The Clinton Years, or the 1990s: Crash Course US History #45

The Clinton Years, or the 1990s: Crash Course US History #45

The Clinton Years, or the 1990s: Crash Course US History #45

In which John Green teaches you about the United States as it was in the 1990s. You’ll remember from last week that the old-school Republican George H.W. Bush had lost the 1992 presidential election to a young upstart Democrat from Arkansas named Bill Clinton. Clinton was a bit of a dark horse candidate, having survived a sex scandal during the election, but a third-party run by Ross Perot split the vote, and Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. John will teach you about Clinton’s foreign policy agenda, which included NATO action in the Balkans and the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. He’ll also cover some of the domestic successes and failures of the Clinton years, including the failed attempt at healthcare reform, the pretty terrible record on GLBTQ issues, Welfare reform, which got mixed reviews, and the happier issues like the huge improvements in the economy. Also computers. Cheap, effective, readily available computers came along in the 1990s, and they kind of changed the world, culminating in this video, which is the end of the internet. Until next week.

Hey teachers and students - Check out CommonLit’s free collection of reading passages and curriculum resources to learn more about the events of this episode. One of the largest criticisms against President Clinton’s presidency was his inaction during the genocide in Rwanda which he comments on in his Remarks on the Rwandan Genocide: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/presi…
First Lady Hillary Clinton had some foreign affairs success of her own when she delivered her 1995 speech to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women stating that women’s rights are human rights: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/first…

Chapters:
Introduction: The Clinton Years 00:00
Clinton’s Foreign Policy 0:40
Terrorism During the Clinton Era 1:51
Clinton’s Domestic Policy 2:12
Clinton’s Triangulation Strategy 3:20
Clinton’s Welfare Reforms 4:42
Economics During the Clinton Era 5:14
The E-Commerce Boom 6:27
Mystery Document 6:42
Globalization of Manufacturing, Technology, and Commerce 8:06
The Crash of 2000 8:58
Increasing Wealth Inequality 9:37
The Culture Wars 10:13
An Influx of Immigration 10:22
Diverse Family Structures 11:25
The AIDS Epidemic \u0026 LGBT Rights Movement 11:50
Imprisonment \u0026 the “War on Drugs” 12:08
Multiculturalism \u0026 Political Tensions 12:34
Clinton’s Infidelity \u0026 Impeachment 13:09
Clinton’s Legacy 14:19
Credits 15:00

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Content

0.13 -> Hi, I’m John Green, this is CrashCourse U.S. history, and today we have finally reached
4.88 -> the Clinton years.
5.99 -> Bill Clinton and I are really quite similar, actually.
8.38 -> We were both brought up in the South.
9.62 -> We both come from broken families … well, no, not actually.
12.75 -> Also, I did not attended any Ivy League University.
15.68 -> Yeah, I’m actually nothing like Bill Clinton.
17.3 -> Well, except for the southern thing, and also both of us are married to women who are smarter
20.67 -> than we are.
21.67 -> Mr. Green, Mr. Green?
22.67 -> But he was president.
23.67 -> Whatever, I’m still young Me From the Past!
25.689 -> Clinton wasn’t even governor of Arkansas until he was like (looks at computer)....oh,
36.79 -> crap, he was 32, I’m finished!
41.603 -> INTRO So Clinton’s presidency was focused on Domestic
42.85 -> Policy and a sex scandal – in fact his campaign war room famously featured a sign that read
47.69 -> “It’s the Economy, stupid.”
49.94 -> His domestic legacy is pretty complex, though, so we’re going to start with his foreign
53.11 -> policy.
54.11 -> The Clinton years didn’t feature as many major foreign policy successes as Bush 41,
57.87 -> but Clinton did have his moments.
59.46 -> Like his administration achieved a partial success with the 1993 Oslo Accords when Israel
64.22 -> recognized the legitimacy of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.
67.539 -> However, that eventually resulted in the PLO becoming progressively less powerful and as
71.71 -> you may have noticed, it didn’t ultimately achieve peace in the Middle East.
75.09 -> Clinton was more successful in Yugoslavia where he pushed NATO to actually do something
79.28 -> for once in this case bombing, sending troops, kinda something.
