Modern liberalism in the United States
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Modern liberalism in the United States |
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Liberalism |
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Modern liberalism in the
In the first half of the 20th century, both major American parties shared influential
Overview
The modern liberal philosophy strongly endorses public spending on programs such as
In 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt defined a liberal party in the following terms:
The liberal party believes that, as new conditions and problems arise beyond the power of men and women to meet as individuals, it becomes the duty of the Government itself to find new remedies with which to meet them. The liberal party insists that the Government has the definite duty to use all its power and resources to meet new social problems with new social controls—to ensure to the average person the right to his own economic and political
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.[28]
In 1960, John F. Kennedy defined a liberal as follows:
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label, "Liberal"? If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But, if by a "Liberal," they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties—someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say that I'm a "Liberal."[29][30]
American versus European usage of liberalism
Today, liberalism is used differently in different countries. One of the greatest contrasts is between the usage in the United States and usage in Europe. According to
In the United States, the general term liberalism almost always refers to modern liberalism. In Europe, modern liberalism is closer to European social democracy, although the original form is advocated by some liberal parties in Europe as well as with the Beveridge Group faction within the Liberal Democrats, the Danish Social Liberal Party, the Democratic Movement and the Italian Republican Party.
Demographics of American liberals
A 2005
A 2015
Geography
The Northeast, Great Lakes region, parts of the Southwest, and the West Coast are the main liberal strongholds; the fraction of Massachusetts self-identified conservatives being as low as 21%.[48][49] Voters in the urban cores of large metropolitan areas tend to be more liberal and Democratic. There is a clear urban–rural political divide within and among states.[50]
21st century modern liberalism
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21st century modern liberalism in the United States advocates for government intervention on social issues. This includes a recognized, legal access to
On economic issues, modern liberals in the 21st century like their 20th century counterparts have called for greater regulation and oversight on businesses.[57] As income inequality grows in the United States, modern liberals tend to support tax increases on the wealthy.[58] Starting during the Obama administration, modern liberals have supported a system of universal healthcare for the United States and have made healthcare a major election issue.[59]
History
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Liberalism in the United States |
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Historian and advocate of liberalism
In 1956, Schlesinger said that liberalism in the United States includes both a
Some make the distinction between American classical liberalism and the new liberalism, better known as modern liberalism.[62]
Progressive Era
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Progressivism |
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The
In 1900–1920, liberals called themselves progressives. They rallied behind Republicans led by Theodore Roosevelt and Robert M. La Follette as well as Democrats led by William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson to fight corruption, waste and big trusts (monopolies). They stressed ideals of social justice and the use of government to solve social and economic problems. Settlement workers such as Jane Addams were leaders of the liberal tradition.[68] There was a tension between sympathy with labor unions and the goal to apply scientific expertise by disinterested experts. When liberals became anti-Communist in the 1940s, they purged leftists from the liberal movement.[69]
Political writer Herbert Croly helped to define the new liberalism through The New Republic magazine and numerous influential books. Croly presented the case for a planned economy, increased spending on education and the creation of a society based on the "brotherhood of mankind". His highly influential 1909 book The Promise of American Life proposed to raise the general standard of living by means of economic planning. Croly opposed aggressive unionization. In The Techniques of Democracy (1915), he also argued against both dogmatic individualism and dogmatic socialism.[70]
The historian Vernon Louis Parrington in 1928 won the Pulitzer Prize for Main Currents in American Thought. It was a highly influential intellectual history of America from the colonial era to the early 20th century. It was well written and passionate about the value of Jeffersonian democracy and helped identify and honor liberal heroes and their ideas and causes.[71] In 1930, Parrington argued: "For upwards of half a century creative political thinking in America was largely western agrarian, and from this source came those democratic ideas that were to provide the staple of a later liberalism".[72] In 1945, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. argued in The Age of Jackson that liberalism also emerged from Jacksonian democracy and the labor radicalism of the Eastern cities, thereby linking it to the urban dimension of Roosevelt's New Deal.[73]
Liberal and moderate Republicans
With its emphasis on a strong federal government over claims of
The Republican Party's liberal element in the early 20th century was typified by
While the media often called them
New Deal
President
As the "new" liberalism crystallized into its dominant form by 1935, both houses of Congress continued to provide large voting majorities for public policies that were generally dubbed "liberal". Conservatives constituted a distinct congressional minority from 1933 to 1937 and appeared threatened with oblivion for a time.[87]
Conservative strength in Congress was diminished following the 1936 midterm elections. In the Senate there were now 28 conservatives, at least 8 to 10 less than at the end of the 1935 session. A similar situation existed in the House, with one study noting that "Roughly 30 Democrats who had already openly criticized many aspects of the New Deal returned. Together with some 80 conservative Republicans, they formed a conservative voting bloc of roughly 110, again slightly less than in 1935."[88]
As noted by one source, a liberal Congress existed for much of Roosevelt's presidency:
We recognize that the best liberal legislature in American history was enacted following the election of President Roosevelt and a liberal Congress in 1932. After the mid-term congressional election setbacks in 1938, labor was faced with a hostile congress until 1946. Only the presidential veto prevented the enactment of reactionary anti-labor laws.[89]
As noted by a 1950 journal,
Look back to the 1930’s and you can see how winning in mid-terms years affects the kind of laws that are passed. A tremendous liberal majority was swept in with Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. In the 1934 mid-term races that liberal majority was increased. After 1936 it went even higher.[90]
The Great Depression seemed over in 1936, but a relapse in 1937–1938 produced continued long-term unemployment. Full employment was reached with the total mobilization of the United States economic, social and military resources in World War II. At that point, the main relief programs such as the WPA and the CCC were ended. Arthur Herman argues that Roosevelt restored prosperity after 1940 by cooperating closely with big business,[91] although when asked "Do you think the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward business is delaying business recovery?", the American people in 1939 responded "yes" by a margin of more than 2-to-1.[92]
The New Deal programs to relieve the Great Depression are generally regarded as a mixed success in ending unemployment. At the time, many New Deal programs, especially the CCC, were popular. Liberals hailed them for improving the life of the common citizen and for providing jobs for the unemployed, legal protection for labor unionists, modern utilities for rural America, living wages for the working poor and price stability for the family farmer. Economic progress for minorities, however, was hindered by discrimination, an issue often avoided by Roosevelt's administration.[93]
Relief, recovery and reform
The New Deal consisted of three types of programs designed to produce relief, recovery and reform:[94]
- Relief was the immediate effort to help the one-third of the population that was hardest hit by the depression. Roosevelt expanded unemployment insurance programs were added. Separate programs such as the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administrationwere set up for relief in rural America.
