Imagine sitting in your car for I don't know,
like three hours. Oh, wow. Just a line of cars
wrapping entirely around the block. And you are
just white knuckling the steering wheel, you
know, praying the gas station doesn't run out
of fuel before you finally reach the pump. Right.
Which was a very real fear. Exactly. Oh, and
while you're sitting there sweating in your car,
the president of the United States just went
on national television to resign because he was
caught in a massive criminal coverup. I mean,
it is a phenomenal mental image. It really is.
And it captures the exact a psychological state
of the country at the time. You have the highest
office in the land just crumbling on the evening
news. And you can't even get enough cheap gas
to drive away from your problems. Welcome to
today's deep dive. We are looking at a massive
stack of historical timelines today, specifically
zooming in on the United States from 1970 to
1989. It's quite a stretch. It really is. The
mission here is to connect the dots between the,
well, the political chaos and economic anxiety
of the early 70s, and then the explosive neon
-soaked cultural and technological shifts of
the 80s. Right, because they're deeply connected.
Totally. We want to show you how these two roller
coaster decades didn't just happen in a vacuum.
They actually poured the concrete for the exact
political, technological, and social realities
you are navigating today. So, okay, let's unpack
this. Let's do it. The 1970s started off like
a national hangover. You have a nation coming
out of the turbulent 1960s desperately hoping
for some stability, but instead they just run
head first into a series of institutional earthquakes.
Yeah, the foundational trust in leadership was
completely fractured, and it really started with
these massive revelations of betrayal just happening
back to back. Like the Pentagon Papers, right?
Exactly. In 1971, you have the Supreme Court
ruling on the Pentagon Papers. Officially, that
was... New York Times, Cofi, United States. And
this allowed the press to publish classified
documents that basically proved the government
had been actively deceiving the public about
the Vietnam War for decades. Which is just a
staggering blow to public trust. Oh, absolutely.
And then just a year later in 1972, five men
are arrested for breaking into the Democratic
National Committee headquarters at the Watergate
complex. And I mean, it wasn't just a low level
burglary. It escalated into the Senate hearings
in 1973, where we get this absolute bombshell
moment. Fred Thompson discovers the existence
of President Nixon's secret audio tapes, which
completely changed the trajectory of American
politics because, you know, it wasn't just a
rumor. of a political misdeed anymore. Right.
You could literally hear it. Exactly. It was
documented, audible proof of a cover up orchestrated
at the highest level of government. I mean, you
had the president firing two attorneys general
in the same year just to keep those tapes hidden.
Yeah. The Saturday Night Massacre. Yep. And it
all culminated on August 9th, 1974 with Nixon
resigning. He becomes the first and only U .S.
president to step down. And then Gerald Ford
takes over and almost immediately he issues a
full pardon to Nixon. claiming it's in the best
interest of the country. Wait, Ford pardoned
him before there was even a trial? He did, yeah.
How did the public not absolutely riot over that?
Like, did anyone actually buy the excuse that
this was about healing the country? Did Ford's
pardon actually heal the country? Or did it just
permanently cement the public's cynicism? What's
fascinating here is that historically the pardon
operated on two completely different levels.
Okay, how so? Well, for the immediate mechanical
functioning of the government, it stopped the
bleeding. It avoided a paralyzing years -long
criminal trial of a former president that would
have basically halted all other legislative work.
So practically it made sense. Practically, yes,
but psychologically for the American citizen,
it was devastating. It sent a loud, clear message
that the people at the very top operate by a
completely different set of rules than the rest
of us. Man, and you have to layer that profound
political disillusionment over what was happening
to the average person's wallet at the time. Oh,
the economics were brutal. Yeah, the economic
hits were relentless. It really started with
something called the Nixon shock in 1971. Nixon
ended the U .S. gold standard. Yeah, and we have
to look at the mechanics of why that actually
matters. Prior to 1971, the U .S. dollar was
tied to physical gold. Like actual bars of gold?
Literally. Foreign governments could literally
exchange their dollars for American gold. But
the U .S. was spending so much money on the Vietnam
War on domestic programs that foreign nations
started getting nervous. They wanted their gold
back. Exactly. And that was draining U .S. reserves.
So by severing the dollar from gold, the government
could suddenly print as much money as it needed.
There's a catch. A huge catch. When you flood
the economic system with dollars, the value of
every individual dollar drops. Suddenly your
paycheck buys half as much at the grocery store.