82.499 -> Now there had been widespread ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims before the NATO intervention
86.909 -> but the fighting ended with the Dayton Accords.
89.219 -> And then there’s the Rwandan genocide, which the Clinton administration did absolutely
93.719 -> nothing to prevent and where 800,000 people died in less than a month.
98.39 -> The Rwandan genocide is probably the international community's greatest failure in the 2nd half
102.509 -> of the 20th century and while certainly Clinton was among many people who were complicit to
107.35 -> that including like, me, yeah… you know... so far it’s not such a great foreign policy
111.7 -> record.
112.7 -> Terrorism also became a bigger issue during Clinton’s presidency.
115.259 -> The World Trade Center was bombed for the 1st time, the U.S.S.
118.35 -> Cole was attacked.
119.35 -> But the most destructive terrorist act during Clinton’s presidency was of course committed
122.689 -> by Americans - Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols who blew up the Murrah Federal building in
127.649 -> Oklahoma City.
128.649 -> Which brings us to an awkward transition from domestic terrorism to domestic policy.
132.75 -> So Bill Clinton was from Hope Arkansas and he ran as a centrist democrat who wanted to
137.19 -> do things differently.
138.75 -> He wasn’t going to be inside the Washington beltway.
141.21 -> And he wasn’t going to be some old-fashioned liberal who was all about raising taxes funneling
145.94 -> billions of dollars to Snuffleupagus.
147.88 -> That centrism made him very electable but his first few domestic agenda items faltered,
152.7 -> like he tried to end the ban on gay people entering in the military but opposition led
156.7 -> him to compromise with the famous Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
160.64 -> Essentially you were allowed to be homosexual, if you were in the military, you just weren’t
163.6 -> allowed to acknowledge it.
164.96 -> And then there was the 1993 Health Care initiative led by Clinton’s wife, Hillary, which was
170.17 -> also a failure.
171.17 -> By the 90’s the United States was the last industrialized nation not to have universal
175.23 -> health care and while Hillary Clinton’s plan would have resulted in Americans having
179.17 -> universal health care it was too complicated to sell to us.
182.8 -> Also, it faced very powerful opposition from like drug companies, and insurers, and medical
187.07 -> device makers… lots of people.
188.45 -> But at least it had a working website.
190.33 -> What’s that, Stan?
192.1 -> There was no web?
193.64 -> What did they use, like a mobile app or something?
197.46 -> There was no apps?
198.46 -> I thought we were in modern history!
200.67 -> So on the heels of these failed policy initiatives in 1994 Democrats were swept out of Congress
205.21 -> and Republicans took control of both the Senate and the House.
208.71 -> The new speaker of the House, whose real name was Newt Gingrich, and who would later run
212.2 -> for president despite being named Newt Gingrich issued something called the Contract with
217.93 -> America.
218.93 -> It promised to cut government, cut taxes, cut regulation, overhaul welfare and end affirmative
223.79 -> action -- and this led to a Government shutdown in 1995 over an inability to reach a budget
229.57 -> agreement between the Congress and the president.
232.22 -> Which in turn made all these new Congressional Republicans very unpopular with the American
236.37 -> people as a whole and played into Clinton’s political strategy of “triangulation.”
240.16 -> His strategy was to campaign against radical republicans while co-opting some of their
245.38 -> ideas.
246.38 -> The most obvious example was his declaration in January 1996 that “The era of big government
252.27 -> is over”.
253.27 -> Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.
254.72 -> There has been no president since WWII who decreased the size of the government.
258.28 -> And that will change when never because all of the things that actually cost the government
262.35 -> a lot of money like Social Security and Medicare are very popular and both of those programs
267.56 -> benefit old people who vote disproportionately because they have nothing to do since Murder
272.41 -> She Wrote was cancelled.
273.53 -> However, Clinton did actually shrink parts of the government with policies like the Telecommunications
279.2 -> Act of 1996, which deregulated broadcasting.
282.01 -> But Clinton’s signature economic policy was Welfare Reform – aka the Personal Responsibility
287.59 -> and Work Opportunity Act – of 1996.
