American Political Discourse (con't)

LIBERALS AS UNDERSTOOD IN 20TH CENTURY AMERICA

“Liberal” has a somewhat more complicated history. Before, say, 1900, “liberal” referred to those who supported the growth of participatory government, and was placed in contrast to “conservatives” of an older sort – royalists and the like who saw no good from anything democratic with a small “d.” After the turn of the last century, however, the term came to refer to people who sought government intervention in a greater area of human life than had previously been contemplated. Led at first by Progressives outside the government like Upton Sinclair, the writer of The Jungle (also a bit wordy) and Jacob Riis, writer and photographer of How the Other Half Lives, this group believed that the power of corporations, lauded by “conservatives,” corrupted American life rather than advancing it, and wanted to see the government intervene on behalf of those on the bottom. With the election of Woodrow Wilson and then Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this political thinking gained ascendency.

[Note that while Wilson and FD Roosevelt were Democrats, Theodore Roosevelt, the first Progressive with serious national clout, was a Republican.]

People who ascribed to this line of thinking liked federal power because it could fix social and economic problems more quickly, at least in theory. Pols controlling local and state governments tended to favor the interests of local financiers and industrialists, and often did not have the raw money power of individuals like Morgan and Carnegie. Liberals tended to prefer unions to corporations for the same reason, and often supported gender and racial rights at a somewhat more rapid pace than conservatives because they saw these people as unfairly downtrodden , although liberals had their own problems with racism and sexism. This liberal tradition was carried on by proponents of larger federal government like John F. Kennedy (see "the New Frontier") and Lyndon Johnson (and his "Great Society'.)

THE COMPLICATION OF COMMUNISM

One initial source of American political confusion was the growth of Communism’s influence in the United States around the turn of the 20th century, peaking during the Depression. American Communists shared liberals’ concern for the socially and economically disadvantaged, but did not share their appreciation for the long-term power of elective systems. Democracy, for the Communists, was a temporary means to the greater end. This end was anything but liberal. Even if we disregard the actual application of pseudo-communist beliefs by Stalin and Lenin – a tough thing to disregard – Communism called for authoritarian government with no interest in individual rights.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Congress introduced large-scale federal spending during the Depression, they came nowhere near the kind of massive, all-consuming extension of government spending executed by the Nationalist Socialists in Germany or the Communists in the USSR. In the eyes of many Americans, however, the New Deal represented a significant step toward socialism. Some saw this step as a disaster, others as the key to all social progress, but it was difficult to argue that it was not such a step.

Mostly, though, it was not. No one with any serious influence in American government sought the replacement of the constitutional scheme of rights with an all-powerful government charged with the redistribution of property. True radicals did live in the US in the 30’s, as they do now, but they did not have much pull. In other words, Americans were true liberals – almost all of them – but tended to focus more on their differences than on their essential agreements. Ironically, this conflict stemmed from the very electoral system that served as the foundation of these common principles. To be elected, candidates and parties had to distinguish themselves from one another rather than seeking common ground.

This electoral conflict caused people to obfuscate or lie about each other’s true intentions and principles. Conservatives could call liberals “communist,” and liberals responded by repudiating some ideas that were, in fact important to them – and to conservatives, even. Liberals could exaggerate the greed of conservatives while seeking the growth of the same capitalist system encouraged by the industrialists they excoriated.

In this way, words began to lose their original and, I would argue most useful, meanings and political discourse became unmoored.