Liberalism in the United States is based on concepts ofunalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals ofconsent of the governed,freedom of speech,freedom of the press,freedom of religion, theseparation of church and state, the right to beararms,[1] the right todue process, andequality before the law are widely accepted as a common foundation ofliberalism. It differs fromliberalism worldwide because the United States has never had a resident hereditaryaristocracy,[2] and avoided much of theclass warfare that characterized Europe.[3] According to American philosopher Ian Adams, "all US parties are liberal and always have been", they generally promoteclassical liberalism, which is "a form of democratizedWhig constitutionalism plus thefree market", and the "point of difference comes with the influence ofsocial liberalism" and principled disagreements about the proper role of government.[4]
Since the 1930s,liberalism is usually used without a qualifier in the United States to refer tomodern liberalism, a variety of liberalism thataccepts a government role to preventmarket failures and promotes expansion ofcivil and political rights, with thecommon good considered as compatible with or superior to theabsolute freedom of the individual.[5] This political philosophy was exemplified byFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal policies and laterLyndon B. Johnson'sGreat Society. Other accomplishments include theWorks Progress Administration and theSocial Security Act in 1935, as well as theCivil Rights Act of 1964 and theVoting Rights Act of 1965. This variety of liberalism is also known asmodern liberalism to distinguish it fromclassical liberalism, from which it sprang out along with modernAmerican conservatism.[6]
Modern American liberalism includes issues such assame-sex marriage,transgender rights, the abolition ofcapital punishment,reproductive rights and otherwomen's rights,voting rights for all adult citizens, civil rights,environmental justice, and government protection of theright to an adequate standard of living.[7][8][9] Nationalsocial services, such as equal educational opportunities, access to health care, and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to promote thegeneral welfare of all citizens as established by theUnited States Constitution. Some liberals, who call themselvesclassical liberals,fiscal conservatives, orlibertarians, endorse fundamental liberal ideals but diverge from modern liberal thought on the grounds thateconomic freedom is more important thansocial equality.[10]
The origins of American liberalism are in the political ideals of theAge of Enlightenment.[11] TheConstitution of the United States of 1787 established the first modernrepublic, withsovereignty in the people (not in a monarch) and no hereditary ruling aristocracy; however, the Constitution limited liberty, in particular by acceptingslavery. TheFounding Fathers recognized the contradiction but believed they needed a nation unified enough to survive in the world.[12] During the late 18th and 19th centuries, the United States extended liberty to ever broader classes of people. The states abolished many restrictions on voting for white males during the early 19th century. The Constitution wasamended in 1865 to abolish slavery and in 1870 toextend the vote to black men.[13]
As theUnited States economy began shifting to manufacturing and services during the 19th century, liberals started to consider corruption and concentrations of economic power (calledtrusts at the time) as threats to liberty.[14][15] During theProgressive Era beginning in the late 19th century,laws were passed restricting monopolies andregulating railroad rates.[16][17]
According to James Reichley,liberalism took on its current meaning in the United States during the 1920s. In the 19th century and the early 20th century, the term had usually describedclassical liberalism, which emphasizeslimited government, religious freedom, and support for thefree market. The term "progressivism" had been used to describe individuals likeTheodore Roosevelt, who favored a limited amount of government activism. During the 1920s, the term progressive became associated with politicians such asRobert M. La Follette, who called for government ownership of railroads and utilities in his1924 third-party presidential bid. Progressivism thus gained an association withradicalism that advocates of more moderate reforms sought to avoid. The term was also unattractive to certain groups because of its longstanding association with the Republican Party and theSocial Gospel movement. In 1920, thefranchise was extended to women with another Amendment. In the late 1920s and 1930s, political figures such asFranklin D. Roosevelt increasingly adopted the term liberal to describe an individual who favored some government activism but was opposed to more radical reforms.[18]
In the 1930s, liberalism came to describe a pragmatic ideology that called for a moderate amount of governmentregulation of the economy,progressive taxation, and increased exercise offederal government power in relation to the states. It also came to signify support fororganized labor and a degree of hostility, or at least suspicion, ofbig business. Liberalism did retain some aspects of the term's usage prior to the 1930s, including support for civil liberties and secularism. What was once calledclassical liberalism came to be described aslibertarianism, or a combination offiscal conservatism andsocial liberalism. These positions were contrasted with those to theirpolitical left, who favored greater changes, and withconservatives, who opposed these changes.[19]
President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to office in 1933, amid the economic calamity of theGreat Depression, offering the nation aNew Deal intended to alleviate economic want and unemployment, provide greater opportunities and restore prosperity. Thepresidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945), the longest in United States history, was marked by an increased role the federal government had in addressing the nation's economic and other problems.[20]Work relief programs provided jobs, ambitious projects such as theTennessee Valley Authority promoted economic development and asocial-security system laid the groundwork for the nation's modern welfare system. The Great Depression dragged on through the 1930s despite the New Deal programs, which were met with mixed success in solving the nation's economic problems.[21]
Religious and ethnic minorities had been hard hit and were helped by the relief programs and the patronage policy. Catholics andJews gave strong support to theNew Deal coalition.[22][23][24] Blacks were included in New Deal programs, especially in the North, with a lesser role in the South.[25] SociologistGunnar Myrdal concluded:[26]
The Negro's share may be meagre in all this state activity, but he has been given a share. He has been given a broader and more variegated front to defend and from which to push forward. This is the great import of the New Deal to the Negro. For almost the first time in history of the nation the state has done something substantial and a social way without excluding the Negro.
