Liberalism is a political theory that has adopted many faces and has proved to be attractive to a broad spectrum of people since its genesis in the politics of Nineteenth Century England. Given America’s constitutional foundation upon a distrust of big government- the Pilgrims and the colonists who would be responsible for the establishment of much of America’s political tradition fled England as a result of just such a big government- it is perhaps ironic that a system of thought that is “premised on a prevailing confidence in the ability of government- preeminently the federal government- to accomplish substantial good on behalf of the American people” (Brands viii) should eventually gain such popular support in a nation that was founded with the polar opposite thought in mind. Yet, according to H.W. Brands in The Strange Death of American Liberalism, liberalism did indeed eventually take hold in American politics. Brands also contends that it subsequently died away. The key reason for both its ascension and demise is found in an anomaly in the American distrust of big government: from the beginning of the country’s history, Americans have willingly reconciled themselves to big government intervention in time of war.
Brands notes that the extent of America’s distrust of centralized authority was first revealed by the Revolutionary War; George Washington was effectively hobbled by a Continental Congress that refused to give him the power to run the war as he saw fit (2). When the Continental Congress was eventually transformed into a Constitutional government, there was outrage that the Constitution- a document outlining what the Government may do in respect to running the country- was not accompanied from the start by a Bill of Rights- a document outlining what the Government may not do in respect to the constituents of that country (3). However, even before the advent of the Constitution, the powers that the Continental Congress took on board during the War of Independence indicated an inherent willingness of the people to submit to a central authority during a time of national (if the word “national” may be applied to the colonies before they formally became a nation) crisis. The initial draft of the Constitution would essentially ratify only the authority that the Congress had already been wielding (29).
Just as the Revolutionary War displayed an increase in governmental power, so in turn did the Civil War with its introduction of conscription, financial measures such as a national currency, various taxes, and a federal interest in the rapidly expanding railroads. To the dismay of his critics, President Abraham Lincoln routinely suspended such civil liberties as habeas corpus in the name of Union security, and his Emancipation Proclamation was perhaps the “most breathtaking expansion of federal power during the Civil War” (33). In the two world shaking wars that came in the following century, Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt both introduced governmental reforms that would have been unimaginable mere months before their implementation. Truly enough, after each conflict the government relinquished much of its newly granted authority, particularly in the case of the numerous agencies and administrations that were generated specifically to cope with the demands of the two world wars. Yet the addictive taste of increased power, the precedents that such increases set, and the changes that came about as a result of the conflicts meant that there was never a true return to status quo ante. Instead, the American people proved themselves willing, if perhaps in an unconscious fashion, to step a little closer to a liberal philosophy with each war that their country got itself- and by extension, them- involved in.
According to Brands, American liberalism peaked about two decades into the Cold War (xi). In the shooting wars of the previous 150 years, the American people had shown that national conflict would help them accept government involvement that in peacetime would be almost unthinkable. By presenting the post-war relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States as being a war in and of itself, the liberal elements in the American government succeeded in persuading the general public to accept unprecedented peacetime government involvement in every day life (51). The most obvious manifestation of American liberalism was in the reforms that were introduced to the American society from the late 1950s to the early 1970s: education, race relations, welfare and even art were all subjected to increased federal attention, federal spending, and federal control. Education was first on the list for obvious reasons. The Cold War would be won not by brute force by cannon fodder on the ground, but by the successful implementation of new technology and both the physical and psychological victories that such an implementation would bring; for this to happen, the nation’s children needed to receive a superior education. Racial segregation was attacked from an official level because the government finally recognized the inconsistencies between America’s claim to be the land of freedom and opportunity and the realities of Jim Crow. Art programs were given funding to improve the nation’s culture, and welfare programs were introduced as an attempt to eliminate the specter of poverty. The successful implementation of all of these plans was the goal of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society; Johnson almost succeeded in realizing his ambitious domestic dream (95).
Unfortunately, despite Johnson’s best efforts, the dream of the Great Society was derailed by what would come to be the defining conflict of the post-war generation: Vietnam. Johnson faced a tough conundrum; he knew that involvement in Vietnam would damage his domestic agenda, but at the same time, to tolerate a Communist takeover in Vietnam would be tantamount to repeating the actions of the Munich Agreement that so closely preceded the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Germany (97). Johnson hedged for as long as possible, but American involvement in the war was inevitable; the Cold War was an ideological fight between the good of American capitalism and the evil of Soviet Communism. To concede Vietnam to Communism was to accept defeat. Defeat meant the end of the Cold War (with the possible beginning of a new “hot” war) and the collapse of the state of “peaceful war” that had made the rise of liberalism possible. The duration of the Vietnam conflict with its horrendous cost of American life choked the life out of American liberalism because the liberals who rode in on the back of the Cold War did not know how to survive without it. The American withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973- and the period of détente with the Soviets that followed- ended the Cold War, and with it, the opportunity for American liberalism to keep its footing (123).
Brands’ definition of American liberalism is essentially that it is a manifestation of the confidence of the people in the capability of the government to make decisions on their behalf. In The Strange Death of American Liberalism, Brands successfully defends his argument that liberalism gradually rose during the first 175 years of America’s history, peaked as a result of the circumstances of the Cold War, and collapsed when those circumstances changed. Today, the American people seem to be as suspicious of the government as ever they were; Brands notes how the attempted reorganization by Bill Clinton of the nation’s health care program was mercilessly shot down (164). The American people simply are not interested in the government doing things they feel that they can successfully manage by themselves. This definition of liberalism as a trend is undeniably in decline; Americans seem to be generally disinterested in government of any kind, an attitude which is demonstrated by the low voter participation in recent elections. However, that is not to say that future events will not someday come together and offer it another opportunity to flourish and bloom.
