Talk Elections

I know that the polarization left-right is more applicable for European politics than it is for American politics, in which there is no strong Socialist or Social Democrat party.

But nowadays, it is possible to say that by comparing the Democratic and the Republican party, the last one is on the right in the American political spectrum and the first one is on the left.

When did it happen for the first time?

1896: Bryan X McKinley?
1916: Wilson X Hughes?
1928: Smith X Hoover?
1932: Roosevelt X Hoover?
1936: Roosevelt X Landon?

By today's standards the earliest I can see is 1932.

1896.

Are you meaning rightwing and leftwing as we know the terms today? Also, do you switch avatars a lot? I feel like sometimes you're a Democrat from Minnesota.

You're thinking of Snowguy.

Probably 1896 and 1916, although Franklin Roosevelt did run as a fiscal conservative against Herbert Hoover in 1932.

That is what happens when you don't get it trademarked.

I would say 1896, and could make arguments for 1796, but I con't have time for six paragraphs right now. :P

1896 McKinley
1912 Populist-Wilson income tax

1796?  There was no Democratic Party in 1796.  Just Republicans and Federalists, with the Republicans not the same party as today's GOP, but the ancestor of both of today's major parties.

I disagree with that analysis. Indeed there are traces of the Republicans of the 1790's in GOP, especially now with all the Southerners that have joined it but also even as far back as the founding of the party. However, the true ancestor both to the GOP and American Conservatism is the Federalist Party. A large number of Federalists joined the Republicans of Jefferson during the early part of the nineteenth century and they began to move the pary towards ideas of the Federalist Party. There was also the rise of the nationalists such as Henry Clay who shared the expansionist views of their party, but their economic platform was much more in line with the Federalist Party. That is why even as the Federalist were dying out, you had the Bank and tariffs passed in 1816. Jackson's movement and founding of the Democratic Party in the 1820's was a move to reclaim the the Republican's support of the common man, farmer and so forth against the elites. The name was adopted to emphasize that fact. That is why, at least until the last few decades, the Democrats were party of Jackson and Jefferson, and you still have Jefferson-Jackson dinners. I beleive the NY Democratic party organization dates itself back to 1792.

In the 1820's you had the old Federalists, nationalist Republicans, many of whom were from places that were not even states in the 1790's and a few other Republicans that came to believe the American System was the proper approach. They kept the name Republicans but altered it to reflect their nationalist views (National Republicans of course). Later they took the name Whigs as a means of forming an anti-Jackson coalition with several states-rights Democrats in the South. In the 1850's, the formation of the GOP was led by northern Whigs, and anti-slavery northern Democrats, they picked a name that would emphasize their goal (save the Republic), attach themselves to Jefferson's populist legacy even as their domestic policy was hardly anything close to what Jefferson would have supported (Banks, Tariffs and abolition) in his time and keep those anti-slavery Democrats on board at least until the issue of slavery was resolved.

Parties adapt with the times but typically they generally don't change as much as people would like to think. The Federalists got aced out of the game because of their appearence of elitist and aristocratic tendencies and various other actions, including their alleged treason. Successors thus did their best to expand their base to include a larger group of people to avoid that problem, while preserving the core desires and interest to serve, almost always to facilitate, support and protect commercial interests.

As for American Conservatism, the desire for limited goverment developed as a reaction to what was being done in the Progressive Era, during which time you had the Democrats moving towards the desire to use gov't to help the common man instead of seeing it as just a tool of the elites and seeking to restrain it like before. Prior to that era, most business interests saw Gov't as tool to advance their interests, but after it, such was mostly in the way. You still have a large number of Republicans today, particular establishment ones and those in the rural states who support subsidies to favored industries and of course pork barrel spending. That doesn't even get into the military and the spending there.

The best way to approach this issue is to back away from the how (as in how government is utilized) and focus more on the what and for whom it is being done. The how part of the question is variable based on the context and is subject to alteration out of political necessity, such as Conservatives and Libertarians moving toward each other during the Progressive and New Deal Periods and thus the shifting away from goverment in general, though still liking it on specific pet projects. Libertarians also trace a heritage to Jefferson, but rejected the embrace of Government and thus you had a split between classical and modern liberals.

