Comment on American Political Parties by WestSideBilly

Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:18:43 -0700

Classic liberalism is entirely centrist; it was a balance between the extreme economic policies of socialism and corporatism and a balance between extreme social/religious conservatism and progressiveism - pure laissez faire. A classic liberal is now typically called a libertarian - one who favors economic and social freedom, a hands-off government.

The history of the Democratic party is classic liberalism. They wanted the government to exist to protect the interests of white men w/ money, without dicating religion or excessive taxation. 200 years of changes to our country and the party (particularly the New Deal in the 30s) turned Democrats into social progressives and economic socialists, but the label Liberal never went away even as the party morphed.

The GOP being equated to Conservative can largely be attributed to the early cold war era. The Republicans had been waging a losing battle for 50+ years against regulation, New Deal economics, Unions, etc. The Republicans merged Communism and Fascism as one enemy and made them "red". Since the liberal Democrats more closely resembled Socialists, Liberal became equated with Socialist. Combined with a split on civil rights issues where some Democrats switched parties, the Republican party become firmly entrenched as the conservative party in the US in the 60s and 70s by opposing the "red" liberals.

So to hopefully answer your original question - it's simply a matter of history why liberal=Democrat and conservative=Republican.

It should be noted that both modern parties are actually on the right side of the economic spectrum, the GOP slightly more so, but American society is fairly liberal despite Republicans being the current favored party.

As an ironic aside, current red state/blue state views have flipped since the 60s, when being red meant you were a Democrat and/or Communist sympathizer.