- Recovery was the goal of restoring the economy to pre-Depression levels. It involved greater spending of government funds in an effort to stimulate the economy, including deficit spending, dropping the gold standard and efforts to increase farm prices and foreign trade by lowering tariffs. Many programs were funded through a Hoover program of loans and loan guarantees, overseen by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).
- Reform was based on the assumption that the depression was caused by the inherent instability of the market and that government intervention was necessary to rationalize and stabilize the economy and to balance the interests of farmers, businesses and labor. Reform measures included the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as the Wagner Act, dealing with labor-management relations. Despite urgings by some New Dealers, there was no major antitrust program. Roosevelt opposed socialism in the sense of state ownership of the means of production and only one major program, namely the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), involved government ownership of the means of production (that is power plants and electrical grids). The conservatives feared the New Deal meant socialism and Roosevelt noted privately in 1934 that the "old line press harps increasingly on state socialism and demands the return to the good old days".[95]
Race
The New Deal was racially segregated as blacks and whites rarely worked alongside each other in New Deal programs. The largest relief program by far was the WPA which operated segregated units as did its youth affiliate the NYA.[96] Blacks were hired by the WPA as supervisors in the North. Of 10,000 WPA supervisors in the South, only 11 were black.[97] In the first few weeks of operation, CCC camps in the North were integrated. By July 1935, all the camps in the United States were segregated and blacks were strictly limited in the supervisory roles they were assigned.[98] Kinker and Smith argue that "even the most prominent racial liberals in the New Deal did not dare to criticize Jim Crow".[99] Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes was one of the Roosevelt administration's most prominent supporters of blacks and was former president of the Chicago chapter of the NAACP. When Senator Josiah Bailey, Democrat of North Carolina, accused him in 1937 of trying to break down segregation laws, Ickes wrote him to deny it:
I think it is up to the states to work out their social problems if possible, and while I have always been interested in seeing that the Negro has a square deal, I have never dissipated my strength against the particular stone wall of segregation. I believe that wall will crumble when the Negro has brought himself to a high educational and economic status. ... Moreover, while there are no segregation laws in the North, there is segregation in fact and we might as well recognize this.[100][101]
The New Deal's record came under attack by New Left historians in the 1960s for its pusillanimity in not attacking capitalism more vigorously, nor helping blacks achieve equality. The critics emphasize the absence of a philosophy of reform to explain the failure of New Dealers to attack fundamental social problems. They demonstrate the New Deal's commitment to save capitalism and its refusal to strip away private property. They detect a remoteness from the people and indifference to participatory democracy and call instead for more emphasis on conflict and exploitation.[102][103]
Foreign policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt
In international affairs, Roosevelt's presidency until 1938 reflected the isolationism that dominated practically all of American politics at the time. After 1938, he moved toward interventionism as the world hurtled toward war.
Liberalism during the Cold War
American liberalism of the
Most prominent and constant among the positions of Cold War liberalism were the following:[106]
- Support for a domestic economy built on a balance of power between labor (in the form of organized unions) and management (with a tendency to be more interested in large corporations than in small business).
- A foreign policy focused on containing the Soviet Union and its allies.
- The continuation and expansion of New Deal social welfare programs (in the broad sense of welfare, including programs such as Social Security).
- An embrace of Keynesian economics. By way of compromise with political groupings to their right, this often became in practice military Keynesianism.[107]
In some ways, this resembled what in other countries was referred to as social democracy.[108] However, American liberals never widely endorsed nationalization of industry like European social democrats, instead favoring regulation for public benefit.
