Printed Page 788 Chapter Chronology
Liberal Reform in the Nixon Administration
Why and how did Republican president Richard Nixon expand the liberal reforms of previous administrations?
Opposition to civil rights measures, Great Society reforms, and protest groups — along with frustrations over the war in Vietnam (as discussed in chapter 29) — delivered the White House to Republican Richard M. Nixon in 1968. Nixon attacked the Great Society for "pouring billions of dollars into programs that have failed" and promised to represent the "forgotten Americans, the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators." Yet his administration either promoted or accepted important elements of the liberal reform agenda, ranging from greater federal assistance to the poor to environmental reforms.