was looking to withdraw out of the Middle East. Meanwhile, China was seeing the U.S. losing influence in the world and hoped to capitalize on the situation.

With 2014 a midterm election year, both parties aimed to improve their standing with the Americans people. The Republicans had the public on their side with opposing the big problems with the health care law and the idea that big government is not what is best for America. The Democrats on the other hand had the ability to run on the fact that more and more Americans were becoming reliant on government programs. The economy was still struggling with the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis being a very slow recovery. Average income for Americans was lower, businesses weren't hiring, mostly because they weren't sure how the health care changes would impact their costs, and inflation was a major problem as the government was spending a lot more than it brought in and was printing money to cover the deficit. Printing money leads to increases in prices. President Obama wanted to deal with the illegal immigration issue. He was more in favor of giving illegals a pathway to citizenship rather than securing the border.

In 2014, President Obama suffered a setback. Many Americans were growing dissatisfied with the health care law. Those who were now getting health care free or at very low cost loved the law, but more Americans were seeing the negatives rather than the positives as premiums, co-pays, and/or deductibles were rising for the majority of Americans. The economy was not improving either. The unemployment rate seemed to be dropping, but this is because many have given up looking for work or had to take a part time job. This led to the Republican Party holding onto the House and gaining the Senate. This happened to Bill Clinton in 1994, which led Clinton to eventually developing a working relationship with Congress and positive legislation being passed. However, after 2014 President Obama and the Republican Congress didn't work well together, but rather butted heads on all major legislation. The Republican Congress passed the Keystone Pipeline in 2015, which President Obama vetoed.

Emerging as a major problem in 2015 was ISIS, the Islamic terror group that took over part of Syria and then parts of Iraq in 2014. Having removed all U.S. forces out of Iraq (against the advice of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta as well as the major generals in Iraq) the U.S. didn't have any force there to ensure that a terror group like ISIS didn't rise to power. President Obama claimed he was unable to get a standard of forces agreement with the Iraqis, which had some truth, but the president's opponents claimed that the Iraqis wouldn't have stopped us from keeping a base there. By 2015, the Iranians were helping the Iraqis fight ISIS in Iraq. Neither situation would be ideal - ISIS controlling Iraq or Iran. Iran was a problem itself as it's nuclear weapons program was still underway. President Obama looking to develop an agreement with the Iranians to deter their producing a nuclear weapon, but very few in the world believed that the Iranians would honor any agreement.

**Making America Great Again****:**
With 2016 an election year and President Obama unable to seek another terms, Republicans and Democrats would work to build their standing. The American economy was still struggling with many having given up looking for work. America was becoming much more polarized politically. There was less blending of Republican-Democrat principles and more polarizing rhetoric from the leaders in each party. The Democrat Party was leaning much more secular (favoring abortion, homosexual marriage, and leniency on drug use) and higher taxes with continuing the high spending. The Republicans were much more traditional favoring Judeo-Christian values (life of the unborn, family structure that's best for children, and keeping intoxicating drugs illegal) and lower taxes and less government-reliance through massive spending programs.

Secular-Progressivism was a growing problem (to traditional Americans) but progress (to secularists) in the U.S. Homosexual marriage was being pushed by secular-progressives. Secular-progressives aim to breakdown the Judeo-Christian foundation that built and grew America and replace it with an ever growing secular society with immoral behavior (viewed by traditional Americans as immoral) being much more acceptable. This growing trend began in the late 1960s and was becoming more prevalent in the 2010s. There would also be a major push for the legalization of marijuana. Medical marijuana was already acceptable in many states and in 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to completely legalize marijuana. This was something acceptable in a secular society, but the social impacts would be extremely negative as almost immediately Colorado and Washington would be dealing with an increase of the negative effects of intoxication. Children were seeing this as acceptable. Research shows that use of marijuana has a negative effect on the brain specifically on work ethic and motivation. Secular-progressives used the courts to target Christian icons and symbols around the nation. A bi-product of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) movement was whether or not Christian business/organizations/schools/churches could be forced by the government into support or if the free exercise of religion in the 1st amendment to the Constitution would win out. Furthermore, debates began taking place in the states over whether or not restrooms should be just for men and women in public or schools or if transgenders were discriminated against if, for example, a male that identifies as a female should be allowed to use the women's restroom. Christians recognized and maintain that a nation that turns away from God's principles will not have God's blessing (history even points to this as having merit; //The Harbinger// by Johnathan Cahn is an example of a source that proves this). This got into politics as well with the Democrat Party leaning with the secular-progressives and Republican Party looking to maintain the founding Judeo-Christian principles. Secular-Progressivism is a complete departure from the America set up by the Founding Fathers, which shows the overall change in America from our founding to the present. Some say this is why America will continue to have problems, while others say it's all a good thing.