In the 1950s and 1960s, both major American political parties included liberal and conservative factions. The
In domestic policy during the Fifth Party System (1932–1966), liberals seldom had full control of government, but conservatives never had full control in that period either. According to Jonathan Bernstein, neither liberals nor Democrats controlled the House of Representatives very often from 1939 through 1957, although a 1958 landslide gave liberals real majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time in twenty years. However, Rules Committee reforms and others were carried out following this landslide as liberals saw that House procedures "still prevented them from using that majority". The conservative coalition was also important (if not dominant) from 1967 through 1974, although Congress had a liberal Democratic majority from 1985 to 1994. As also noted by Bernstein, "there have only been a handful of years (Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term, 1961–1966, Jimmy Carter's presidency, and the first two years of Clinton's and Barack Obama's presidencies) when there were clear, working liberal majorities in the House, the Senate and the White House".[113]
A number of progressive laws were also approved during the course of the Fifth Party System.[114][115][116][117][118][119] Later, during the Reagan-Bush years, congressional majorities voted in favor of a number of liberal measures,[120] while a number of progressive labor measures were also introduced on a State level, concerning such matters as sexual harassment,[121] safeguards from employer retaliation against an employee reporting a violation of law or participating in an enforcement proceeding,[122] equal pay,[123]the right of employees to receive information on toxic substances,[124] minimum wage rates,[125][126][127] parental leave,[128][129]discrimination,[130][131] meal periods,[132] and occupational safety and health.[133]
Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal
Until he became president, liberals generally did not see Harry S. Truman as one of their own, viewing him as a Democratic Party hack. However, liberal politicians and liberal organizations such as the unions and Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) supported Truman's liberal Fair Deal proposals to continue and expand the New Deal. Alonzo Hamby argues that the Fair Deal reflected the vital center approach to liberalism which rejected totalitarianism, was suspicious of excessive concentrations of government power, and honored the New Deal as an effort to achieve a progressive capitalist system. Solidly based upon the New Deal tradition in its advocacy of wide-ranging social legislation, the Fair Deal differed enough to claim a separate identity. The depression did not return after the war and the Fair Deal faced prosperity and an optimistic future. The Fair Dealers thought in terms of abundance rather than depression scarcity. Economist Leon Keyserling argued that the liberal task was to spread the benefits of abundance throughout society by stimulating economic growth. Agriculture Secretary Charles F. Brannan wanted to unleash the benefits of agricultural abundance and to encourage the development of an urban-rural Democratic coalition. However, the "Brannan Plan" was defeated by his unrealistic confidence in the possibility of uniting urban labor and farm owners who distrusted rural insurgency. The conservative coalition of Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats in Congress effectively blocked the Fair Deal and nearly all liberal legislation from the late 1930s to 1960.[134] The Korean War made military spending the nation's priority.[135] Under Truman, the number of Federal grant programmes more than doubled to 71.[136]
In the 1960s, Stanford University historian Barton Bernstein repudiated Truman for failing to carry forward the New Deal agenda and for excessive anti-Communism at home.[137]
1950s
Combating conservatism was not high on the liberal agenda, for the liberal ideology was so intellectually dominant by 1950 that the literary critic Lionel Trilling could note that "liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition ... . [T]here are no conservative or reactionary ideas in circulation".[138]
Most historians see liberalism in the doldrums in the 1950s, with the old spark of New Deal dreams overshadowed by the glitzy complacency and conservatism of the Eisenhower years. Adlai Stevenson II lost in two landslides and presented few new liberal proposals apart from a suggestion for a worldwide ban on nuclear tests. As Barry Karl noted, Stevenson "has suffered more at hands of the admirers he failed than he ever did from the enemies who defeated him".[139] Many liberals bemoan the willingness of Democratic leaders Lyndon B. Johnson and Sam Rayburn to collaborate in Congress with Eisenhower and the commitment of the AFL–CIO unions and most liberal spokesmen such as Senators Hubert Humphrey and Paul Douglas to anti-Communism at home and abroad. They decry the weak attention most liberals paid to the nascent civil rights movement.[140]
Liberal coalition
Politically, starting in the late 1940s there was a powerful labor–liberal coalition with strong grassroots support, energetic well-funded organizations and a cadre of supporters in Congress.
The main liberal organizations included the
Key liberal leaders in Congress included
Humphrey's liberal legacy is bolstered by his early leadership in civil rights and undermined by his long support of the Vietnam War. His biographer Arnold Offner says he was, "the most successful legislator in the nation’s history and a powerful voice for equal justice for all."[155] Offner states that Humphrey was:
A major force for nearly every important liberal policy initiative...putting civil rights on his party’s and the nation’s agenda [in 1948] for decades to come. As senator he proposed legislation to effect national health insurance, for aid to poor nations, immigration and income tax reform, a Job Corps, the Peace Corps, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the path breaking 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty...[He provided] masterful stewardship of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act through the Senate.[156]
Intellectuals
Intellectuals and writers were an important component of the coalition at this point.