290.77 -> This law replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, which had given
294.28 -> money directly to poor mothers.
296.17 -> But with Clinton’s welfare reform states received block grants that came with strings
300.06 -> attached including work requirements and time limits for total benefits.
304.78 -> Welfare rolls plummeted and many economists see this as the rare bipartisan victory in
309.16 -> the 1990’s but it’s still controversial and many liberal people felt like Bill Clinton
313.53 -> had betrayed them.
314.59 -> But Clinton still remained popular through much of his presidency largely because it
317.99 -> really is the economy stupid - and the economy got better.
321.65 -> In fact by the time Clinton left office unemployment was below 4% which hadn’t happened since
327.41 -> the 1960s.
328.41 -> That meant there should have been inflation but somehow there wasn’t, possibly because
330.99 -> of increased global competition that kept wages down and also energy prices that were
335.05 -> remarkably low as worldwide oil production increased.
338.55 -> Microchips made it possible to develop loads of new products, like personal computers and
342.96 -> DVD players, and video games, and cell phones, and Crash Course.
346.139 -> And computers completely transformed the American workplace.
349.06 -> I mean until the 90’s people would go to work, and they would sit in their offices
353.4 -> at their desks, and they would…
355.4 -> I don’t know what did because they didn’t have computers!
357.97 -> How did anything get done before computers, I mean how were books written, how was the
361.55 -> Godfather edited, how was this globe made, I mean did some individual’s human hand
366.95 -> sculpt it from clay?
368.35 -> So no wonder the economy got better we had stumbled on the biggest innovation since like
372.4 -> wheels.
373.4 -> And during the Clinton administration we didn’t just have computers we had computers that
376.79 -> began to connect to each other.
378.4 -> I’m referring of course to the Internet which might have remained like a military
381.68 -> communications network if computer scientists and entrepreneurs hadn’t worked out how
386.449 -> to use it to sell things.
387.48 -> This was the beginning of the e-commerce boom, which would be followed by an e-commerce bust,
391.59 -> but then another e-commerce boom, which would eventually give us websites where you can
395.51 -> buy Crash Course DVD’s, like DFTBA.com, and also lesser known e-commerce sites like
400.98 -> Ebay and Amazon.
401.98 -> Oh, it’s time for the mystery document?
404.74 -> The rules here are simple.
407.25 -> I read the mystery document, I either get the author correct, or I get shocked.
411.71 -> Okay here we go.
412.84 -> “The information highway will extend the electronic marketplace and make it the ultimate
417.169 -> go-between, the universal middleman.
420.05 -> Often the only humans involved in a transaction will be the actual buyer and the seller.
424.52 -> All the goods for sale in the world will be available for you to examine, compare, and
428.96 -> often customize.
430.58 -> When you want to buy something you’ll be able to tell your computer to find if for
433.49 -> you at the best price offered by any acceptable source or ask your computer to “haggle”
438.57 -> with the computers of various sellers.
440.919 -> Information about vendors and their products and services will be available to any computer
444.389 -> connected to the highway.
446.11 -> Servers distributed worldwide will accept bids, resolve offers into completed transactions,
451.49 -> control authentication and security, and handle all other aspects of the marketplace, including
456.12 -> the transfer of funds.
457.65 -> This will carry us into a new world of low-friction, low-overhead capitalism, in which market information
463.49 -> will be plentiful and transaction costs low.
466.68 -> It will be a shopper’s heaven.”
468.55 -> Stan, that sounds like something that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would say.
473.37 -> No?
474.37 -> Dangit, Bill Gates.
475.37 -> Let me tell you how much I enjoy this, none.
479.94 -> Oh, the information super highway it made all of this possible including my shock pen.
485.65 -> Ahhh!
486.65 -> Now one of the lessons of history is that good news for someone is almost always bad
490.93 -> news for someone else and that was certainly the case with the longest period of economic
495.139 -> expansion in American history.
497.02 -> Increased use of Information Technology facilitated the globalization of manufacturing and the
501.419 -> pressure to manufacture cheaply pushed wages down and encouraged companies to locate factories
506.79 -> in countries with lower environmental regulations and also lower wages.
