Talk:History of the United States (1991–present)

Ron Paul

Under the "Democratic Congress" section towards the end we have this passage: "With Democratic candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Republican Candidates such as Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul coming under the spotlight." I mean, despite the fact that he's gained a huge following online the media has generally ignored Ron Paul. Should mention be made of that discrepancy or should the preceding paragraph itself be edited in such a way to seperate television and print media from internet forums, bloggers and alternative media? I would take the initiative myself, but I'm REALLY bad at writing entries especially for poltics & current events topics. Quixoto 20:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no way he is significant enough to warrant more than a sentence. Also, saying he "pulled ahead" after Giunliani and Thompson dropped out? Yeah right. Puppet125 (talk) 22:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Election biases

I just finished editing the section on the 2008 election season, and it sure was evident where Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton partisans had each made their opinions known, skewing information left and right. Can we refrain from injecting our personal biases into what should be an encylopedia-format fount of information? Talk about unprofessional...claiming a "large" support base for Ron Paul, who (unfortunately IMO) didn't even break above single digits in practically every Super Tuesday contest? Claiming Hillary Clinton won Texas when Wikipedia actually notes (correctly) elsewhere that Obama won the largest delegate total from the primary and caucus there? Let's try for some intellectual honesty here. Kudzu1 (talk) 08:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

change without justification

US history articles are not mechanically divided up by decade; they are based on important dates. The years 1990 and 1999 have no particular significance to US history and this change must be reverted. Hmains (talk) 05:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hurricanes, school shootings, and the 2008 Election

First of all, I think mention needs to be made of the 2004 Hurricane season (Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne) which was worse than 2008 as well as 1992's Hurricane Andrew which had serious implications for the country and was the worst at the time. Also, why just hurricanes? What about the Northridge earthquake, the 1999 Oklahoma City tornado, the 1993 Superstorm, the 1996 Northeast blizzard, and the 2008 Super Tuesday outbreak?

Also, school shootings seem to have been a phenomonea during this time period, particularly Columbine, Virginia Tech, and NIU. Should mention be made?

Also, why is the 2008 election section so big, while little is mentioned of any other election, including the hotly-contested 2000 election? Will this bloated section be whittled away over time as the Obama administration develops? Abog (talk) 04:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I've rewritten the "2008 election" section to merge it with "The Obama administration" section, which is more like the other two administration sections (about one paragraph of election, followed by a few paragraphs of administration). It looks like it was just the result of snowballing recentism. We do have a detailed article on the 2008 presidential election so Wikipedia's not losing information here, and most of the details I cut here were unreferenced, pre-nomination events.

Your other points I'll add to a {{todo}} list at the top of the talk page. —Mrwojo (talk) 01:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, it seems weird to have nothing between the Gulf War in 1991 and 9/11 in 2001. It almost seems like the terrorists did nothing until 2001. There were plenty of major international conflicts and terror attacks that preceded 9/11 during the Clinton years that need to be mentioned to give historical context: WTC 1993, Africa Embassy bombings in 1998, USS Cole in 99 2000, and the Israel/Palestine conflicts of the 1990s. Also, I think the U.S. involvement in Albania, Somalia, Kosovo, and so forth needs to be mentioned as well. Abog (talk) 05:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Obama is white

Obama is half-white. so saying he's the first "non-white" president is false —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.39.149.133 (talk) 01:47, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've fixed this. Be bold! You can fix obvious errors like this. —Mrwojo (talk) 02:54, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Oil prices / oil independence

Perhaps there should be more mention of oil price fluctuations as well as the push towards alternative energy? The following paragraph was in History of the United States but didn't really fit in the summary there:

By 2006, rising prices saw Americans become increasingly conscious of the nation's dependence on supplies of petroleum for energy, with President Bush admitting a U.S. "addiction" to oil. The possibility of serious economic disruption, should conflict overseas or declining production interrupt the flow, could not be ignored, given the instability in the Middle East and other oil-producing regions of the world. Many proposals and pilot projects for replacement energy sources, from ethanol to wind power and solar power, received more capital funding in the first decade of the 21st century than in previous decades.^{[citation needed]}

—Mrwojo (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I'm working on it now. Rjensen (talk) 18:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —Mrwojo (talk) 22:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Article structure

The structure of this article by event type is confusing or frustrating in certain places. Information is frequently repeated, typically because conflicts, economy, and disasters have been important aspects of politics and vice versa. A few events have disjointed cause and effect, such as the 2006 elections which were affected by conflicts and disasters. The earlier sections sometimes assume the reader already knows about events that are discussed later in the article, especially politics. The disasters section is overwhelming and largely reads like a timeline of headlines.

