Why's America more conservative than other Western Nations? Plus party challenge
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  Why's America more conservative than other Western Nations? Plus party challenge
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Author Topic: Why's America more conservative than other Western Nations? Plus party challenge  (Read 3135 times)
#TheShadowyAbyss
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« on: October 07, 2015, 10:09:33 PM »

Comparable to other Western nations, our left is their right and our right is extremely far-right compared to European countries and possibly Canada.  So I have two questions

1.) Is it because of our nations history of individual liberties and self-reliance, or is it the result of something else?

2.) How in terms of ideology, would you compare our parties to parties in Canada, the U.K, France, Australia, etc? Ex. would our Democrats be equivalent on the left-right spectrum as let's say the Tories in the U.K?
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Sol
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« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2015, 10:23:00 PM »

Is it though?
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2015, 10:28:08 PM »

Other folks will give the usual answers to this, but I’d like to point out that one factor is the unusually large number of veto points in the American system of government:

Reagan probably wouldn't have been "Reagan" under a parliamentary system.  If the US had the Australian constitutional system, then, for example, a Democratic parliamentary majority probably would have enacted universal health insurance in the 1960s or 70s, and we'd still have it today.

What I'm getting at is that since the Democrats are the party that's more interested in activist government on economic issues, their agenda suffers more in a system in which there are many veto points.  The American constitutional order is "conservative" in the sense that it tends to conserve the status quo.  Big social programs are hard to pass.  So if the USA had a parliamentary system, then I imagine that the political spectrum would be shifted a bit to the left of where it is now, at least on economic issues.

Of course, there are all sorts of other confounding issues, like the fact that individual members of Congress act as free agents in a way that doesn't happen in most parliamentary systems, where things are run in a much more top down manner.  Legislative power is incredibly diffuse in the US.
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RFayette
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« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2015, 11:20:36 PM »

I think the U.S. Constitution and our republic's long history have ingrained a strong sense of the importance of negative liberties (and less emphasis on positive liberties) in the minds of people.  In a lot of other nations in which democracy is newer, negative rights and positive rights are seen as going hand-in-hand (as in, right to speech, assembly, etc. goes along with right to housing, healthcare, etc.) , whereas in the United States, the imposition of positive liberties as rights is met with far more opposition than in other parts of the world.
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« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2015, 07:34:47 AM »

The Democrats are not like the Tories. I might add something more substantial, but for now:
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Blue3
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« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2015, 11:42:01 AM »

We are more conservative in some areas, but more liberal in other areas.
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Orser67
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« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2015, 01:47:20 PM »

Well, I think it is more conservative than most of Europe, at least.

I'd say the point of divergence was the 1960s-80s, when the US experienced an uncommonly strong conservative reaction to the counterculture movement and to the perceived failure of Keynesian economics. Reagan and Goldwater did not have hugely different positions, but Reagan won a landslide in 1984 while Goldwater lost a landslide in 1964.

Among the factors that contributed to this conservative reaction were the high percentage of evangelicals (compared to other countries) who were wedded to the conservative movement after Roe v. Wade and other perceived affronts, racial polarization (particularly in the South), and the US's central place in the Cold War.

You could also put the point of divergence in the 1930s-40s, when the US did not move as far left as some others in reaction to the Great Depression and World War II.
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ingemann
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« Reply #7 on: October 08, 2015, 03:14:24 PM »

It depend on what people mean with conservative. USA as example have much liberal abortion than most countries (interesting fact Spain have more liberal abortion laws than Denmark, it say something about perspective is not always right). Some years a American left winger toured Europe and one of the evils, he brought up was how the Republicans would make it harder to declare bankruptcy, one problem the Republican suggestion was far far more liberal than the rules for bankruptcy in any European country. Also half of western Europe have state churches. So I think the whole USA; Conservative, Europe; Liberal, is a little more complex than many people think.

