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| Source:Frank DiStefano with an inaccurate look and contribution to the false stereotypes of American liberalism & conservatism. |
"In this episode, we explain the Fifth Party System battle between liberalism and conservatism.
Since the 1930s, American politics has been a battle between the two ideological forces we created to fight over the policies of Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression—New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism. Ever since, all of American politics has centered around this same ideological battle between these two ideological teams.
That’s not to say American politics hasn’t changed since the 1930s. Over time, we’ve added new issues to fight over. In the middle of the twentieth century, we shifted focus from economic issues like labor and taxes to moral and social ones like civil rights, gender equity, the environment, and moral values. The coalitions of our parties also changed, with the Northeast moving from a Republican stronghold to a Democratic one while the Solid South went from Democratic to Republican.
Yet these changes in who votes for each party, and which issues we focus on, aren’t changes in political ideology.
Throughout the entire Fifth Party System era, Democrats stood for the same ideology they first formed under FDR of New Deal liberalism. It combined populism and progressivism into an ideology holding we could employ expertise and social science to benefit working people, the marginalized, and the least well off. Since the 1930, this ideology has justified everything the Democrats have done as well as their critiques of the Republicans. Republicans on the other hand have stood for modern conservatism, pushing back against New Deal liberalism as “big government” that threatens the two ideals of liberty and republican virtue. Since the 1930s, this modern conservative ideology has justified everything the Republicans have done as well as all their critiques of the Democrats.
Which means the core debate of American politics really hasn’t changed since the days of FDR. Which is strange because America has changed quite a bit since 1932. We now face an onslaught of new issues amid a completely different world than the industrial America we created these coalitions to debate and solve.
We know what that means from American political history. It means our parties are primed to come apart."
Because it looks like it could be a very slow news day here, what I'm going to do with this post, is something that I simply haven't had the time to do, for really since the summer with Donald Trump's legal and political issues essentially taking over the American news cycle, is pushback on a lot of the mainstream stereotypes of what it means to be a Liberal and a Conservative and pushback a lot on what Frank DiStefano is saying here.
If you were landing on Planet Earth today from another planet, from some other galaxy, that no human being is even aware of yet and landed in America and for some reason you were interested in American political philosophy, but all the information that you gathered, was based on what the American mainstream media tells you, you would have a lot of false misconceptions of what it means to be a Liberal and Conservative, not just in America, but the rest of the world.
If you just went off the misconceptions of liberalism today, you would think a Liberal simply wants the national government to take as much money as it can get away with, from the individual, to spend on the people's behalf for them. Because the supposed liberal government believes that individuals are essentially morons, who can't think for and govern themselves and they need a big government to make those decisions for them. And you would also think that the supposed Liberal wants to regulate the hell out of individuals (except for gays and women's health care) because the supposed Liberal sees individual freedom as essentially immoral and dangerous.
There are also lot of other garbage (to be kind) social stereotypes of what it's supposed to mean to be a Liberal. Liberals are supposed to be left-wing hippies, who think America is the real evil empire and that communism is not just cool, but should be tried here.
And if you look at the situation in Israel right now between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, according to the so-called Liberal, Hamas are the real freedom fighters and the Jews are the terrorists and racists.
As well as Liberals are supposed to be weak and dovish, who wouldn't even defend themselves, let alone their own country, even when under attack and that they believe that any form of humor or criticism against any minority in America, is bigoted, even if it's accurate (unless it's aimed at a right-wing minority) and that all men are pigs are women should rule the world.
If you just landed on Planet Earth in America from Planet Zoltron (or some place) and you were interested in learning about American conservatism and you just went of the mainstream stereotypes of what it means to be a Conservative, you would think that all Conservatives are just Southern or rural, or Southern-rural, fundamentalist, blue-collar, rednecks, who think America has been going to hell since the1960s thanks to the immigration and civil rights laws, as well as women's liberation and that America is being taken over by women, gays, and minorities.
