Introduction

Professor Michael Foley offers an exceptional historiography in his monograph Front Porch Politics: The Heyday of American Activism in the 1970s and 1980s (2013).  Into this work, Foley has woven the concept of ‘front porch’ politics, described as elevating the role of experience in political operators, in which “reason informed action and Americans worked, really worked, at politics." Foley pins the 1970’s-80’s as seminal decades in the unraveling of American civic virtues, wherein ‘front porch’ politics was supplanted by “politics as spectatorship, itself facilitated by the advances in technology."  Through the lens of Foley’s modern examination of the political-historical events of these decades, it becomes clear that the American body politic became disillusioned by the federal government during this time.  Additionally, some observations on the causes and consequences of the growing distrust can be made, such as manufacturer offshoring and homelessness.

Argument

For example, deindustrialization in the Northern U.S. caused dislocation and community deterioration. Also, homelessness became a pressing national issue, the AIDS epidemic unfolded, and abortion rose on the national stage as a moral issue. Watergate, the publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, and scandalous, domestic spying by the CIA on everyday Americans had sown the seeds of disillusionment. 

By the early 1980’s, a change in political orientation, to positions that included well-defined, rigid viewpoints, caused Americans to favor deregulation and “to all but sanction corporate malfeasance,” to see taxation as a “fundamental threat to individual thriving,” and to gloss over inequalities, “distinguishing themselves from those who suffer injuries brought on by the capriciousness of the market."  Finally, culture wars such as those that flared over gay rights and abortion are issues that struck at people’s conception of family and tradition, issues that feature in American political life today.

Another feature of the 1980’s that exacerbated tension in America was the presidency of Ronald Reagen, specifically his administrations indifference to people who suffered during the AIDS, an issue that had threatening echoes of an attack on families and traditional values.  Foley explains that “the Reagan administration’s apparent unwillingness to address AIDS or to even dare speak its name in public fueled denial and an impulse to keep such unpleasantness out of public view” (280). Instead, people who had been affected, leaning on Civil Rights-era tactics for mobilization, formed formidable groups agitating for lower cost medicine or improved care for AIDS patients such as ACTUP.  It was ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) that got the CDC to acknowledge that “AIDS manifested itself in women in incidents of cervical cancer, tuberculosis, and a low T-cell count that had previously been left out of the agency’s definition."  It was ACT UP, after a protest, during which they hung President Reagan in effigy, that prompted the FDA to “[issue] new regulations for a speeded-up drug evaluation process…” to help mitigate the epidemic. And it was ACT UP who, through civil disobedience, forced Burroughs Wellcome, the maker of azidothymidine (AZT) to lower the price of the drug, making it accessible to more patients.  The federal government, under Reagan, espoused conservative orthodoxy and blamed the patients, instead.  “From the start, ACT UP had made President Reagan the poster boy for silence and indifference in the AIDS crisis…" Foley recounts that “Reagan himself dismissed concerns over growing numbers of homeless in America, because, he said, people living on America’s streets did so ‘you might say, by their own choice’."

Conclusion

As Foley’s examination makes clear, there was a more robust civic life in America in the 1970’s and 1980’s than today. In the past, front porch politics caused more Americans to be engaged and to act on political issues and represented a “quest for solutions” that is missing in politics today.  He notes that “the rise of a new (mostly cultural) politics…eclipsed the front porch model. As think tanks and lobbying groups such as those dedicated to lowering taxes or promoting Christian values gained influence and learned to frame their positions in front porch language." These new politics had consequences for Americans, including lessons for success for future activists.  For example, Foley writes that “activists working on AIDS and homelessness brought the intimate, personal approach to politics typical of the front porch perspective into the streets and living rooms of mainstream America,” confirming the commitment to social and cultural welfare that is a bedrock principle of these United States.

References

Bell, Karen Cook. American Political Activism, 1970s-1980s. Eastern Washington University. 2022.

Foley, Michael Stewart. Front Porch Politics: The Heyday of American Activism in the 1970s and 1980s. 2013.