The New Deal provided direct relief for minorities in the 1930s through theCivilian Conservation Corps (CCC),Public Works Administration (PWA), theWorks Progress Administration (WPA) and other agencies and during World War II executive orders and theFair Employment Practices Commission opened millions of new jobs to minorities and forbade discrimination in companies with government contracts.[27] The 1.5 million black veterans in 1945 were fully entitled to generous veteran benefits from theGI Bill on the same basis as everyone else.[28]
The New Deal consisted of three types of programs designed to produce "Relief, Recovery and Reform".[29] Relief was the immediate effort to help the one-third of the population that was hardest hit by the depression. Roosevelt expandedHerbert Hoover'sEmergency Relief and Construction program (ERCA) and added the CCC, the PWA and the WPA, the latter replacing in 1935 theFederal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Also in 1935, theSocial Security Act andunemployment insurance programs were added. The Social Security Act provided retirement and disability income for Americans unable to work or unable to find jobs.[30] Separate programs were set up for relief in rural areas such as theResettlement Administration andFarm Security Administration. Recovery programs sought to restore the economy to pre-depression levels. It involved deficit spending, dropping thegold standard, efforts to re-inflate farm prices that were too low and efforts to increaseforeign trade. New Deal efforts to help the United States recuperate were in part through a much expanded Hoover program, theReconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).[31]
Reform was based on the assumption that the depression was caused by the inherent market instability and that government intervention was necessary to rationalize and stabilize the economy and to balance the interests of farmers, business and labor.[32] Reform measures included theNational Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), regulation of Wall Street by theSecurities Exchange Act (SEA), theAgricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) for farm programs,Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance for bank deposits enacted through theGlass–Steagall Act of 1933 and theNational Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as the Wagner Act, dealing with labor-management relations. Despite some New Dealers's urgings, there was no major antitrust program.[33] Roosevelt opposed socialism (in the sense of state ownership of the means of production) and only one major program, theTennessee Valley Authority (TVA), involved government ownership of the means of production.[34]
Roosevelt was president through most ofWorld War II and, anticipating the post-war period, strongly supported proposals to create aUnited Nations organization as a means of encouraging mutual cooperation to solve problems on the international stage. His commitment to internationalist ideals was in the tradition ofWoodrow Wilson, architect of the failedLeague of Nations.[35] Roosevelt took the lead in the establishment of the United Nations in 1945, with the proviso that the United States would have a veto power.[36][37]
By 1950, the liberal ideology was so intellectually dominant that the literary criticLionel Trilling wrote that "liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition, ... there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in circulation."[38] For almost two decades, Cold War liberalism remained the dominant paradigm in American politics, peaking with the landslide victory ofLyndon B. Johnson overBarry Goldwater in the1964 presidential election and the passage ofGreat Society legislation.[39] The postwar liberal consensus included acceptance of a modest welfare state andanti-communism domestic and foreign policies.[40] Some of its elements were shared withembedded liberalism, which aimed to combine benefits of free markets with some interventionist domestic policies.[41]
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American liberalism in theCold War-era was the immediate heir toFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal and the slightly more distant heir to theprogressives of the early 20th century.[42]Sol Stern wrote that "Cold War liberalism deserves credit for the greatest American achievement since World War II—winning the Cold War".[43] The essential tenets of Cold War liberalism can be found in Roosevelt'sFour Freedoms (1941). Of these,freedom of speech andof religion were classic liberal freedoms as was freedom from fear (freedom from tyrannical government), but freedom from want was another matter. Roosevelt proposed a notion of freedom that allowed for government responsibility for the individual.[44] Freedom from want could justify positive government action to meet economic needs, an idea more associated with the concepts ofAbraham Lincoln'sRepublican Party,Henry Clay'sWhig Party andAlexander Hamilton'seconomic principles of government intervention and subsidy than the more radicalsocialism andsocial democracy of European thinkers, or with prior versions of classical liberalism as represented byThomas Jefferson'sDemocratic-Republican Party andAndrew Jackson'sDemocratic Party.[citation needed]
