President Franklin D. Roosevelt, left, popularized the term ‘liberal’; President Lyndon Johnson may have caused its demise. FDR: AFP/Getty; LBJ: Bettmann/Getty
If Donald Trump has taught Americans anything, it’s that political parties can shift positions on any number of issues and retain strong support. Republicans had once been aggressive Cold Warriors, standing shoulder to shoulder with allies against Russia, but now they are isolationists. They once favored so-called “free markets,” but now they support tariffs. And they once supported cutting budget deficits, but now they balloon those deficits with tax cuts.
Same party, different policies.
This accords with recent scholarship showing that American political parties don’t have much ideological coherence around concepts such as “freedom” or “equality” but instead are more like social groups with strong communal bonds such as common sympathies and common enemies.
It turns out that political parties are mostly…
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Author : USA365
Publish date : 2025-05-08 14:53:00
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