510.47 -> That’s great for companies, it’s good for prices, arguably good for workers in the
514.14 -> developing world, not so great for the environment or for American workers.
518.57 -> The deregulation of finance also contributed to global growth.
522.55 -> Capital could flow more easily anywhere in the world but this also meant that it could
526.05 -> flow out easily, making financial crises more likely and more widespread.
531.36 -> The growth of free flowing capital in the 1990’s created a world in which the crash
535.88 -> of 2008 was more or less inevitable.
538.27 -> But before that we had the crash of 2000.
540.81 -> As money flowed into the stock market, bubbles developed.
543.38 -> And in some ways this was more problematic than it used to be because a much greater
546.86 -> percentage of Americans had become investors in stocks - an actual majority of them by
551.79 -> the year 2000.
552.98 -> And many of these investors were buying into these hot new dot-com stocks, in fact the
557.06 -> tech-heavy NASDAQ exchange soared in 1998 and 1999.
561.2 -> And then it lost 80% of its value in 2000 when the bubble burst.
565.24 -> It turns out that the Pets.com business model of selling you dog food at a loss is not a
570.19 -> sustainable business model.
571.55 -> Although to be fair Amazon has been selling stuff at a loss now for 20 years and they’re
575.13 -> still at it.
576.13 -> So… you know… maybe I’m wrong.
577.18 -> So during this period real wages grew but the gains were very unequal like when you
581.99 -> adjust for inflation, wages of nonsupervisory workers remained below what they were in the
587.51 -> 1970s.
588.51 -> And for the poor it was even worse.
590.37 -> Our old friend Eric Foner reports that “Average after-tax income of the poorest 1/5 of Americans
596.36 -> fell 12 percent, and that of the middle 1/5 decreased by 3 percent.”[1] Meanwhile, the
601.29 -> income of the top fifth increased 38%.
603.56 -> Now of course this trend towards inequality and the majority of jobs being created in
609.02 -> low wage, insecure, service industries would continue into the 21st century.
613.46 -> But the economic and political pictures that we’ve sought to paint only tell half of
616.74 -> the story of the 1990s, because it was also a decade characterized by what has been called
621.18 -> the Culture Wars.
622.36 -> A big part of this was immigration, which rose enormously after immigration reform in
626.81 -> 1965.
628 -> Between 1965 and 2000 the US saw almost 24 million immigrants arrive, compared with 27
634.51 -> million during the peak immigration period between 1880 and 1924.
637.99 -> Fully half of new immigrants came from Latin America and the Caribbean, 35% came from Asia,
643.43 -> only 10% came from Europe and most of them were from the former USSR and the Balkans.
648.29 -> As had always been the case, most immigrants were attracted by labor opportunities, but
651.751 -> now more were highly educated.
653.92 -> In fact, 40% had college educations.
656.46 -> Let’s go to the thoughtbubble.
658.02 -> Latinos were the largest immigrant group by far, with Mexicans making up the largest contingent
662.22 -> and by 2007 Latinos would replace African Americans as the second largest ethnic group.
667.45 -> Latinos suffered disproportionate poverty, and, despite significant economic gains during
671.56 -> the 1990s, African Americans still found their economic opportunities limited.
676.16 -> According to Eric Foner, “In 2007, the total assets of the median white family […] stood
680.55 -> at $87,000.
681.66 -> For black families, the figure was $5,400.”[2] Diversity also increased in other ways like
687.51 -> single parent families became more accepted which was essential as 50% of marriages ended
692.64 -> in divorce.
693.64 -> Out-of-wedlock births declined, primarily because teenagers were practicing safer sex.
698.07 -> And teens and adults were cohabiting before or instead of marriage.
703.43 -> Eventually the Mom, Dad, and 2.4 kids standard American household became only one of a number
708.5 -> of accepted options for families.
710.59 -> Gay and trans people became increasingly visible in the national consciousness as a result
714.5 -> of the GLBT rights movement and it becoming safer for people to come out of the closet.
719.06 -> On the other hand, the AIDS epidemic, which disproportionately affected the GLBT community
723.661 -> was disastrous.
724.899 -> By 2000 400,000 Americans had died of AIDS.