Racial tensions were growing as blacks were protesting saying that police target blacks and that there is white privilege in the nation. Average salary for blacks is lowest among all races and unemployment is highest for blacks. Those who claim the nation is still racist and the deck is stacked against blacks point to white privilege as the reason and that the government must come in and solve the problem. This is the progressive point of view. However, statistics show other possible reasons for blacks being down economically. The high school drop out rate is highest among blacks. In the 21st century, education is necessary in order to get a good job. Furthermore, nearly 73% of African-American babies are born out of wedlock to single mothers in the inner city. This drives poverty and burdens the welfare system. Those who point to these statistics say it's a matter of personal responsibility and the government cannot fix it and it's not white privilege. Black Lives Matter was a protest group that formed that claimed the justice system is racist and targets blacks and especially that police target blacks over every other racial group?

State budgets were struggling with health care and pension costs. Due to rising premiums (many claim due to Obamacare others claim costs were increasing anyways), states were struggling. In the area of pensions (retirement plans for state workers and teachers), many states underfunded or borrowed from the pension fund to pay for other state programs. This would cause a strain on state budgets and new state governments left to figure out what to do.

The Election of 2016 was similar to the 2012 election in which the direction of the nation was going to be at stake. Would America want to continue becoming more secular and more progressive in terms of more government-reliance or would Americans look to reverse course and move back towards the traditional values that built and grew the nation from our founding and for smaller government promoting more self-reliance and entrepreneurship. The issues included illegal immigration, the war on terror especially with ISIS, the economy, race and gender issues, social issues including issues regarding the LGBT movement. An additional component that is not typically an election issue is that going into the 2016 election, there was an open Supreme Court seat. The Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. There are nine justices. The make up of the court had been 4 conservatives, 4 liberals, and 1 justice that was in the middle that often swayed the court to more liberal or more conservative decisions. The most conservative justice, Antonin Scalia, died, which left the open seat. President Obama appointed a liberal, but the Republican Senate would not approve of this appointee. The Senate opted to wait for the outcome of the 2016 election. Why does this matter? If a committed liberal is put on the court, then liberals will have 5 seats and would control all cases that come to the Supreme Court and America would likely keep moving further to the left and more secular over traditional, small government values.

The Democrat Party nominated Hillary Clinton, who was running on continuing the Obama agenda of Secular-Progressive policies. The Democrat Party had taken a much more far left liberal approach since Bill Clinton's president as President Obama moved the party further left. Socialists were gaining momentum as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders gave Clinton a good run in the primaries, so much that Clinton (known for being a moderate on many liberal issues) had to move herself further left to attract the more socialistic members of her party. The Republican nominee was real estate mogul Donald Trump, who ran as a complete outsider claiming that he would take on the D.C. establishment. He ran with the slogan "make America great again" with the idea that the economic booming times that once existed could come back under his more conservative approach. It was a contentious campaign as the division in America between those who are liberal and those who are conservative was completely evident in the campaign and the debates. Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, cut taxes for all, bring the debt down, bring jobs back to the U.S., secure the border, and defeat ISIS with a more aggressive military campaign against the terrorists. Donald Trump won, which was unexpected even on election night. In the end, his victory was largely due to winning areas in states as well as the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all states that Obama had won and were expected to go Clinton. These areas had one major thing in common - loss of manufacturing jobs over the decades becoming known as the Rust Belt. They saw Trump as the one who would best be able to bring back the manufacturing jobs. In order for him to get re-elected in 2020, he would have to deliver. The Republicans also held onto the House and Senate, so for the near future, there would be a conservative president and Congress.

In Trump's first year, he began efforts to secure the border, deport criminal illegal immigrants, build up the military, reform the tax code, and appointed Neil Gorsuch, a conservative, to the Supreme Court. Against the wishes of liberals, he was fulfilling his campaign promises. Still, the division among Americans was intense especially in more liberal cities and on college campuses (where safe spaces and coloring books were made available for college students unable to "cope" with the Trump victory) where there would be protests against Trump's position on illegal immigration among other issues. Trump got much tougher on the border with more border protection and going after criminal illegal immigrants. In foreign policy, he looked to be more aggressive than appeasing toward villains in the world. For example, Syria's dictator Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. Trump dropped a missile on the facilities where those missiles were launched from sending the message to Assad that the use of these tactics on civilians would not be tolerated in the world. This matters because if rogue dictators can go unchecked in the use of chemical weapons then there will be more using them. Trump aimed to stop North Korea's escalation of a nuclear program and threatening the free world. He looked to get China to put pressure on North Korea to stop pursuing weapons for evil means. North Korea is an oppressive communist nation in which the dictator there cares about one thing - power. At home, in addition to border security, Trump looked to repeal and replace Obama's health care law as well as reform the tax code. In 2017 a major tax reform bill was passed which reduced all income tax bracket rates, raised the standard deduction (meaning the amount in which you begin to pay taxes went up, so all Americans didn't start paying taxes till they made more money), and other tax credit perks. Also, the business tax was the highest in the world at 35% and was reduced to 21% among the lowest in the world. Immediately, economic benefits were seen as many big companies began building in the U.S., wages began to increase, and companies began to give large bonuses. Furthermore, eliminating the individual mandate on health care (forcing people to purchase health care) and drilling for oil in Alaska began.

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