I think most would accept that Jefferson is the father of American Liberalism, even without accepting all of the above. Fewer but still many, would say that Hamilton is the father of American Conservatism. John Adams, though not exactly friends of Hamilton, was hardly anything but a Conservative based on most definitions, save for a few of the modern ones, but especially in regards to the Burkean variety. He was certainly preoccupied with order, he supported a standing army and created the navy, was somewhat aristocractic, defended the British in Court after the Boston Massacre and was considerably on the religious side. I really don't want to go to twelve paragraphs on this, but this was before the Transcendentalist movement and its influences on the Unitarian church and thus while breaking away on matters of theology, they still possessed a similar worldview to that of the other, more Calvinist Congregational Churches in this era. Adams was the Conservative and Jefferson the Liberal in 1796. As for the parties, the easiest case can be made on the side of Jefferson's Party being the ancestors to the Democrats, because you have an organization tie, dinners that bare his name and the common objective, helping the little guy against the elites. On the side of the Federalist and the GOP, you have less, but enough. The early GOP's economic policy of Tariffs and financial stability was much the same as the Federalist's and for the same reason. Even with today's party they share the desire to serve business interests and preserve stability neccessary for them to thrive and aren't afraid (at least before the tea party era) of using government to do it when necessary.

Obviously 1932.

Before that the Republican Party was so left winged and the Democrats were far right wing Birchers.

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Advent of the Labour and Tory parties swept west and Marxism in socialist countries in 1912. But the Great Depression totally reformed the parties into secular and Tory camps.

1896. The last time the Democrats were more right-wing than the Republicans was in 1904 IMO.

The GOP party during Lincoln's time because of the slavery issue, was known as the moderate or compassionate conservative wing of the GOP party. Then during the Goldwater era, Dixiecrats element of the Democratic Party sought refuge in the Republican Party.

1896.

I don't see how the answer couldn't be 1896.  Bryan's platform was literally debauching the currency as a debt forgiveness tactic: outside of flat-out expropriation I don't see how you can have a platform more hostile to finance capital. 

It was the beginning of industrial era. Labor movement in the likes of pragmatism such teddy Roosevelt and Charles Hughes and Woodrow Wilson were opposed by workplace restrictions in the likes of Taft and Hoover.

Bryan was not supported by urban manufactory workers, but by poor farmers. He defended traditional values. Marx would consider him a "reactionary socialist". The electoral map of 1896 was almost the same as the map of the early 21th centrury, but the colors were switched. Even though, he opposed the candidate of the rich capitalists.
Wilson laid a basis for an welfare state, but he was less favorable to the blacks than the Republicans were.
Al Smith was not an economic interventionist, but he belonged to a religious minority and employeed women in his cabinet. Maybe, he was a predecessor of post-1980 democrats.
In 1932, Roosevelt was not a Keynesian yet. He criticized Hoover for not balancing the budget and his vice criticized Hoover for increasing the size of the public sector. But speeches in elections do not necessarily reflect the real opinion of the candidates.

Depends on different points of view if the today's party polarization started in the 1890s or in the 1930s, but one can say that since the 1930s, in every presidential election, the Republican candidate is more rightist than the Democratic candidate.

However, no earlier than 1960, the Democrats were stronger in the South than in the North. Only in 1960, Kennedy and Nixon divided the North and the South.

Left and right are not applicable terms to American political development at least until 1896.

Present day moderate republican was the Lincoln GOP which Arlen Specter defended very well in his support and party switch for Obama. Dixiecrats were Jeffersonian democrats.

I think another good comparison to Jeffersonian philosophy would be Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater. Actually I'd put George W. Bush close to Lincoln's ideology based on their fundamental belief in liberation. Issues change as times change.

I think that Government and Politics is a lot less about how it works and more about what its purpose is.

Secular and tradt'l lines were always there when founding fathers were and describes worldly view on Christianity. Yes the GOP made up wealthy businessmen in the beginning but view that Slavery was inherently wrong made its view on Christianity and constitution as a living doctrine it changes with times. The current liberal v GOP lines are built based on that premise.

Definitely 1896 defined the Democrats as the left-leaning party and the Republicans as the right-wing party, with the ultimate burial of the Bourbon Democrats being 1904. Afterwards the current ideological lines stabilized somewhere after 1932, whereas before then one might see two right-wing candidates, like in 1924.