728.66 -> Then there’s the depressing rise in imprisonment.
731.36 -> Politicians competed with each other to see who could be tougher on crime and as the War
735.34 -> on Drugs continued, many state legislatures passed “three strikes” laws meaning that
739.779 -> people who were convicted of three felonies would go to prison for life.
743.089 -> The number of Americans in prison skyrocketed.
745.5 -> By 2008 it was 2.3 million, ONE QUARTER of the total number of inmates on planet Earth.
753.54 -> Thanks, thoughtbubble.
754.54 -> Although I have to say I thought this was going to be a happy one, I mean the economy
758.31 -> is growing, things are getting better for people in the GLBTQ community, and then boom,
763.39 -> boom, boom, it’s all terrible!
764.87 -> I don’t want to underplay the many benefits of our increased prosperity and diversity
768.87 -> but all of this multiculturalism and change made for a very tense political atmosphere.
773.49 -> To some people it seemed like the open free-wheeling liberalism of the 60’s had run amuck, and
778.75 -> those people really started to hate the Clintons.
781.72 -> But among Bill Clinton’s many flaws: facelessness, cigar smoking, his biggest was his inability
787.09 -> to stop cheating on his wife.
789.06 -> Clinton had dodged accusations of extramarital skoodilypooping while running for the presidential
793.31 -> nomination which contributed to his unfortunate “Slick Willie” moniker.
797.08 -> But while he was president, Clinton’s former employee Paula Jones sued him for sexual harassment
801.74 -> that had occurred, allegedly occurred, I guess it probably occurred, allegedly occurred while
806.62 -> he was governor of Arkansas.
808.05 -> While gathering evidence for that lawsuit, investigators discovered that the president
811.74 -> had carried on a sexual relationship with a young intern named Monica Lewinsky.
816.37 -> The President denied having “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky which was a lie unless
822.14 -> you are President Bill Clinton and have a very narrow definition of “sexual relations.”
827.99 -> That lie to a justice department official was the basis for articles of impeachment
831.54 -> for perjury and obstruction of justice.
833.79 -> And so it was that the president of the United States was impeached for saying that he didn’t
838.24 -> have sex with a woman that he did have sex with, unless of course you define sex very
842.31 -> narrowly, and it all depends on what your definition of is is, and etc.
846.67 -> In early 1999, Clinton was acquitted of these charges in a congressional vote that went
850.82 -> right down party lines and he served out the remainder of his term but he was significantly
855.41 -> weakened.
856.41 -> Also, he served out the remainder of his presidency sleeping on the couch.
859.06 -> So the 90s were a really pivotal decade to the world we live in right now, a globalized,
864.76 -> multicultural, instagram-filtered world But as we became more globally connected political
869.329 -> divisions grew within the United States.
871.48 -> And this became especially problematic because with the growth of the Internet it was easier
875.34 -> than ever to only hear voices that you already know you agree with.
879.66 -> To live inside of an echo chamber where your news doesn’t necessarily resemble your neighbor’s
884.82 -> news.
885.82 -> In some ways Bill Clinton directed these changes but in most ways they directed him.
890.41 -> But that’s what I find so fascinating about history, even the fancy people who get their
893.93 -> heads on the chalkboard, even they are subject to historical forces.
898.649 -> Thanks for watching.
899.649 -> I’ll see you next week.
901.24 -> Crash Course is made with all the help of these nice people and it’s possible because
904.84 -> of your support through Subbable.com, a voluntary subscription service that allows you to pay
910.17 -> monthly for Crash Course whatever you want so that we can keep it free for everyone forever.
915.089 -> You’ll find lots of cool perks at Subbable like a chance to sponsor videos, and signed
918.54 -> posters and stuff, so please check it out.
920.26 -> You can click here on my face or there is a link in the video info below.
923.92 -> Thank you so much for watching Crash Course, thanks for making it possible, and as we say
927.3 -> in my hometown, “Don’t forget to be awesome.”
929.44 -> ________________ [1] Foner.
930.44 -> Give me Liberty ebook version p. 1141 [2] Foner, Give me Liberty.
931.44 -> Ebook version p. 1150.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rboN6F2g-k