In the 1950s and 1960s, both major American political parties included liberal and conservative factions. The Democratic Party had on one hand Northern and Western liberals and on the othergenerally conservative Southern whites. Difficult to classify were the Northernurban Democraticpolitical machines. The urban machines had supported New Deal economic policies, but they slowly came apart over racial issues. Some historians have divided the Republican Party into liberalWall Street and conservativeMain Street factions while others have noted that the Republican Party's conservatives came from landlocked states (Robert Taft Jr. of Ohio andBarry Goldwater of Arizona) and the liberals tended to come from California (Earl Warren andPete McCloskey), New York (Nelson Rockefeller) and other coastal states.[citation needed] Opposing both Communism and conservatism, Cold War liberalism resembled earlier liberalisms in its views on many social issues and personal liberty, but its economic views were not those offree-market Jeffersonian liberalism nor those of European social democrats. They never endorsedstate socialism, but they did call for spending on education, science and infrastructure, notably the expansion ofNASA and the construction of theInterstate Highway System. Their progressive ideas continued the legacy of Lincoln,Woodrow Wilson,Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Most prominent and constant among the positions of Cold War liberalism included the following:[citation needed]
At first, liberals generally did not see Franklin D. Roosevelt's successorHarry S. Truman as one of their own, viewing him as a Democratic Party hack. However, liberal politicians and liberal organizations such as theAmericans for Democratic Action (ADA) sided with Truman in opposing Communism both at home and abroad, sometimes at the sacrifice ofcivil liberties.[45] For example,Hubert Humphrey put before the Senate in 1950 a bill to establish detention centers where those declared subversive by the President could be held without trial but it did not pass. Liberals were united in their opposition toMcCarthyism.[46][vague]
Southern liberals were an essential part of the New Deal coalition as without them Roosevelt lacked majorities in Congress. Notable leaders wereLyndon B. Johnson in Texas,Jim Folsom andJohn Sparkman in Alabama,Claude Pepper in Florida,Earl Long in Louisiana,Luther H. Hodges in North Carolina andEstes Kefauver in Tennessee. They promoted subsidies for small farmers and supported the nascent labor union movement. An essential condition for this North–South coalition was for Northern liberals to ignoreSouthern racism. After 1945, Northern liberals, led especially by youngHubert Humphrey of Minnesota, increasingly made civil rights a central issue. They convinced Truman to join them in 1948. The conservative Southern Democrats, best known as the Dixiecrats, took control of the state parties there and ranStrom Thurmond for president in 1948. Thurmond carried only the Deep South, but that threat was enough to guarantee the national Democratic Party in 1952 and 1956 would not make civil rights a major issue. In 1956, 101 of the 128 Southern Representatives and Senators signed theSouthern Manifesto denouncing forced desegregation.[47] The labor movement in the South was divided and lost its political influence. Southern liberals were in a quandary as most of them kept quiet or moderated their liberalism whilst others switched sides and the minority remnant continued on the liberal path. One by one, the last group was defeated. According to historian Numan V. Bartley, "the very word 'liberal' gradually disappeared from the southern political lexicon, except as a term of opprobrium".[48]
Cold War liberalism emerged at a time when mostAfrican-Americans were politically and economically disenfranchised. Beginning withTo Secure These Rights, an official report issued by the Truman White House in 1947, self-proclaimed liberals increasingly embraced thecivil rights movement. In 1948, President Truman desegregated the armed forces and the Democrats inserted a strong civil-rights plank in the party platform even though delegates from the Deep South walked out and nominated a third-party ticket, theDixiecrats, headed byStrom Thurmond. Truman abolished discrimination in the armed forces, leading to the integration of military units in the early 1950s; however, no civil rights legislation was passed until a weak bill in 1957.[49]