Commager's biographer Neil Jumonville has argued that this style of influential public history has been lost in the 21st century because political correctness has rejected Commager's open marketplace of tough ideas. Jumonville says history now comprises abstruse deconstruction by experts, with statistics instead of stories and is now comprehensible only to the initiated while ethnocentrism rules in place of common identity.[165] Other experts have traced the relative decline of intellectuals to their concern race, ethnicity and gender[166] and scholarly antiquarianism.[167]
Great Society: 1964–1968
The climax of liberalism came in the mid-1960s with the success of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969) in securing congressional passage of his Great Society programs, including civil rights, the end of segregation, Medicare, extension of welfare, federal aid to education at all levels, subsidies for the arts and humanities, environmental activism and a series of programs designed to wipe out poverty.[168][169] Under Johnson's leadership, as noted by one study, “more than 200 new Federal programmes of grants to States, cities, counties, school districts, local communities and charities were authorized.”[170] According to historian Joseph Crespino:
It has become a staple of twentieth-century historiography that Cold War concerns were at the root of a number of progressive political accomplishments in the postwar period: a high progressive marginal tax rate that helped fund the arms race and contributed to broad income equality; bipartisan support for far-reaching civil rights legislation that transformed politics and society in the American South, which had long given the lie to America’s egalitarian ethos; bipartisan support for overturning an explicitly racist immigration system that had been in place since the 1920s; and free health care for the elderly and the poor, a partial fulfillment of one of the unaccomplished goals of the New Deal era. The list could go on.[171]
As recent historians have explained:
Gradually, liberal intellectuals crafted a new vision for achieving economic and social justice. The liberalism of the early 1960s contained no hint of radicalism, little disposition to revive new deal era crusades against concentrated economic power, and no intention to fan class passions or redistribute wealth or restructure existing institutions. Internationally it was strongly anti-Communist. It aimed to defend the free world, to encourage economic growth at home, and to ensure that the resulting plenty was fairly distributed. Their agenda-much influenced by Keynesian economic theory-envisioned massive public expenditure that would speed economic growth, thus providing the public resources to fund larger welfare, housing, health, and educational programs.[172]
Johnson was rewarded with an electoral landslide in 1964 against conservative Barry Goldwater which broke the decades-long control of Congress by the conservative coalition. However, the Republicans bounced back in 1966 and as the Democratic Party splintered five ways Republicans elected Richard Nixon in 1968. Faced with a generally liberal Democratic Congress during his presidency,[173] Nixon used his power over executive agencies to obstruct the authorization of programs that he was opposed to. As noted by one observer, Nixon "claimed the authority to 'impound,' or withhold, money Congress appropriated to support them".[173]
Nevertheless, Nixon largely continued the New Deal and Great Society programs he inherited.[174] Conservative reaction would come with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.[175] In addition, throughout the Sixties and Seventies Congresses dominated by the Democrats carried out a range of social initiatives. According to one study, "Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue between 1961 and 1969, and persisting Democratic majorities thereafter, did not so much extend the range of New Deal social programmes as take wholly new initiatives in urban, social, transportation, and educational policy which their successors have been obliged to defend politically and fiscally.”[176] Also, "Congresses dominated by Democrats (and often liberals) between 1964 and 1977 passed a panoply of environmental, health, safety, labour, product standards and civil rights laws and regulations.”[177]
Liberals and civil rights
Cold War liberalism emerged at a time when most
During the mid-1960s, relations between white liberals and the civil rights movement became increasingly strained as civil rights leaders accused liberal politicians of temporizing and procrastinating. Although President Kennedy sent federal troops to compel the
Liberals were latecomers to the movement for equal rights for women. Generally, they agreed with Eleanor Roosevelt on the issue of women and the perceived need for special protections, especially regarding hours of work, night work and physically heavy work.[180] The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) had first been proposed in the 1920s by Alice Paul and appealed primarily to middle-class career women. At the Democratic National Convention in 1960, a proposal to endorse the ERA was rejected after it met explicit opposition from liberal groups including labor unions, AFL–CIO, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), American Federation of Teachers, American Nurses Association, the Women's Division of the Methodist Church and the National Councils of Jewish, Catholic, and Negro Women.[181]
Neoconservatives
Some liberals moved to the right and became neoconservatives in the 1970s. Many were animated by foreign policy, taking a strong anti-Soviet and pro-Israel position as typified by Commentary, a Jewish magazine.[182] Many had been supporters of Senator Henry M. Jackson, a Democrat noted for his strong positions in favor of labor and against Communism. Many neoconservatives joined the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and attacked liberalism vocally in both the popular media and scholarly publications.[183] However, the rise of Trumpism from 2016 on shifted the Republican coalition away from consistent agreement with neoconservative foreign policy positions. Neoconservatives became a prominent force in the Never Trump movement, with some such as Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin reconciling with modern liberals and the realigning Democratic coalition.
Under attack from the New Left
Liberalism came under attack from both the New Left in the early 1960s and the right in the late 1960s. Kazin (1998) says: "The liberals who anxiously turned back the assault of the postwar Right were confronted in the 1960s by a very different adversary: a radical movement led, in the main, by their own children, the white "New Left".
The attack was not confined to the United States as the New Left was a worldwide movement with strength in parts of Western Europe as well as Japan. For example, massive demonstrations in France denounced American imperialism and its helpers in Western European governments.[189][190]
The main activity of the New Left became opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War as conducted by liberal President Lyndon B. Johnson. The anti-war movement escalated the rhetorical heat as violence broke out on both sides. The climax came in sustained protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Liberals fought back, with Zbigniew Brzezinski, chief foreign policy advisor of the 1968 Humphrey campaign, saying the New Left "threatened American liberalism" in a manner reminiscent of McCarthyism.[191] While the New Left considered Humphrey a war criminal, Nixon attacked him as the New Left's enabler—a man with "a personal attitude of indulgence and permissiveness toward the lawless".[192] Beinart concludes that "with the country divided against itself, contempt for Hubert Humphrey was the one thing on which left and right could agree".[193]
After 1968, the New Left lost strength and the more serious attacks on liberalism came from the right. Nevertheless, the liberal ideology lost its attractiveness. Liberal commentator E. J. Dionne contends: "If liberal ideology began to crumble intellectually in the 1960s it did so in part because the New Left represented a highly articulate and able wrecking crew".[194]
Liberals and the Vietnam War
While the civil rights movement isolated liberals from their erstwhile allies, the
In the 1960 presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy was liberal in domestic policy, but conservative on foreign policy, calling for a more aggressive stance against Communism than his opponent Richard Nixon.