And, you would think that now it's time for the supposed man (meaning the Southern, Anglo-Saxon-Protestant-blue collar man) to pushback and take back America. Which is what Donald Trump's MAGA movement is about. But if they're Conservatives, then the Libertarian Party in America is actually a Socialist party and the Green Party is the real Libertarian Party. Again, you would have be from another planet just arriving in America today (like an illegal alien) to even consider taking that seriously.
And the Frank DiStefano's of the world contribute to the political ignorance when it comes to American politic, especially when it comes to liberalism and conservatism. He argued that since 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt ran for and won the presidency from Herbert Hoover, that the Democratic Party was now this supposed New Deal Liberal party. When the fact is FDR didn't run on any New Deal. His New Deal agenda wasn't put together until after he becomes President in 1933 and all of those programs were really put together in mid 1930s.
Also, the Democratic Party in the 1930s, was a southern-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant based party, with Neo-Confederates, the Dixiecrats, being a major part of FDR coalition. Frank DiStefano seems to want his viewers to think that it's 1932 when the Democratic Party became the liberal (his idea of liberal) party in America.
Frank DiStefano also want you to believe its 1932 when the Republican Party became the conservative (DiStefano's idea of conservative) party in America. When the fact is President Roosevelt needed Progressive Republican votes for most of, if not his entire agenda, passed in Congress (House & Senate) and that it was the Dixiecrats in the Democratic Party that killed a lot of other things that FDR wanted to do, like his Economic Bill of Rights. Any decent book or documentary about FDR's presidency, would make that very clear to you.
As a political and political history blogger, I believe words and labels not only matter, but they have to matter. You need to know what terms like liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, socialist, nationalist, actually mean, before you try to label someone's politics. Otherwise, you will look like a political idiot or bullshitter. (To be Frank)
The definition of what I'm about to give you of what actual Liberals believe in America, is going to look pretty conservative, at least in the 1960s, 70s, or 80s sense, and perhaps libertarian today. But these are the true liberal values and if you are familiar with liberal democracy as well, you what the true liberal values are:
"Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law.[1][2] Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion,[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] constitutional government and privacy rights.[10] Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.[11][12]: 11
Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization.[13] Philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition based on the social contract, arguing that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property, and governments must not violate these rights.[14] While the British liberal tradition has emphasized expanding democracy, French liberalism has emphasized rejecting authoritarianism and is linked to nation-building."
Again, to my point about words and political labels having to matter: a conservative is someone whose: "averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values."
Conservatives believe, in well, conserving. (Hopefully that doesn't sound like Chinese or Greek to anyone) Conservatives believe in conserving and moving cautiously. They tend to be slow when it comes believing that there's a need for new public policy and government actions to try to make the society better. Here's a pretty good definition of conservatism:
"Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values.[1][2][3] The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears.[4] In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy.[5] Conservatives tend to favour institutions and practices that guarantee social order and historical continuity.[6]
Edmund Burke, an 18th-century Anglo-Irish statesman who opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the philosophers of conservatism in the beginning stage[7], with the other being Joseph de Maistre during a similar time period.[8] [9] The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution and establish social order."
When you listen to mainstream political pundits, or historians talk about American political philosophy, you would think that America really only has two major political philosophies: liberalism and conservatism. That liberalism represents everything on the left, including not just socialism, but militant socialism, as well as militant feminism. And that conservatism represents everything on the right, including Protestant Nationalism or Theocracy, as well as all the ethnic and racial philosophies that comes from Northern-European-Americans that the mainstream media likes to label as White Nationalism.
But the fact is, mainstream political journalists, tend to be overworked and in a lot a of cases are overworked by choice and get lazy. Yes, we have Liberals and Conservatives in America. But we also have Socialists, we have Libertarians, we have Communists even, we have Progressives in true sense as people who simply believe in progress through government action. Not government totalization of society.
And the fact is Liberals and Conservatives actually have a lot in common with each other, at least when you look at them in a classical sense (which is the real sense) and they shouldn't be mixed up with every other political philosophy in America because of how different all these political philosophies are.
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