During the 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 they realized they needed the support of liberal Northern Democrats and Republicans for the votes to pass any legislation over Southern obstructionism. Many white liberals believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would only anger many Southern whites and make it even more difficult to pass civil rights laws through Congress. In response to that concern, civil rights leaderMartin Luther King Jr. agreed to tone down theMarch on Washington in 1963. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy finally endorsed the March on Washington and proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but he could not get it passed beforehe was assassinated. With Kennedy's death his Vice PresidentLyndon B. Johnson was elevated to the presidency. He had been a New Deal Democrat in the 1930s and by the 1950s had decided that the Democratic Party had to break from its segregationist past and endorse racial liberalism as well as economic liberalism.[50] Johnson rode the enormous wave of sympathy for his assassinated predecessor. With help from conservative Republicans led byEverett Dirksen, theSouthern filibuster was broken. Johnson enacted a mass ofGreat Society legislation, headed by the powerfulCivil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation, and theVoting Rights Act of 1965 which reversed state efforts to stop blacks from voting and facilitated their mobilization as millions of new liberal Democratic voters.[51] The result was an immediate end to segregation in most public places (except schools) and an end to restrictions on black voting.[52]
The civil-rights movement itself was becoming fractured. On March 8, 1964,Malcolm X declared he was going to organize ablack-nationalist organization that would try to "heighten the political consciousness" of African-Americans.[53] Shortly thereafter a wave of black riots in theinner cities which made for the "long hot summers" in every major city from 1964 through 1970. The riots alienated much of the white working-class that had been the base of the labor-union element in the civil-rights coalition.[54] By 1966, aBlack Power movement had emerged. Black Power advocates accused white liberals of trying to control the civil-rights agenda. Proponents of Black Power wanted African-Americans to follow an "ethnic model" for obtaining power, not unlike that of Democraticpolitical machines in large cities.[citation needed] This put them on a collision course with urban machine politicians and on its edges the Black Power movement contained racial separatists who wanted to give up on integration altogether—a program that could not be endorsed by American liberals of any race.[citation needed] The mere existence of such individuals (who always got more media attention than their actual numbers might have warranted) contributed to "white backlash" against liberals and civil rights activists.[55]
In the 1960s and 1970s, mass movements forwomen's rights,gay rights, andsexual liberation became powerful political forces.Second-wave feminism which emphasized the rights of women to work outside the home, and hold positions of responsibility, led to a widespread increase in the percentage of women working outside the home.[56] In 1972,Katharine Graham became the first femaleFortune 500 CEO, and the number soon increased. As of 2022, 37 Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs.[57] In 1980,Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female Justice on theSupreme Court of the United States.[58] In 2021,Kamala Harris became the first femaleVice President of the United States. Thesexual revolution began in the 1960s and led to a general societal acceptance ofpremarital sex.[59] The Supreme Court ruling inEisenstadt v. Baird made contraception available to unmarried people, and effectively legalized premarital sex.[60] The vast majority of Americans now engage in premarital sex.[61] The moderngay rights movement began in 1970 with theStonewall riots. A handful of states soon repealed their sodomy laws.[62] In 1980, the Democratic Party platform formally endorsed gay rights.[63] In the 1990s, popular culture began to depict acceptance of homosexuality among heterosexuals as the norm.[64] In 2003, the Supreme Court, in the case ofLawrence v. Texas overturned laws banning homosexual behavior in the 12 states where they remained, holding that these laws violated theDue Process Clause of the Constitution.[65] In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage. The 2015 Supreme Court caseObergefell v. Hodges legalized same sex-marriage nationwide, holding that marriage was a fundamental right of all Americans.[66] In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the wording of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects LGBT employees from discrimination.[67] Polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans now support gay and lesbian rights.[68]
While the civil rights movement isolated liberals from the white working class andSouthern Democrats, theVietnam War threw another wedge into the liberal ranks, dividing pro-war "hawks" such as SenatorHenry M. Jackson from "doves" such as Senator and1972 presidential election candidateGeorge McGovern. As the war became the leading political issue of the day, agreement on domestic matters was not enough to hold the liberal consensus together.[69] Vietnam was part of the strategy ofcontainment of Soviet Communism which began in earnest in 1947 to counter the Soviet threat. In the 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy was more "hawkish" onSoutheast Asia thanRichard Nixon. Although the war expanded from 16,000 Americans in Vietnam under Kennedy to 500,000 under Johnson, there was much continuity of their policies, until Nixon arrived in 1969. The deep division between liberals and the New Left, especially on foreign policy, troubled the Democratic Party for decades.[70]