It created this atmosphere of deep economic uncertainty
and just rampant inflation. And then you combine
that inflation with the Arab oil embargo in 1973
and 1974, gas prices absolutely skyrocket. It's
a huge shock to the system. Supplies are so short.
that the government literally forces daylight
saving time to start in January just to save
energy. Right, the emergency daylight saving.
Yeah. And they drop the national speed limit
to 55 miles per hour. And that economic anxiety
just compounded as the decade went on. In 1975,
the Vietnam War officially ends with the fall
of Saigon, which was a deeply sobering moment
regarding American military limits. Definitely.
Then, in 1979, the Iran hostage crisis triggers
a second massive energy crisis. Oil prices— triple.
Gas goes over one dollar a gallon for the first
time in American history. Which is wild to think
about now. I know, right? But it was a huge deal
then. It's a decade defined by limits. Limits
on executive power, limits on purchasing power,
limits on fuel, limits on American influence
abroad. I want you, listening right now, to think
about your own modern day skepticism toward the
news, toward politicians, toward large institutions.
That baseline cynicism you feel. This is exactly
the era where it was born. The 1970s built that
reflex. But here's where it gets really interesting.
Because the public sphere was so chaotic and
disappointing, Americans did something fascinating.
They retreated. They went inward. Yeah, they
retreated to their living rooms and their garages.
And it just so happens that those garages were
suddenly churning out revolutionary personalized
technology. If we connect this to the bigger
picture, the birth of the personal computer makes
perfect psychological sense. Really? How so?
Well, when the macro world feels entirely out
of your control, you know, when the government
is lying, when the global supply chain can't
get you gasoline, when the economy is stagnant,
you crave a micro world that you can completely
control. I know that makes so much sense. Right.
The personal computer wasn't just a gadget. It
was a psychological safe haven. It was the democratization
of computing power. The timing is wild. I mean,
in 1975, Bill Gates founds Microsoft. In 1976,
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne found
Apple. Yeah, right in the middle of all this
economic mess. Exactly. And by 1977, the Commodore
PET is released for retail sale as a home computer.
We are moving away from giant room -sized mainframes
owned by the military or mega corporations to
a machine that literally sits right on your desk.
You are taking the power back into your own hands.
And we see this mirrored perfectly in the entertainment
of the era, too. Oh, for sure. Prior to this,
home entertainment was a deeply collective, tightly
controlled experience. You had a few broadcast
networks, and everyone watched whatever they
decided to air at the exact time they decided
to air it. You could just pause live TV. No,
not at all. But the late 70s and 80s completely
shattered that model. In 1975, Sony introduces
the Betamax. suddenly you can record television
and watch it on your own schedule. Time shifting
is born. Then you get the Atari 2600 hitting
the market in 1977. Yes, a huge game changer.
Literally, you're not just passively watching
this screen anymore. You're interacting with
it. You are controlling the pixels on your television
set. And that completely paves the way for the
Nintendo Entertainment System to drop in 1985
and completely revitalize the entire concept
of home gaming. The underlying mechanism here
is decentralization. The individual is gaining
unprecedented agency over their media diet. It's
the absolute genesis of the on -demand culture.
We no longer had to conform to a monolithic American
culture. Right. Media became incredibly specialized.
If you wanted an alternative to commercial networks,
PBS was gaining traction. We get Casey Cosum's
American Top 40 in 1970. A classic. Shows that
pushed boundaries like All in the Family in 1971,
and then SNL and Wheel of Fortune in 1975. You
get the miniseries Roots and the cultural phenomenon
of Star Wars in 1977. And music was shifting,
too. You have Sugarhill Gang's rapper's delight
dropping in 1979. Yes. And if you wanted 24 hours
of music videos, MTV launched in 1981. If you
wanted to code, you had a PC. And it all kind
of culminates in animation, with The Simpsons
debuting on the new Fox network in 1989. The
infrastructure of the modern, hyper -personalized
digital world was being laid down right in the
middle of this societal retreat. Look at the
smartphone in your pocket, or the streaming apps
on your TV today. The demand for those on -demand
personalized digital experiences started right
here. It really did. But as much as people tried
to retreat into their personalized bubbles, the
outside world kept finding a way to break in.
