12.3The 1990s: a new center

In the 1990s Democrat Bill Clinton adapted his party to the post-Reagan landscape, embracing free trade, welfare reform, and fiscal discipline while defending core social programs—a "New Democrat" approach that accepted parts of the conservative turn. The decade saw strong economic growth, budget surpluses, and the dawn of the internet age.

Yet partisanship intensified. Clinton faced fierce opposition from a resurgent conservative Congress under Newt Gingrich and was impeached by the House in 1998, though acquitted by the Senate. The era's prosperity coexisted with deepening cultural and political divisions. Beneath the calm surface of the "end of history," the forces of polarization that would define the next era were already gathering strength.