A large portion of the growing opposition to the war came from younger activists, with a strong base on elite university campuses. They had become alienated from the establishment and formed theNew Left. After Johnson did poorly in the 1968 primaries and decided to focus on peacemaking and not run for reelection, tensions rapidly escalated inside the Democratic Party. Assassinations struck down the two top liberals,Martin Luther King Jr. andRobert F. Kennedy. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, by now a cautious moderate who meekly followed Lyndon Johnson in domestic and foreign policy, was the last man standing at the disastrously violent1968 Democratic National Convention. Much of the party's right-wing, from the South and ethnic white districts in the North, veered off to vote for Alabama GovernorGeorge Wallace. The result was a narrow victory for Republican Richard Nixon in a three-way race. Although touted as a conservative,President Nixon, with a Democratic Congress, enacted many liberal policies, including the establishment of theEnvironmental Protection Agency, normalizing relations withCommunist China, and starting theStrategic Arms Limitation Talks to reduce the availability ofballistic missiles.[71]
Liberals vehemently disliked Nixon and he reciprocated in kind with anenemies list. Yet as president, Nixon took many policy positions that can only be described as liberal. Before Nixon was elected, the liberal wing of his own party favored politicians such asNelson Rockefeller andWilliam Scranton. In 1968 Nixon won the nomination by an appeal to a "silent majority" of conservatives, disgusted and frightened by soaring crime rates and widespread race riots.[72] Using executive orders, he single-handedly created the main environmental agency (theEnvironmental Protection Agency), something that was achieved without a vote in Congress. He expanded funding for liberal favorites like theNational Endowment for the Arts and theNational Endowment for the Humanities.[73] One of his top advisers was liberalDaniel Patrick Moynihan, who said that "Nixon mostly opted for liberal policies, merely clothing them ... in conservative rhetoric".[74] In addition to support for such liberal causes as the arts and the environment, he supported liberalization of laws against recreational drugs. To the astonishment of conservatives, he imposed wage and price controls to counteract inflation.Noam Chomsky, who often attacks liberalism from the left, has called Nixon "in many respects the last liberal president".[75] Historians increasingly emphasize the liberalism of his administration's policies while not attributing them to Nixon personally.[76]
Various laws were created during the 1970s. Examples areOccupational Safety and Health Act andTitle IX.[77] TheSpecial Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children also begun.[78]
The political dominance of the liberal consensus even into the Nixon years can best be seen in policies by for example the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and also in Nixon's failed proposal to replace the welfare system with a guaranteed annual income by way of anegative income tax.Affirmative action in its most quota-oriented form was a Nixon administration policy. Even the Nixonwar on drugs allocated two-thirds of its funds for treatment, a far higher ratio than was to be the case under any subsequent President, Republican or Democrat. Additionally, Nixon's normalization of diplomatic relations with Communist China and his policy ofdétente with the Soviet Union were likely more popular with liberals than with his conservative base. Nixon also successfully supported acost-of-living adjustment forSocial Security recipients. An opposing view was offered byCass R. Sunstein inThe Second Bill of Rights. He argues that through his Supreme Court appointments, Nixon effectively ended a decades-long expansion under United States law of economic rights along the lines of those put forward in theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by theUnited Nations General Assembly.[79]
During the Nixon years and through the 1970s, the liberal consensus began to come apart. The alliance with whiteSouthern Democrats (theDixiecrats) 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. 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. Within the Democratic Party leadership, there was a turn toward moderation on racial themes after the defeat of liberalGeorge McGovern in 1972.[80] Meanwhile in the Republican ranks a new wing of the party emerged. The anti-establishment conservatives who had been aroused byBarry Goldwater in 1964 challenged the more liberal leadership in 1976 and took control of the party underRonald Reagan in 1980. Liberal Republicans faded away even in their Northeastern strongholds.[81] Reagan successfully lowered marginal tax rates, most notably for those at the top of the income distribution while his Social Security reforms raised taxes on the middle and bottom of the income distribution, leaving their total tax burden unchanged.[82][83]