Because alongside this highly specialized media,
we also saw the rise of the 24 -7 national news
network. Which changed everything. Yeah. And
that meant when something big happened, the entire
nation was watching it happen together in real
time. This represents a massive shift in how
society processed information. For the first
time in history, you weren't just reading about
a tragedy in the morning paper. You were watching
it unfold live in your living room. the mediation
of trauma fundamentally changed. The emotional
whiplash of this era is staggering. You have
massive landmark legal shifts, like in 1973 we
see the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling overturning
state laws against abortion. But you also have
this relentless stream of televised disasters.
You have the first Earth Day in 1970, which is
positive, but then by 1979 the nation is terrified
by the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. A
huge moment of panic. Then in 1980, Mount St.
Helens erupts. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez dumps
almost 11 million gallons of oil into Alaskan
waters. Just devastating environmental disasters
visible right on your TV. And nothing exemplifies
this live broadcast trauma more than 1986, when
the space shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds
after liftoff. Such a tragic day. All seven people
aboard are killed, including Christa McAuliffe,
who's going to be the first teacher in space.
Classrooms full of children across the country
were watching it live. Yeah, the collective trauma
of that is hard to overstate. Or the 1989 Loma
Prieta earthquake in San Francisco, which happened
right in the middle of Game 3 of the World Series,
caught live on television by ABC. With all these
disasters being beamed directly into our homes
in real time, did this new media landscape actually
make the world more dangerous? Or did it just
feel that way because we could finally see it
all? This raises an important question about
the mechanics of mass media. Statistically, the
world was not inherently more dangerous than
it had been in previous decades. Right. Disasters
always happen. Exactly. But the proximity to
the danger collapsed. It was a double -edged
sword. On one hand, bringing these visual horrors
directly into the home induced a pervasive sense
of vulnerability. It made the world feel incredibly
fragile. I can imagine. But on the other hand,
that exact same real -time visibility catalyzed
unprecedented national and global awareness campaigns.
The visibility sparked massive coordinated action.
Because you can't ignore what you're seeing with
your own eyes every single night. Precisely.
In 1978, the assassination of Harvey Milk in
San Francisco sent shockwaves through the country
regarding gay rights because the aftermath was
highly televised. In the early 80s, the tragic
cases of missing children like Adam Walsh and
Johnny Gosh raised massive awareness about child
safety. This is when we start seeing faces on
milk cartons. The crack cocaine epidemic hitting
Los Angeles in 1984 became a major national conversation
because of intense visual media focus. translate
into global humanitarian efforts as well. Like
Live Aid, right? Yes. The horrific famine in
Ethiopia was televised, which directly led to
the Live Aid concerts and the We Are the World
recording in 1985. That same year, the death
of actor Rock Hudson from AIDS -related complications
brought a devastating disease out of the shadows
and forced a public reckoning with the epidemic.
It's wild. The exact same screens that brought
us the trauma also organized the relief. When
you see global movements going viral on social
media today, raising millions of dollars in hours.
You were looking at the direct descendants of
those 1980s televised awareness campaigns. They
absolutely figured out the blueprint back then.
And this combination like a highly visible media
landscape paired with a public that was deeply
yearning for some kind of national stability
after the cynical exhaustion of the 70s. It set
the perfect stage for the 1980s as a political
era. Yes, it became a decade defined by the attempt
to project strength both economically and militarily.
Enter the race. Reagan era. Ronald Reagan becomes
president in 1981, and the tone shifts dramatically.
Instantly. Almost immediately, he survives an
assassination attempt by John Hinckley Jr. Then
in August of that same year, he fires over 11
,000 striking air traffic controllers. Which
was a massive deal. Yeah, it was a very clear,
very public drawing of a line in the sand. It
was a conscious rejection of the perceived weakness
and limits of the 1970s. The Reagan administration
focused heavily on deregulation and changing
the tax structure. A prime example is the Kemp
-Roth tax cut. Right. Trickle down economics.
Exactly. The mechanism behind this was the birth
of supply side economics. The theory was that
if you drastically slash tax rates, particularly
for top earners and corporations, they will use
that extra capital to expand their businesses
and hire more workers. resulting wealth will
eventually trickle down to everyone else. But
the reality of implementing these massive shifts
was incredibly volatile, wasn't it? The early
80s were hit with a brutal global recession.
We're talking inflation hitting up to 13 .5 %
and unemployment reaching 9%. Really tough times
for a lot of folks. And even as the economy recovered
later in the decade, the swings were terrifying.