Opposition to the war first emerged from the New Left and from black leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. By 1967, there was growing opposition from within liberal ranks, led in 1968 by Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy. After Democratic President Lyndon Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not run for re-election, Kennedy and McCarthy fought each other for the nomination, with Kennedy besting McCarthy in a series of Democratic primaries. The assassination of Kennedy removed him from the race and Vice President Hubert Humphrey emerged from the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention with the presidential nomination of a deeply divided party. Meanwhile, Alabama Governor George Wallace announced his third-party run and pulled in many working-class whites in the rural South and big-city North, most of whom had been staunch Democrats. Liberals led by the labor unions focused their attacks on Wallace while Nixon led a unified Republican Party to victory.
Richard Nixon
The
While the differences between Nixon and the liberals are obvious [according to whom?] – the liberal wing of his own party favored politicians such as Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton and Nixon placed an emphasis on law and order over civil liberties, with Nixon's Enemies List being composed largely of liberals—in some ways the continuity of many of Nixon's policies with those of the Kennedy–Johnson years is more remarkable than the differences.[further explanation needed] Pointing at this continuity, New Left leader Noam Chomsky (himself on Nixon's enemies list) has called Nixon "in many respects the last liberal president".[197]
The political dominance of the liberal consensus even into the Nixon years can best be seen in policies such as the successful establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency or his failed proposal to replace the welfare system with a guaranteed annual income by way of a
An opposing view offered by
Labor unions
Labor unions were central components of liberalism, operating through the
Environmentalism
A new unexpected political discourse emerged in the 1970s centered on the environment.
End of the liberal consensus
During the Nixon years and through the 1970s, the liberal consensus began to come apart and the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as president marked the election of the first non-Keynesian administration and the first application of supply-side economics. The alliance with white Southern Democrats had been lost in the Civil Rights era. While the steady enfranchisement of African Americans expanded the electorate to include many new voters sympathetic to liberal views, it was not quite enough to make up for the loss of some Southern Democrats. A tide of conservatism rose in response to perceived failures of liberal policies.[208] Organized labor, long a bulwark of the liberal consensus, was past the peak of its power in the United States and many unions had remained in favor of the Vietnam War even as liberal politicians increasingly turned against it.
In 1980, the leading liberal was Senator Ted Kennedy, who challenged incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party presidential nomination because Carter's failures had disenchanted liberals. Kennedy was decisively defeated, and in turn Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan.
Historians often use 1979–1980 to date a philosophical realignment within the American electorate away from Democratic liberalism and toward
Abrams (2006) argues that the eclipse of liberalism was caused by a grass-roots populist revolt, often with a fundamentalist and anti-modern theme, abetted by corporations eager to weaken labor unions and the regulatory regime of the New Deal. The success of liberalism in the first place, he argues, came from efforts of a liberal elite that had entrenched itself in key social, political and especially judicial positions. These elites, Abrams contends, imposed their brand of liberalism from within some of the least democratic and most insulated institutions, especially the universities, foundations, independent regulatory agencies and the Supreme Court. With only a weak popular base, liberalism was vulnerable to a populist counter-revolution by the nation's democratic or majoritarian forces.[212]
Bill Clinton administration and the Third Way
The term
In the United States, Third Way adherents embrace
After Tony Blair came to power in the United Kingdom, Clinton, Blair and other leading Third Way adherents organized conferences in 1997 to promote the Third Way philosophy at Chequers in England.[221][222] In 2004, several veteran Democrats founded a new think tank in Washington, D.C. called Third Way which bills itself as a "strategy center for progressives".[223] Along with the Third Way think tank, the Democratic Leadership Council are also adherents of Third Way politics.[224]
The Third Way has been heavily criticized by many
Specific definitions of Third Way policies may differ between Europe and the United States.[226]
Return of protest politics
Republican and staunch conservative
Bush's policies were deeply unpopular among American liberals, particularly his launching of the
When the financial system verged on total collapse during the
In part due to backlash against the Bush administration,
In reaction to ongoing financial crisis that began in 2008, protest politics continued into the Obama administration, most notably in the form of Occupy Wall Street.[241] The main issues are social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The Occupy Wall Street slogan "We are the 99%" addresses the growing income inequality and wealth distribution in the United States between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. Although some of these were cited by liberal activists and Democrats, this information did not fully become a center of national attention until it was used as one of the ideas behind the movement itself.[242] A survey by Fordham University Department of Political Science found the protester's political affiliations to be overwhelmingly left-leaning, with 25% Democrat, 2% Republican, 11% Socialist, 11% Green Party, 12% Other and 39% independent.[243] While the survey also found that 80% of the protestors self-identified as slightly to extremely liberal,[243] Occupy Wall Street and the broader Occupy movement has been variously classified as a "liberation from liberalism" and even as having principles that "arise from scholarship on anarchy".[241][244]
During a news conference on October 6, 2011, President Obama said: "I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel, that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country ... and yet you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place".[245][246]
Obama was
The
Criticism
Since the 1970s, there has been a concerted effort from both the left and right to color the word liberal with negative connotations. As those efforts succeeded more and more, progressives and their opponents took advantage of the negative meaning to great effect. In the 1988 presidential campaign, Republican George H. W. Bush joked about his opponent's refusal to own up to the "L-word label". When Michael Dukakis finally did declare himself a liberal, the Boston Globe headlined the story "Dukakis Uses L-Word".[249]
Conservative activists since the 1970s have employed liberal as an epithet, giving it an ominous or sinister connotation while invoking phrases like "free enterprise", "individual rights", "patriotic" and "the American way" to describe opponents of liberalism.