More centrist groups, like theDemocratic Leadership Council (DLC), supportedBill Clinton and challenged liberals for control of the Democratic Party.[84] Clinton portrayed himself as a centristNew Democrat. Thus, he distanced himself from New Deal Democrats. With help from the Southern-dominated DLC, Clinton claimed the center of national politics.[85] Clinton worked with conservatives and against strong liberal opposition to end some of the main welfare programs and to implementNAFTA, linking the economies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.[relevant?] Clinton pushed to extend liberal ideals in the areas of health care (where he failed) and environmental protection (where he had more success). On the whole, he came under fierce attack from the left and from many liberals who charged that he betrayed the New Deal traditions of activist government, especially regarding welfare and his collaboration with business.[86]
On January 1, 2013, PresidentBarack Obama succeeded in raising taxes on the rich while keeping them steady on the middle class. On January 21, 2013, Obama delivered his second inaugural address that championed numerous liberal causes.[87] His signature achievement was the expansion of health benefits to millions under theAffordable Care Act, which became known asObamaCare, that expanded the role of government in healthcare. In 2016,Bernie Sanders andHillary Clinton were rivals in the2016 Democratic Party presidential primary. While Clinton was generally more moderate, Sanders positioned himself as a supporter ofprogressivism andsocial democracy, who campaigned on policies such asMedicare for All, free college and university, a $15 minimum wage, and a federaljobs guarantee. Although Clinton won the primary and lost the general election toDonald Trump, Sanders succeeded in moving the Democratic Party platform to the left, and reversing the centrism that had controlled the party's ideology since the presidency of Bill Clinton.[88] The 2016 and 2020 platforms declared support for a $15 minimum wage, apublic health insurance option, the abolition ofcapital punishment, the legalization ofcannabis, and acarbon tax.[89]
Following the 2008 financial crisis, U.S. liberals generally supported a combination of recovery-oriented policies such as emergency stabilization, stimulus, and re-regulation.[90] The Obama administration passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to boost jobs and demand,[91] and passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which strengthened oversight of financial firms and made the over-the-counter swaps market subject to a new regulatory framework.[92][93][94] Both of these were generally received well by U.S. liberals, and were seen as a return to the mixed-economy idea that markets are essential but need a degree of oversight to avoid crises.[95][96] Even then, there were debates within liberal factions as to the means of oversight, as while some favored market-mediated fixes such as tax cuts, others wanted more structural changes, which fed into later critiques of "progressive neoliberalism".[97]
In 2010, Congress enacted theAffordable Care Act (ACA), which expanded medical coverage through a combination of regulation of insurance marketplaces, income-based subsidies, Medicaid expansion in participating states, and new consumer protections such as bans on pre-existing condition exclusions.[98][99] Liberal policymakers broadly supported this approach to cover millions within existing U.S. institutions, and supported the blend of public rules and financial assistance with private plans.[100][101] At the same time, progressive liberals argued for a stronger public role (such as Medicare for All), and criticized the reliance on private insurers, but still supported the ACA.[102][103]
The United States played a central role in theParis Agreement of 2015, a global framework for countries to set environmental targets and report progress, and formally joined in 2016.[104] Liberals generally welcomed the Paris Agreement as a practical way to bring nearly all countries into a climate-conscious process.[105][106]
Under the Trump administration, the U.S. moved to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and rolled back many environmental regulations, resulting in strong liberal criticism.[107][108] The period also led to further intraliberal debates: some emphasized defending existing institutions, while others argued for transformational federal legislation dealing with climate, jobs, and justice.[109][110]
The U.S. rejoined the Paris Agreement in 2021 under the Biden administration, and brought forward renewed policy.[111] TheCHIPS and Science Act committed roughly $52.7 billion to domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research, and was generally favored by liberals and was supported by almost all congressional Democrats.[112][113] However, some progressives, such as Bernie Sanders (who voted against its passage), opposed it, calling it "corporate welfare."[114] This was followed by theInflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was strongly supported by U.S. liberals.[115] The IRA aligned with many liberal policy goals, as it contained roughly $369–$391 billion in clean energy investment, had provisions to lower health care costs, and included progressive tax reforms via a minimum tax for billion-dollar corporations and increased funding allocations to the IRS.[116]
