The Liberal and Conservative Era Explained | America's Fifth Party System in a Nutshell
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.
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