When George H. W. Bush employed the word liberal as a derogatory epithet during his 1988 presidential campaign,[253] he described himself as a patriot and described his liberal opponents as unpatriotic. Bush referred to liberalism as "the L-word" and sought to demonize opposing presidential candidate Michael Dukakis by labeling Dukakis "the liberal governor" and by pigeonholing him as part of what Bush called "the L-crowd". Bush recognized that motivating voters to fear Dukakis as a risky, non-mainstream candidate generated political support for his own campaign. Bush's campaign also used issues of prayer to arouse suspicions that Dukakis was less devout in his religious convictions. Bush's running mate, vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle, said to Christians at the 1988 Republican National Convention: "It's always good to be with people who are real Americans".[252] Bill Clinton avoided association with liberal as a political label during his 1992 presidential campaign against Bush by moving closer to the political center.[253]
Reactions to shift
Liberal Republicans have voiced disappointment over conservative attacks on liberalism. One example is former governor of Minnesota and founder of the Liberal Republican Club Elmer L. Andersen, who commented that it is "unfortunate today that 'liberal' is used as a derogatory term".[254] After the 1980s, fewer activists and politicians were willing to characterize themselves as liberals. Historian Kevin Boyle explains: "There was a time when liberalism was, in Arthur Schlesinger's words 'a fighting faith'. ... Over the last three decades, though, liberalism has become an object of ridicule, condemned for its misplaced idealism, vilified for its tendency to equivocate and compromise, and mocked for its embrace of political correctness. Now even the most ardent reformers run from the label, fearing the damage it will inflict".[255] Republican political consultant Arthur J. Finkelstein was recognized by Democratic political consultants for having employed a formula of branding someone as a liberal and engaging in name-calling by using the word liberal in negative television commercials as frequently as possible such as in a 1996 ad against Representative Jack Reed: "That's liberal. That's Jack Reed. That's wrong. Call liberal Jack Reed and tell him his record on welfare is just too liberal for you".[256]
Democratic candidates and political liberals have sometimes shied away from the word liberal, in some cases identifying instead with terms such as progressive or moderate.[257][258] George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney accused their opponents of liberal elitism, softness and pro-terrorism.[259] Conservative political commentators such as Rush Limbaugh consistently used the word "liberal" as a pejorative label. When liberals shifted to the word "progressive" to describe their beliefs, conservative radio host Glenn Beck used "progressive" as an abusive label.[260] Historian Godfrey Hodgson notes the following: "The word liberal itself has fallen into disrepute. Nothing is too bad for conservative bloggers and columnists—let alone radio hosts—to say about liberals. Democrats themselves run a mile from the 'L word' for fear of being seen as dangerously outside the mainstream. Conservative politicians and publicists, by dint of associating liberals with all manner of absurdity so that many sensible people hesitated to risk being tagged with the label of liberalism, succeeded in persuading the country that it was more conservative than it actually was".[261]
Labels vs. beliefs
In 2008, liberal historian
Philosophy
Free speech
American liberals describe themselves as open to change and receptive to new ideas.[262]
Liberals tend to oppose the Supreme Court's
Opposition to state socialism
In general, liberalism opposes socialism when it is understood to mean an alternative to
Role of the state
There is a fundamental split among liberals as to the role of the state. Historian H. W. Brands notes that "the growth of the state is, by perhaps the most common definition, the essence of modern American liberalism".[268] According to Paul Starr, "[l]iberal constitutions impose constraints on the power of any single public official or branch of government as well as the state as a whole".[269]
Morality
According to cognitive linguist George Lakoff, liberal philosophy is based on five basic categories of morality. The first, the promotion of fairness, is generally described as an emphasis on empathy as a desirable trait. With this social contract based on the Golden Rule comes the rationale for many liberal positions. The second category is assistance to those who cannot assist themselves. A nurturing, philanthropic spirit is one that is considered good in liberal philosophy. This leads to the third category, namely the desire to protect those who cannot defend themselves. The fourth category is the importance of fulfilling one's life, allowing a person to experience all that they can. The fifth and final category is the importance of caring for oneself since only thus can one act to help others.[270]
Historiography
Liberalism increasingly shaped American intellectual life in the 1930s and 1940s, thanks in large part to two major two-volume studies that were widely read by academics, advanced students, intellectuals and the general public, namely
Main Currents attempted to trace the history of liberalism in the American scene for citizens who were caught in a desperate predicament. It was an age in which American liberalism set the United States, through the New Deal, on a Democratic middle-of-the-road course between the contemporary extremisms of Europe, that of Communism on one hand, and of Fascism on the other. ... The style of Main Currents was powered by Parrington's dedication to the cause of humane liberalism, by his ultimate humanistic, democratic faith. He saw the democratic dreams of the romantic first half of the 19th century as the climax of an epic story toward which early Americans moved and from which later Americans fell away.[272]
Liberal readers immediately realized where they stood in the battle between Jeffersonian democracy and Hamiltonian privilege.[273] Neither the Beards nor Parrington paid any attention to slavery, race relations, or minorities. For example, the Beards "dismissed the agitations of the abolitionists as a small direct consequence because of their lack of appeal to the public".[274]
