Liberalism and Two-Party Politics Senator Ted
Kennedy of Massachusetts unsuccessfully ran for the
Democratic presidential nomination of 1980. Ken-
nedy ran on a liberal platform, partly because he be-
lieved President Jimmy Carter was too moderate and
cautious in his domestic policy agenda, especially on
poverty, unemployment, and health care. In the
1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan, the Re-
publican nominee and former governor of Califor-
nia, decisively defeated Carter with an explicitly
and comprehensively conservative platform that in-
cluded sharp cuts in taxes, domestic spending, and
regulations on business; higher defense spending; a
more aggressive Cold War foreign policy; and oppo-
sition to liberal Supreme Court decisions on social
issues, especially abortion and school prayer. Fur-
thermore, Republicans won control of the Senate in
1980 and soon developed a bipartisan, conservative
majority by aligning with Southern Democrats in the
House of Representatives.
During the 1980’s, liberal Democrats in Congress
and liberal interest groups, such as labor unions, the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the
National Organization of Women (NOW), mostly
fought defensive actions to defeat or dilute conser-
vative policies. With the support of Republicans and
conservative Southern Democrats in Congress, Rea-
gan achieved his major conservative policy goals of
tax cuts, deregulation, higher defense spending,
and appointing conservatives to federal courts. Led
by Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, however, lib-
eral Democrats defeated Reagan’s attempts to make
bigger cuts in domestic spending, eliminate two cab-
inet departments, reduce Social Security benefits,
and transfer more anti-poverty responsibilities to
the states. With the Democrats winning control of
the Senate in 1986, liberals rallied to defeat Rea-
gan’s nomination of Robert H. Bork, an outspoken
conservative, to the Supreme Court in 1987.
Liberalism and Foreign Policy In foreign policy,
liberals in Congress, the media, interest groups, and
think tanks opposed Reagan’s first-term emphasis
on higher defense spending, as well as his initial re-
fusal to negotiate new nuclear arms control treaties
with the Soviet Union and his deployment of new
American missiles in NATO countries. Liberals also
tended to side with the United Nations when dis-
agreements arose between that body and the Rea-
gan administration. While most liberals wanted to
revive a 1970’s-style policy of détente with the Soviet
Union, they also wanted U.S. foreign policy to im-
prove human rights, public health, and economic
conditions in developing nations, end or reduce
American military aid to anticommunist repressive
dictatorships and guerrilla movements, emphasize
international efforts to protect the environment
and fight the AIDS epidemic, and develop a cooper-
ative diplomatic relationship with the Sandinista
government of Nicaragua by rejecting Reagan’s sup-
port of the Contra rebels.The 1988 Presidential Election Shortly before the
1988 presidential campaign began, some liberals
were optimistic, because public opinion polls and
the results of the 1986 midterm elections seemed to
indicate that more Americans supported liberal pol-
icy positions on the environment, education, health
care, and defense spending and would be willing
to elect a Democratic president in 1988. In the
1988 presidential election, however, Republican vice
president George H. W. Bush decisively defeated Mi-
chael Dukakis, the Democratic governor of Massa-
chusetts. Bush identified Dukakis and liberalism
with unpopular positions, such as softness on crime,
weakness on defense, high taxes, and hostility to tra-
ditional American values on social issues. Indeed,
Bush successfully turned the word “liberal” itself
into an accusation or an insult, thereby setting the
tone for Democratic politics for years.Impact Liberalism in U.S. politics during the
1980’s mostly criticized and opposed the conserva-
tive policies and issue positions of the Reagan ad-
ministration and the Republican Party. Its few politi-
cal victories were limited to its defeat or dilution of
several conservative objectives, including the end of
abortion rights and affirmative action, the over-
throw of the Sandinista government of Nicaragua,
and additional tax cuts. By the end of the 1980’s,
Democratic politicians and liberal activists were dis-
cussing and considering how to define and commu-
nicate liberalism in order to make it more attractive
to American voters.Further Reading
Derbyshire, Ian.Politics in the United States from Carter
to Bush. New York: Chambers, 1990. Broad survey
of American politics from 1976 to 1989.
Germond, Jack W., and Jules Witcover.Whose Broad
Stripes and Bright Stars?New York: Warner Books,588 Liberalism in U.S. politics The Eighties in America