Capstone: The Cross-Cutting Themes, 1865–present

This is Unit Eighteen, part two, the capstone's second thread, and the last lecture of the course: liberalism and conservatism. Part one closed on theme six's portable test: what the federal government was expected to do, who expected it, and who received its help. Its link pointed here. Theme seven follows the two traditions that argue over that question. Carry one correction through it: liberal and conservative are not fixed teams, each owning its policies across the century. At the course's second cross-theme twin you will see why, and at the last entry you will have a test for any period. By the end you will be able to explain why the Progressive tradition began mixed. To explain how the New Deal stood between critics on the left and right. To trace the conservative tradition from Hoover to the New Right. To give examples of the same policy held by opposite coalitions. And to explain why the labels are not fixed positions.

One entry on what theme seven follows.

Two traditions.

USH2 2571 Two Traditions

Theme seven follows liberalism and conservatism as intellectual traditions, and the argument between them is usually about theme six: what the federal government should do, with the same programme praised by one generation and attacked by the next. The labels themselves moved, and the next nineteen entries show who held each position, and when.

Four entries on the Progressive mixture: expertise, restriction, the choice between repair and replacement, and who the movement was for.

The Progressive aims.

USH2 2572 The Progressive Aims

Unit six's Progressives shared three principles: perfecting democracy, balancing it with efficiency and expertise, and regulating the economy while rejecting party politics, trusting scientists, engineers and professionals to design better government. Progressives saw themselves, the anchor says, as agents of social justice for the urban poor and the working class.

The contradiction inside the movement.

USH2 2573 Worthy and Unfit

The same movement sought to expand the vote to worthy citizens and restrict it for those judged unfit by health, education or race, and one reform era produced both the Nineteenth Amendment and segregated federal offices. Reform and restriction came from the same programme; theme seven's traditions began mixed.

Reform and revolution.

USH2 2574 Repair or Replace

Unit six separates the critics of industry: Florence Kelley's reformers sought to repair the system from within, while the Industrial Workers of the World sought to replace it, and the Socialist Party elected over seventy mayors by nineteen eighteen. Ask of any critic whether they would repair the system or abolish it.

Who Progressivism was for.

USH2 2575 Who Progressivism Was For

Unit six answers whether Progressivism was broad democratic reform or middle-class management with both halves. The democratic half is real: senators elected by the people, women's suffrage, safety and child labour laws. So is the restrictive half: disfranchisement and segregation spreading in the South and in the federal government, and reforms that lessened immigrants' political influence; the Yawp records southern Democrats presenting disfranchisement as progressive reform. For theme seven the lesson is that the tradition began with a contradiction it never lets go of: who counts as a worthy citizen. The later labels, liberal and conservative, cannot be read backward onto this era without losing one of its two halves.

Five entries on the New Deal between its critics: Hoover's conservatism, critics from the left and right, what they achieved, and a coalition that checked it.

Rugged individualism.

USH2 2576 Rugged Individualism

In nineteen thirty the conservative position was Hoover's: rugged individualism and voluntary action, with direct federal relief rejected as destructive of character, and in nineteen thirty-one he warned that the spread of government destroys initiative. Unit ten traces his voluntarism to the wartime Food Administration he ran.

The New Deal's critics on the left.

USH2 2577 Critics from the Left

Once the New Deal existed, it was attacked from both sides. From the left, Huey Long called it too conservative and launched Share Our Wealth, with a plan to tax annual incomes above a million dollars at one hundred percent, while Coughlin called for a state-directed economy and Townsend for pensions for the old.

The critics on the right.

USH2 2578 Critics from the Right

From the right, the American Liberty League, made up largely of conservative Democrats, called the Agricultural Adjustment Administration fascist, treating federal programmes as infringements on individual rights. The League came from Roosevelt's own party. In the nineteen thirties conservative and Democrat were not opposites.

What the critics achieved.

USH2 2579 The Critics' Pressure

Unit eleven records three of the New Deal's loudest critics attacking from the left and one from the right, and the balance shaping the legislation of nineteen thirty-five. The anchor says the popularity of the Coughlin and Townsend movements gave Roosevelt leverage and that parts of the new reforms were drawn from their proposals, and the Social Security Act answered a demand the Townsend movement had made. The Yawp adds that Long, even after his death, pushed Roosevelt to attack inequality more stridently. The confusion to avoid is placing the New Deal at one end of the spectrum. In its own time it stood between critics who wanted far more and critics who wanted far less, and it moved toward the pressure.

The conservative coalition.

USH2 2580 The Conservative Coalition

By nineteen thirty-eight a coalition of southern Democrats and Midwestern Republicans had gained ground, and by nineteen thirty-nine Roosevelt struggled even to defend existing agencies; five conservative senators he campaigned against were all re-elected. The coalition crossed party lines: conservatism in Congress was a cross-party alliance before it was one party's programme.

Two entries: a Republican middle ground, and the widest reach of the liberal tradition.

The middle ground.

USH2 2581 The Middle Ground

Eisenhower sought a middle ground between liberalism and conservatism, balancing the budget while keeping the New Deal and expanding Social Security, a Republican president extending a Democratic programme. Unit eleven's settlement survived a change of party, and liberal and conservative met, for a time, on keeping it.

The Great Society and its critics.

USH2 2582 The Great Society and Its Critics

The Great Society was the widest reach of the liberal tradition in this course: Medicare and Medicaid, federal aid to schools and a new immigration law in a single year. The anchor records that the share of Americans in poverty fell by nearly half by the time Johnson left office, and the Yawp finds that later presidents left most of the programmes in place. The critics' case is on the record too: Community Action fraught during its few years, and Nixon campaigning in nineteen sixty-eight on eliminating wasteful antipoverty programmes. The confusion to avoid is taking either verdict alone. The Great Society cut poverty and built lasting programmes, and did not end poverty, and alarm at it helped build the New Right.