In 1987, you have Black Monday, where the Dow
Jones Industrial Average plummets 22 .6 % in
a single day. The largest one -day percentage
drop in history. Yeah. And politically, you also
had major controversies like the Iran -Contra
affair in 1986. Right, so it wasn't all just
smooth sailing. No, the economics were turbulent,
yes, but they were deeply tied to a much broader
geopolitical strategy. The administration was
fighting a multi -front ideological battle. Domestically
and internationally. Exactly. Domestically, you
had the declaration of the war on drugs moving
into the Bush administration in 1989. Internationally,
you had the climax of the Cold War. Everything
was about projecting an impenetrable image. And
the Cold War posturing was everywhere, even in
sports. The U .S. boycotts the 1980 Summer Olympics
in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
And then the Eastern Bloc turns around and boycotts
the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. It even
spills over into actual military strategy in
1983 when the U .S. creates the Strategic Defense
Initiative, literally nicknamed Star Wars. Yes,
to create a space -based shield to block nuclear
missile attacks. Which sounds like sci -fi. So
what does this all mean? How did all this aggressive
posturing actually end the Cold War? Like it
seems like a game of poker where everyone keeps
raising the bets. Well, we have to look at the
Cold War in the 1980s, not just as a military
standoff, but as a financial war of attrition.
OK. It wasn't really a poker game. It was more
like two marathon runners sprinting up a steep
mountain. The US had a massive booming capitalist
economy serving as an oxygen tank. The Soviet
command economy, on the other hand, was stagnating.
They were running out of air. Exactly. They were
running out of air. By initiating massive defense
projects like the Star Wars program, the US forced
the Soviets to try and match that spending. The
U .S. just kept sprinting, pouring billions into
defense until the Soviet economic system simply
started to collapse from exhaustion. So the posturing
created the leverage. Precisely. And we see that
diplomacy happen in real time. In 1987, Reagan
goes to Berlin and challenges Soviet Premier
Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall. An
iconic moment. Later that year, they signed the
Intermediate -Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. which
was a massive step in actually reducing nuclear
stockpiles rather than just capping them. A huge
diplomatic victory. And by 1989, as George H
.O .U. Bush takes office, both leaders are actively
signaling that the Cold War is ending. And the
ultimate symbol of that, the Berlin Wall literally
falling in Germany. The thawing of the Cold War
fundamentally reorganized the global order, the
open global supply chains, the international
trade agreements, the entire framework of international
relations that you rely on today. All of that
is a direct product of this specific diplomatic
thaw at the close of the 1980s. It is an incredible
journey. I mean, we started with the deep cynicism
and energy rationing of Watergate and the 70s
oil crisis. Those long gas lines. We watched
Americans retreat into their garages to invent
the personal computer, changing how we interact.
with technology forever. We saw the nation bound
together by the shared traumas of the space shuttle
Challenger and the AIDS epidemic mediated through
24 hour cable news. We covered a lot of ground.
We really did. And we ended with the dramatic
high stakes financial marathon that thawed the
Cold War. It was an era of profound transformation.
But you know, I want to leave you with one final
very strange footnote from this timeline. Oh.
It is something that captures the tension of
this entire transition perfectly. In November
of 1987, a man wearing a rubber mask of the television
character Max Edrum somehow hijacked the broadcast
signals of two major stations in Chicago WGN
and WTTW. Wait, he just took over the signal
like interrupted live TV. Completely overrode
it. And the mystery remains entirely unsolved
to this day. There are people on Reddit who claim
they know who did it, but officially it is the
most notorious unsolved broadcast interruption
in history. That is so creepy. It is. But think
about what that represents. In an era where we
were eagerly buying personal computers, hooking
up our Taurus, and embracing this brand new interconnected
digital landscape. This bizarre hack was a massive
red flag. Yeah, I see what you mean. It hinted
at a much darker future of digital anonymity,
cybersecurity threats, and network vulnerability.
It leaves you to wonder. When we eagerly plugged
our homes into the digital age during the 80s,
trying to build a safe foundation away from the
chaos of the public sphere, what other invisible
vulnerabilities did we invite inside? Wow. You
patch the cracks in the walls, but you leave
the back door wide open to the network. Exactly.
That is a chilling thought to mull over the next
time you connect a new smart device to your home
Wi -Fi. Thank you so much for coming along in
this deep dive with us. We'll see you next time.