I might say as recent as 1980 thinking about it again. Ronald Reagan was the very first true  conservative to ever be in the White House.

If you think that, then you have a very odd definition of conservative.

I meant conservative as it's defined today.

1896.

How pray tell, by any modern definition of conservative, would Grover Cleveland fall short of that standard?  Well other than the fact he wasn't a warmonger who wanted America intervening outside its borders.

Right that isn't something I would consider to be true conservatism. The issues are so different today from over a century ago that I wouldn't compare things.

In few words
1896 was the first time in which the Democrats were on the left and the Republicans were on the right but this aligment was reversed in some elections after that
1932 was the first election of a non-interrupted sequence of elections in which the Democrats were on the left and the Republicans were on the right

Obviously the 1896 election.

So, 1896 was the first.

But, maybe, Franklin Roosevelt was more important than Willian Bryan in bringing the Democratic Party permanently to the left.

Even after Willian Bryan both the democrats and the republicans had progressive and conservative wings.

1920?

I'm surprised nobody has suggested 1872 (although 1896 was the turning point between when it was an exception and the norm)

I totally forgot about the election of 1872!!!
Yep, that would be it.

Between 1872-1952 it varied from election to election.

How did the party of the slave owners become the party of the working class?

Those slave owners liked to think of themselves as working class yeoman farmers tragically burdened with owning slaves because of circumstances beyond their control.

Because at the time the going assumption was that continuing slavery would protect them from the blacks moving north and taking their jobs away. In fact it was only the spectre of slavery being foisted on the north caming to the fore in the 1850's, did enough of them shift to the other way of thinking, that keeping slavery would be more of a risk then abolishing it with regards to creating more compeition, thus allowing for Lincoln to win. And Lincoln himself ran on a more moderate platform of just keeping it out of the territories and as seen in the Lincoln movie he had to tie abolition in with the war in order to effect the abolition.

It is also the case that the opposition was dominated by highly elitist aristocratic types, though the Whigs certainly did better than the Federalist, but not by much. A lot of poor farmers and working class types in places like Eastern TN and KY were Whig though on the other hand.

The Democratic Party has always sough to cast itself as the party of "the common man" and was always a rather populist outfit thusly, as well as majoritarian. If the common man was racist then of course the party of populism over elitism would reflect that view.

 1980 is the correct answer, in modern terms.

Eh, Carter wasn't really that liberal, ever read his diary? 1984  would probably be better, and even then....

Carter was a Southern conservative. Why do you think he and Ted Kennedy hated each other so much?

Uh.... Like at least half of all elections before that? I mean if you're not gonna recognize 1896, then there are still about a million other freakin' examples. Just even frickin' 1972. McGovern's ideology doesn't now count as conservative or something. Hell, 1964 would be a bad answer but it'd at least cover a bit more ground than frickin' 1980.

generally Greeley had been left-wing, but by 1872 could call him that on the major issues of the day?

We are talking in relation to the gold standard, Grant was conservative on it, Tilden was liberal on it.

If you think about how Reconstruction was applied, via military rule that empowered corrupt Republican regimes in the South, there is actually a fairly convincing argument that he was the more liberal candidate.  As well, there is the argument about the corruptness of the Grant Administration.

There is a reason why they were called the "Liberal Republicans" instead of say the "Conservative Republicans."

I'm pretty sure Tilden was a "Bourbon" and both Hayes and Tilden were in favor of sound money. There were in fact very few differences between the candidates.

Oops, I meant the 1872 liberal Republican candidate, sorry.

1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1984 are all contenders.

1872 was the first election when the Democrats were more left-wing on economics. After 1896 an economically right-wing Democrat became the exception rather than the rule.

Although I'd say on social issues the Democrats were not more liberal until the 1950's.

Ugh. . . . . . Al Smith?

Who was the Democrat in 1872?

By the standards of the time in each election, I'd say 1896.  By today's standards, I'm not so sure.

Horace Greeley ran under both the Democratic and Liberal Republican banner in the 1872 election. Interestingly, he died shortly after the election.

Well he's an exception to that rule.

The Republicans have always had a puritan streak of sorts, and the whole Bryan episode was much more a fluke than an overall indicator of where the Democratic party stood. Now, you can argue whether that puritan streak was a force for conservatism or progressivism, but it was there.