Five entries on the turn: the southern strategy, a crisis of confidence, the New Right, the New Democrat, and the Tea Party.

The southern strategy.

USH2 2583 The Southern Strategy

Nixon's southern strategy of nineteen sixty-eight reached White southern and northern blue-collar voters, the silent majority, as the Democratic coalition of unit eleven broke apart, with Wallace's thirteen and a half percent the votes it sought. Unit fifteen calls it the third realignment the course records, after eighteen ninety-six and nineteen thirty-two.

A crisis of confidence.

USH2 2584 A Crisis of Confidence

By the late nineteen seventies Carter warned of a crisis of confidence that struck at the heart and soul and spirit of the national will, describing the country's troubles as a loss of faith. Unit fifteen draws the line: the confidence in government built in unit eleven was fraying.

The New Right.

USH2 2585 The New Right

The New Right carried Reagan to office in nineteen eighty, drawing on White southerners, suburban Catholics and evangelical Christians, and the Yawp traces it to alarm at the Great Society, worry over deficits, and White southerners leaving the Democrats after the civil rights laws. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority opposed legal abortion, feminism and sex education in the schools, and Phyllis Schlafly's STOP ERA helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. The confusion to avoid is treating conservatism as one idea. The New Right joined a case against federal spending and taxes to a case about family and faith. The Yawp judges that the rise of the right promised more than it delivered.

The New Democrat.

USH2 2586 The New Democrat

Clinton answered as a New Democrat, a centrist open to free trade, tax cuts and welfare reform, facing a Republican Congress elected on the Contract with America in nineteen ninety-four. Welfare reform, signed by a Democratic president and passed by a Republican Congress, redrew unit eleven's promise.

The Tea Party.

USH2 2587 The Tea Party

Opposition to the health care law of two thousand ten helped spawn the Tea Party, a movement aimed at cutting spending and shrinking the federal government, whose conservatives decried an administration filled with former Wall Street executives. The Yawp judges that Tea Party Republicans stunted the legislation of Obama's second term.

Three entries to close the course: the same policy held by opposite coalitions, the second cross-theme twin, and the arc of theme seven.

Same policy, different coalitions.

USH2 2588 Same Policy, Different Coalitions

The course's later units show the same policy held by opposite coalitions. A Republican, Eisenhower, kept and expanded the New Deal. A Democrat, Clinton, signed welfare reform and the laws repealing Glass-Steagall's separation of banking and exempting credit-default swaps from regulation. The health care law of two thousand ten adopted a formerly conservative model of subsidised private care, like plans put forward by Nixon, Gingrich and Romney. And in the nineteen forties and fifties anti-communism crossed party lines, as a liberal anti-communism purged Communists from the labour movement. The confusion to avoid is assigning each policy permanently to one tradition.

Whether the labels are fixed.

USH2 2589 Liberal and Conservative as Fixed Positions

The course's second cross-theme twin is that liberal and conservative are fixed positions, each owning its policies across the century. The entries say otherwise. The Progressive movement already combined reform with restriction. In the nineteen thirties the conservative Liberty League came from Roosevelt's own party, and the conservative coalition of nineteen thirty-eight joined southern Democrats to Midwestern Republicans. In the nineteen fifties a Republican president kept the New Deal and expanded Social Security. In the nineteen nineties a Democratic president signed welfare reform and deregulated finance. In two thousand ten Democrats enacted a health care model Republicans had proposed. What stays fixed is the question, not the answer: how far the federal government should reach into the economy and into citizens' lives, and who counts as a citizen it should serve. Two misreadings sit on either side. One treats the traditions as fixed teams, which cannot account for Eisenhower, the Liberty League or the health care law's model. The other treats the labels as meaningless, which cannot account for the real difference between the Great Society and the New Right. The traditions are real, and their coalitions move.

The arc of theme seven.

USH2 2590 The Arc of Theme Seven

Theme seven can now be stated in one arc. The Progressives joined expanding democracy with restricting it. In unit ten conservatism meant Hoover's voluntarism; in unit eleven the New Deal stood between critics from the left and the right and moved toward the pressure, until a conservative coalition crossing party lines checked it. Eisenhower's middle ground kept it, and Johnson's Great Society extended it. From nineteen sixty-eight the argument turned: the southern strategy and the crisis of confidence prepared the ground for the New Right, which carried Reagan to office, though the programmes survived, battered but intact. The New Democrat Clinton moved his party toward the centre, and the Tea Party arose against a health care law built on a formerly conservative model. The portable test for any period is the same as theme six's: ask who wanted the federal government to do more, who wanted it to do less, and who their allies were. The answer changes; the question does not. The federal role was set by crisis and contested ever since, and the traditions that argue over it have kept their names while trading their coalitions.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain why the Progressive tradition began mixed. It widened democracy for some Americans and narrowed it for others, and left open who counts as a worthy citizen. You can explain how the New Deal stood between critics who wanted far more and critics who wanted far less, and moved toward the pressure. You can trace the conservative tradition from Hoover's voluntarism and a cross-party coalition to a New Right that joined a case against taxes to a case about family and faith. You can give examples of the same policy held by opposite coalitions: a Republican expanding Social Security, a Democrat ending welfare as we knew it, and a conservative health plan passed by Democrats. And you can apply the portable test to any period: who wanted the federal government to do more, who wanted it to do less, and who their allies were. The traditions are real, and their coalitions move. That is the end of the course.