The United States was the first nation to be founded on the liberal ideas ofJohn Locke and other philosophers of the Enlightenment, based oninalienable rights and theconsent of the governed with no monarchy and no hereditary aristocracy, and while individual states hadestablished religions, the federal government was kept from establishing religion by theFirst Amendment. TheU.S. Bill of Rights guarantees every citizen the freedoms advocated by the liberal philosophers, namely equality under the law, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to gather in peaceful assembly, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances and the right to bear arms, among other freedoms and rights. In this sense, virtually all Americans are liberals.[117]
Both before and after the country was founded legal questions concerning the scope of these rights and freedoms arose. In theDred Scott's case of 1856–1857, theU.S. Supreme Court ruled that these rights only applied to white men and that blacks had no rights whatsoever that any white man was obliged to respect. Several constitutional amendments after theDred Scott v. Sandford decision extended the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to larger classes of citizens, to all citizens in 1868, then specifically to blacks in 1870, to women in 1919 and to people unable to afford a poll tax in 1964.[118]
In the United States, classical liberalism, also calledlaissez-faire liberalism,[119] is the belief that a free-market economy is the most productive and government interference favors a few and hurts the many—or asHenry David Thoreau stated, "that government is best which governs least". Classical liberalism is a philosophy of individualism and self-responsibility with little concern for groups or sub-communities. Classical liberals in the United States believe that if the economy is left to the natural forces of supply and demand, free of government intervention, the result is the most abundant satisfaction of human wants. Modern classical liberals oppose the concepts ofsocial democracy and thewelfare state.[120] TheBourbon Democrats were a faction of the Democratic Party in the 19th century that aligned with classical liberalism,[121] as does the modern-dayBlue Dog Coalition.[122]
In 1883,Lester Frank Ward (1841–1913) publishedDynamic Sociology: Or Applied Social Science, as Based Upon Statical Sociology and the Less Complex Sciences and laid out the basic tenets of modern American liberalism while at the same time attacking thelaissez-faire policies advocated byHerbert Spencer andWilliam Graham Sumner.[123] Ward was a passionate advocate for a sociology that would intelligently and scientifically direct the development of society.[124] Another influential thinker in theProgressive Era wasHerbert Croly (1869–1930). He effectively combined classical liberal theory with progressive philosophy and founded the periodicalThe New Republic to present his ideas. Croly presented the case for amixed economy, increased spending on education and the creation of a society based on the "brotherhood of mankind". In 1909, Croly publishedThe Promise of American Life in which he proposed raising the general standard of living by means of economic planning, though he opposed aggressive unionization.[125] InThe Techniques of Democracy (1915), Croly argued against both dogmatic individualism and dogmatic socialism. As editor ofThe New Republic, he had the forum to reach the intellectual community.[126] According to Paul Starr, sociologist at Princeton University:
Liberalism wagers that a state ... can be strong but constrained—strong because constrained. ... Rights to education and other requirements for human development and security aim to advance the opportunity and personal dignity of minorities and to promote a creative and productive society. To guarantee those rights, liberals have supported a wider social and economic role for the state, counterbalanced by more robust guarantees of civil liberties and a wider social system of checks and balances anchored in an independent press and pluralistic society.
— Paul Starr,The New Republic, March 2007
Those who dream of a gun-free society will have to dream of ratifying a new constitutional amendment; they will no longer be able to ignore that embarrassing provision of the Bill of Rights that they have, for so long, been able to argue does not mean what it so plainly seems to say.
Ideologically, all US parties are liberal and always have been. Essentially they espouse classical liberalism, that is a form of democratized Whig constitutionalism plus the free market. The point of difference comes with the influence of social liberalism.
Bourbon Democrats were a combination of several constituencies including southerners, political and fiscal conservatives, and classical liberals.
In contrast to the halting mobilization of Insurgent Republicans and southern Democrats, the Blue Dogs' adoption of ... ideological bonafides, the Coalition worked to establish a Blue Dog brand and associate it with support for centrist policies.