The Puritan streak was a force for both at the same time. Prohibition was considered "Progressive".

I disagree on the Bryan episode though. It changed the Party, his efforts brought Wilson to the nomination.

You must remember that many of the 1920's nominees were last minutes selections after heated battles between South and West versus North and Midwest, Progressive versus Bourbon, dry versus wet and Pro-KKK versus Anti-KKK. So one should hardly use them as representative of the party.

I'd say 1972.

I am pretty sure it is a myth that Republicans were Liberal.Plus hasn't the definition of the word Liberal changed in the last 200 years?

These terms were not really used on a regular basis until the Cold War.

In the US: Liberal = Left-wing

Outside the US: Liberal = Right-wing, pro free-market

1896

This will upset those living in liberal fantasy land, but on fiscal issues it was 1856.  Period.  The GOP has always been a pro-business party, and I honestly find it 100% revisionist and biased to call defending slavery (as Southern Democrats did) socially conservative and trying to tie that to conservatism of today, while also completely ignoring that some of the fiercest abolitionists were from devoutly conservative Christian denominations like the Quakers.  The Second Great Awakening and the explosion of moralism that followed (something Democrats still mock Republicans for today) did a heck of a lot more to advance anti-slavery sentiment than this revisionist notion that the charge was led by these intellectual progressives of the day.  When you throw in that the other main group that opposed slavery was the Northern business community, which argued it interfered with the ideal of a free market with free labor, it doesn't sound liberal or left wing at all to me ... I guess if you repeat something loud enough and often enough, it becomes accepted as truth.

Yeah in Australia our right-wing party is called the Liberal Party and the word "liberal" is used either in reference to the party or to classical liberalism.

There's some degree of truth to this, however, the Republican Party in the mid-19th century was composed of numerous factions. Some of them favoring a "small" government and an agrarian based economy. They were against a central bank, tariffs, and hell even a national currency. These were called the liberal Republicans and contained a lot of ex-Democrats. The other wing consisted of ex-Whigs who favored a central bank, corporate welfare and protectionism through tariffs.

You're correct in saying the Republican Party was always the party of big business (and those weren't often formed splinter groups such as Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party La Follette's progressives) and  because the Democratic base for much of the 19th century were farmers and later a coalition of rural farmers and urban labor machines. Hardly the people you'd expect to support a party of big business. You're also correct in saying that people's religious beliefs via the Second Great Awakening were a main driving force behind the abolition movement.

For some local context, one of the reasons Rhode Island was such a bastion of the Republican Party in the 19th and early 20th century was due to it being a very wealthy industrialized state with numerous corporations in Providence.

From a modern standpoint, probably 1936. When you're talking overall modern, probably 1964.

That's kind of generalizing.

There's actually a good amount of moden democrats who are christian. Even  more liberals than you would think.

Of course, most things in politics are subjective.

Yes, like THE REVEREND Jesse Jackson or THE REVEREND Al Sharpton.

Cleveland marked the last time when the Democratic ticket was reliably right-wing at the national level. After that it was, nationally speaking, at most as far to the right as the GOP.

However, up until the 1960s, both parties polarized much more along ethnic and regional lines than ideological ones. Basically, Northeastern WASPs were as Republican as one can be, whilst Southern WASPery and the ethnic Whites in the Northeast were heavily Democratic.

I would say the Republican party was always been more "conservative" than the democratic party, but it is SO tough to answer this question, for the nature of political parties were so different in the 19th century. Both were huge tents with a ton of factions. Today, there is a coherent ideology for both parties. Some constants, however, are these:

1) Republicans have always been the party of business and the rich.

2) Democrats have always been the party of the "working man".

Also, part of it may have been that RI didn't have universal white male suffrage until quite late - long after even the Dorr rebellion.

For a very long time, 'big business' was the driving force behind the left - or, at least, the liberal bourgeois class.

This is Marxism 101. What socioeconomic force can oppose agrarianism and its remnants, including chattel slavery? Capitalists.

1984 might be the answer socially, though. Before 1984, evangelical protestants voted democrat in almost every national election.

1896, duh.

Are we going to count liberal Republicans in 1872 Democrats? Because then obviously 1872 because of both parties stance on the gold standard, but if not, 1896.