Princeton historian Eric F. Goldman helped define American liberalism for postwar generations of university students. The first edition of his most influential work appeared in 1952 with the publication of Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of Modern American Reform, covering reform efforts from the Grant years to the 1950s. For decades, it was a staple of the undergraduate curriculum in history, highly regarded for its style and its exposition of modern American liberalism. According to Priscilla Roberts:
Lively, well-written, and highly readable, it provided an overview of eight decades of reformers, complete with arresting vignettes of numerous individuals, and stressed the continuities among successful American reform movements. Writing at the height of the Cold War, he also argued that the fundamental liberal tradition of the United States was moderate, centrist, and incrementalist, and decidedly non-socialist and non-totalitarian. While broadly sympathetic to the cause of American reform, Goldman was far from uncritical toward his subjects, faulting progressives of World War I for their lukewarm reception of the League of Nations, American reformers of the 1920s for their emphasis on freedom of lifestyles rather than economic reform, and those of the 1930s for overly tolerant attitude toward Soviet Russia. His views of past American reformers encapsulated the conventional, liberal, centrist orthodoxy of the early 1950s, from its support for anti-communism and international activism abroad and New Deal-style big government at home, to its condemnation of McCarthyism.[275]
For the general public,
Thinkers and leaders
See also
- American Left
- Conservatism in the United States
- Economic interventionism
- List of American liberals
- Progressive talk radio
- Progressivism in the United States
- Social liberalism
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Obama resembles such Presidents as Nixon and Clinton in the following respect. They are what the political scientist Stephen Skowronek calls practitioners of Third Way politics (Tony Blair was another), who undermine the opposition by borrowing policies from it in an effort to seize the middle and with it to achieve political dominance. Think of Nixon's economic policies, which were a continuation of Johnson's "Great Society"; Clinton's welfare reform and support of capital punishment; and Obama's pragmatic centrism, reflected in his embrace, albeit very recent, of entitlements reform.
- ^ Sidney Blumenthal, The Clinton Wars, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003
- ^ "BBC News – EUROPE – 'Third Way' gets world hearing". bbc.co.uk.
- ^ "Third Way".
- ^ "DLC: About The Third Way". Ndol.org.
- ^ Smith, Ben (February 7, 2011). "Democratic Leadership Council will fold". Politico.
- ^ Bashan, P. (November 5, 2002). "Is the Third Way at a Dead End?". Cato Institute. Archived from the original on September 5, 2005. Retrieved July 7, 2007.
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- ^ George W. Bush, et al., Petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al., 531 U.S. 98 (2000). Retrieved February 12, 2010.
- ^ "Poll: Majority of Americans accept Bush as legitimate president". Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. December 13, 2000. Archived from the original on October 29, 2010. Retrieved April 27, 2011.
- ^ "2000 Official General Election Presidential Results". Federal Election Commission. December 2001. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
- ^ "Bush's job approval rating creeps up in AP-Ipsos poll". Taipei Times. March 10, 2007. Archived from the original on June 13, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
- ^ Kakutani, Michiko (July 6, 2007). "Unchecked and Unbalanced". The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
- ^ "President Bush—Overall Job Rating". Polling Report. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
- ^ "Bush admits Republicans took a "thumping" (Reuters)". November 8, 2006. Archived from the original on August 10, 2007.
- New York Times. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
- William F. Buckley, "Buckley: Bush Not a True Conservative", CBS News, July 22, 2006, Retrieved from cbsnews.com August 25, 2009.
- ^ Carl M. Cannon, Reagan's Disciple (PublicAffairs, 2008) p xii.
- ^ Michael Barone with Richard Cohen. Almanac of American Politics (2008). p. 538.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help) - ^ Jonathan Alter, The Promise: President Obama, Year One (2010)
- ^ Dick Morris, "The New Republican Right", The Hill October 19, 2010
- ^ a b "Intellectual Roots of Wall St. Protest Lie in Academe – Movement's principles arise from scholarship on anarchy". The Chronicle of Higher Education. October 16, 2011. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
- ^ "Income Inequality". The New York Times. March 22, 2012. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
- ^ a b Occupy Wall Street Survey Results October 2011 By Professor Costas Panagopoulos, Fordham University, October 2011
- ^ Graeber, David (May 7, 2012). "Occupy's liberation from liberalism: the real meaning of May Day". Guardian. London. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
- ^ Memoli, Michael A. (July 13, 2011). "Obama news conference: Obama: Occupy Wall Street protests show Americans' frustration". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
- ^ Salazar, Cristian (October 6, 2011). "Obama acknowledges Wall Street protests as a sign". BusinessWeek. Associated Press. Archived from the original on October 10, 2011. Retrieved October 7, 2011.
- ^ Niraj Chokshi (July 19, 2014). "New video purports to show aftermath of the chokehold that led to Eric Garner's death". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
- ^ Gibbons-Neff, Thomas (August 14, 2014). "Military veterans see deeply flawed police response in Ferguson". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 15, 2014. Retrieved August 24, 2014.
- ISBN 9781101544136.
- ISBN 978-0-313-39351-8.
- ^ a b Lukacs, John (2004). "The Triumph and Collapse of Liberalism". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved January 13, 2005.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7914-2960-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-56639-304-1.
- ISBN 978-0-87338-451-3.
- .
- ^ Karl, Jonathan (October 10, 1996). "Arthur Finkelstein: Out Of Sight But In Control". Cnn.com. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
- ^ von Hoffman, Nicholas (October 17, 2004). "Now Is Not the Time For National Unity!". New York Observer. Archived from the original on January 11, 2012. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
- ^ Reardon, Kathleen (September 16, 2005). "Should We Deep-Six the Term "Liberal" or Own Up to It?". The Huffington Post. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-670-01860-4.