I suggest the article be rearranged into a slightly more chronological order (but within context). Much of this can be achieved by rearranging paragraphs and altering/condensing headings, however much of the text in the disasters section lacks relevance. —Mrwojo (talk) 19:39, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm very conflicted on the structure of the article. I agree that things are often repeated in both the conflicts and the politics section, and that is kind of unnecessary.

I looked at your sandbox for this article though, and while it looks good from a distance, once you start reading, it really throws me off. Like, at one point, we'll be in the mid 1990s talking about the Republican Revolution, and then in the next section jump back to 1992 to talk about Somalia which started under G.H.W. Bush. It's very confusing. And then it goes to a section on violence which includes events all the way up until 2008 and then goes back to talking about the 2000 election.

Also, there are some events that just aren't political at all, but still worthy of mention. Like the disasters. The Space Shuttle Columbia wasn't really all that political, but it was an important event nonetheless. But does it fall under a heading like "War on Terror"? And does an event like the Minnesota Bridge Disaster fall under a heading like "Return of the Democrats"? And while it may have not been as political as Katrina, the flood of 1993 was a devastating blow to America's agricultural economy. And Hurricane Andrew was the cosliest natural disaster for 13 years until Katrina hit and impacted G.H.W. Bush's image on domestic issues. I think the problem is there are a variety of major events going on in America that all overlap in many ways. Wars are being waged, while domestic calamities are happening, while political changes are happening, while domestic legislation is being passed. And you can't just select one of the themes of that era as a heading and lump all those different things under it, especially when some of the things like wars overlap many eras.

Sorry, I'm not trying to pick apart what you're doing. I guess I'm just thinking out loud. Obviously something needs to be done and I'm glad you're at least trying to come up with something better. I'll also try to do some brainstorming and maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something that addresses all concerns. Abog (talk) 05:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The work I had done in my sandbox is incomplete--a simple cut & paste of text based loosely on theme and chronology--that I had set aside to work on the main History of the United States article. I don't think all disasters should be removed, just the ones that didn't have some significant, nationwide impact. Andrew, Katrina, Columbia, and others mention such importance; many others do not and seem more appropriate in the timeline or years in U.S. articles. —Mrwojo (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Oops, sorry about that misunderstanding. I guess the big ones to remove are probably the airline disasters, although the TWA and EgyptAir flight may be worthy of mention because of the possibility of foul play in both incidents. I'm having a hard time coming up with natural disasters to remove because they all had significant wide-reaching impacts one way or another. Abog (talk) 21:27, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Culture section?

I know the article is already kind of long and things are repeated in some spots, but I was wondering if maybe we should include a section on the "culture wars" that dominated the political and social landscape of the 1990s and 2000s. The 1964-1980 article has a section on counterculture, so maybe a "culture wars" section would be appropriate for this article. In this section, we could include such issues as LGBT issues, gun politics, abortion, immigration, race relations, political correctness, religion, stem cell research, and other such issues that dominated the scene, describe key figures (Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly), describe key bills (Partial Birth Abortion Act, Brady Bill, Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act), and key cases (Matthew Shepard, Terry Schiavo, possibly move the LA riots and school shootings to this section, etc.) Just a thought...let me know what you think. Abog (talk) 07:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a good plan and I agree with moving the LA riots/school shootings to that section. —Mrwojo (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Libya

Something should be mentioned about the United State's involvement in Libya. 198.137.20.76 (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

New Time Period

Interesting analysis to consider: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-withdrawal-from-iraq-marks-the-end-of-american-supremacy/2011/12/12/gIQAStpTyO_story.html

It may be time to end this time period of U.S. history and begin a new section. This time period is getting quite long as it were, and will soon encompass events that probably belong in separate sections. The era was defined both by events during its first ten years (1991-2001) and by those in the second ten years (2001-2011), many of them interconnected. The ending of the Iraq War in 2011 represents a conclusion of an ongoing event that in many ways transcended the whole twenty-year period, as the Gulf War began in 1991. Also, this year's death of Osama bin Laden, the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and the beginning of the end of the Afghanistan War, all lend further credence to the view that the post-9/11 era is coming to a close. Continued economic uncertainty only confirms that the economic growth of the 1990s and 2000s is not returning in its former form anytime soon, if ever. This reality has been embodied further by the stark shift in focus over the last year by many national governments towards enacting austerity measures as well as economic reforms. Lastly, the start of a new cultural generation at the beginning of the decade brings currency to the thought that a new era is now taking shape. It is difficult for present historians to make such a determination, given the fear of being incorrect, but it seems a notable body of evidence suggests that such a change is in order.

-Joachimus (talk) 09:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)