- ^ Yeager, Leland B. (2011). "Reclaiming the Word "Liberal"". Liberty.
- ISBN 978-0-300-12570-2.
- ^ "Fact Finders" by Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, February 22, 2005
- ^ Adam Liptak, "Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit", New York Times, January 21, 2010
- ^ Paul Krugman, "The Ascent of E-Man R.I.P.: The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit", Fortune, May 24, 1999.
- ISBN 978-0-521-84090-3
- ^ "Review of The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman", The Independent, Apr 29, 2005.
- ISBN 9780748626021.
- ^ H. W. Brands, review, in Journal of American History March 2008, Vol. 94 Issue 4, p 1227
- ISBN 978-0-465-08187-5
- ^ George Lakeoff, Moral Politics, 2002
- ^ Clyde W. Barrow, More Than a Historian: The Political and Economic Thought of Charles A. Beard (2000).
- ^ Ralph H. Gabriel, "Vernon Lewis Parrington", in Marcus Cunliffe and Robin W. Winks, eds., Pastmasters: Some essays on American historians (1969), pp 157, 161–62
- ^ John Higham, Writing American History (1970) p. 134
- ^ Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (1968) pp 302, 460.
- ^ Priscilla M. Roberts, "Goldman, Eric " in Kelly Boyd, ed., Encyclopedia of historians and historical writing. Vol. 1 (1999) pp. 474–75.
- ^ John Patrick Diggins, ed., The Liberal Persuasion: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and the Challenge of the American Past (1997) excerpt
Further reading
- Abrams, Richard M. America Transformed: Sixty Years of Revolutionary Change, 1941–2001 (2006)
- Alterman, Eric, and Kevin Mattson. The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama (2012) biographical approach to general survey excerpt and text search
- Baer, Kenneth S., Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to Clinton (UP of Kansas, 2000) 361 pp
- Battista, Andrew. The Revival of Labor Liberalism (2008) 268 pp. ISBN 978-0-252-03232-5
- Bell, Jonathan and Timothy Stanley, eds. Making Sense of American Liberalism (2012) 272pp excerpt and text search, 10 historical essays by experts
- Boyle, Kevin. The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism 1945–1968 (1995) on the UAW(auto workers)
- Brands, H. W. The Strange Death of American Liberalism (2003); brief survey of all of American history.
- Conn, Steven, ed. To Promote the General Welfare: The Case for Big Government (Oxford University Press; 2012) 233 pages;
- Cooper, John MiltonThe Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (1983). online; a dual biography; covers liberal politics 1900–1920.
- Cronin, James, George Ross, and James Shoch, eds. What's Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times (Duke University Press; 2011); 413 pages; essays on how center-left political parties have fared in Europe and the U.S. since the 1970s.
- Diggins, John Patrick, ed. The Liberal Persuasion: Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and the Challenge of the American Past, Princeton University Press, 1997.
- Dionne, E. J. They Only Look Dead; Why Progressives will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996)
- Feingold, Henry L. American Jewish Political Culture and the Liberal Persuasion (Syracuse UP; 2014) 384 pages; traces the history, dominance, and motivations of liberalism in the American Jewish political culture, and look at concerns about Israel and memories of the Holocaust.
- Fink, Leon. Undoing the Liberal World Order: Progressive Ideals and Political Realities Since World War II (Columbia UP, 2022) online
- Gabler, Neal. Against the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Rise of Conservatism, 1976–2009 (2022) excerpt, major scholarly biography of a leading liberal; covers the Senate years in great detail.
- Hamby, Alonzo. Liberalism and Its Challengers: From F.D.R. to Bush (1992), by leading historian
- Hamby, Alonzo L. "The Vital Center, the Fair Deal, and the Quest for a Liberal Political Economy." American Historical Review (1972): 653–678. in JSTOR
- Hart, Gary. Restoration of the Republic: The Jeffersonian Ideal in 21st century America (2002) by a leading Democrat
- Hayward, Steven F. The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964–1980 (2009), a conservative interpretation
- Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–1985 (1987)
- Jumonville, Neil. Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism and the History of the Present (1999); Professor Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) was a prolific historian and commentator
- Kazin, Michael. A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (2006) excerpt
- Kazin, Michael. What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party (2022) excerpt
- Kramnick, Isaac and Theodore Lowi. American Political Thought (2006), textbook and reader
- McKee, Guian A. The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (2008)
- Matusow, Allen J. The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (1984), by leading historian.
- Nevins, Paul L. The Politics of Selfishness: How John Locke's Legacy is Paralzying America. (Praeger, 2010)
- Parker, Richard. John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics (2006); biography of a leading intellectual of the 1940s–1960s
- Rossinow, Doug. Visions of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in America (2008)
- Starr. Paul. Freedom's Power: The History and Promise of Liberalism (2007), by a leading liberal scholar
- Stein, Herbert. Presidential Economics: The Making of Economic Policy From Roosevelt to Clinton (3rd ed. 1994)
- Sugrue, Thomas J. Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (2009)
- Traub, James. True Believer: Hubert Humphrey's Quest for a More Just America (2024)
- Traub, James. What Was Liberalism?: The Past, Present, and Promise of a Noble Idea (2019)
- Willard, Charles Arthur. Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy (1996); debunks liberalism, arguing that its exaggerated ideals of authenticity, unity, and community have deflected attention from the pervasive incompetence of "the rule of experts."
- Wilentz, Sean. The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008 (2008), by a liberal historian.