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badgate
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« Reply #8 on: October 08, 2015, 04:40:41 PM »

Nativism
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Mr. Reactionary
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« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2015, 11:26:15 PM »

Federalism. Separation of Powers. Bicameral Legislature. Bill of Rights.
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SWE
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« Reply #10 on: October 09, 2015, 05:36:27 AM »

I agree, the American spectrum is skewed pretty far right. In Europe, Obama wouldn't be out of place in Golden Dawn.
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Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy
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« Reply #11 on: October 09, 2015, 08:08:00 AM »

Federalism. Separation of Powers. Bicameral Legislature. Bill of Rights.
None or those are particularly conservative, two of those  are just classical  liberalism in practice
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« Reply #12 on: October 09, 2015, 08:15:49 AM »

I would say:

The failure of a socially democratic, labour or socialist party to become a true mass movement. Instead unions found themselves hitched to the old Democratic Party (which really, when you think of it, must have one of the weirdest histories of any political party out there). That prevented any real radical tradition aside from ephemeral third party movements in Wisconsin/North Dakota/Minnestota etc. not that the modern Democratic Party is essentially different from the NDP or Labour or Partie Socialist or the PSOE, but history matters.

The wedding of religion to markets has created a uniquely political strain, separate from the old and proudly irrelevant state religions of Europe.

Of course, I would not argue that the U.S. is the most conservative country in the Developed nations. Japan is far more conservative, as are the Asian Tigers. One can argue that Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Austria are also more conservative countries, in some sense.
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King
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« Reply #13 on: October 09, 2015, 10:33:38 AM »

Blacks. Americans associate poverty with blacks and so have no interest in doing anything about it.

We see now that Europe is having a surge of in the heterogeneity of their population, the political establishment is suddenly wanting to ration social services.
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Torie
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« Reply #14 on: October 09, 2015, 10:43:42 AM »

It's more religious is probably the single most salient factor.
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Mr. Morden
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« Reply #15 on: October 09, 2015, 10:45:18 AM »

Federalism. Separation of Powers. Bicameral Legislature. Bill of Rights.
None or those are particularly conservative, two of those  are just classical  liberalism in practice

But separation of powers and the bicameral legislature create more veto points, which builds in a bias against big government programs.  Like I said upthread, if the US had a parliamentary system, then universal health insurance would have been passed during a time of Democratic majority in the 1960s or 1970s, and it would be popular today.  So the large number of veto points in the US system of government does have the effect of shifting the political spectrum somewhat to the right of where it would be in a parliamentary system, at least on economic issues.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #16 on: October 09, 2015, 10:55:47 AM »

I'm not sure if it is significantly more conservative than other industrialised countries. It has been much tougher territory for socialism than most but that is not exactly the same thing and is not an exclusive feature to the United States (i.e. the history of socialist politics in Canada is primarily one of noble failure). The fact that a large socialist party never established itself (although the SPA came close and maybe could have managed it with competent leadership: alas it had a saint instead) is significant and is unusual and has had important consequences (i.e. on the scope of social welfare policies etc), but is entirely explicable by the unusual structure of the American political system which happens to be wickedly effective at stymieing new political movements and at resisting structural change.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #17 on: October 09, 2015, 11:11:31 AM »

America is not more conservative than comparable countries, it's just that American conservatism is different. We broke away from the British monarchy and what that had entailed (a titled nobility/aristocracy, a dour state church, etc.) and substituted for the laissez-faire of Protestant religion and of capitalist economics. Those markets, in turn, quickly became institutionalized within the new country,  and homegrown American conservatives have jealously guarded those liberties from state intervention.

Which brings up another point - American conservatives, especially since the New Deal, have defined themselves as being the authentic defense of the constitutionally-guaranteed order of economic and religious liberties against government-led social engineering. There's a lot more to say here about how the US Constitution has an inflexible, near-divine status within much of contemporary American conservatism, and how the framework of the Constitution thwarts significant political change, but I don't want to make this post too long. Tongue
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #18 on: October 09, 2015, 12:16:27 PM »

More than diversity in and of itself, I think the legacy of slavery has a lot to do with it. As does the US' geopolitical position post-WW2 as the "leader of the free world".
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« Reply #19 on: October 09, 2015, 03:48:01 PM »

It isn't unless you consider Lockean liberalism a conservative tradition.
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« Reply #20 on: October 09, 2015, 03:56:45 PM »

Well, I think it is more conservative than most of Europe, at least.

I'd say the point of divergence was the 1960s-80s, when the US experienced an uncommonly strong conservative reaction to the counterculture movement and to the perceived failure of Keynesian economics. Reagan and Goldwater did not have hugely different positions, but Reagan won a landslide in 1984 while Goldwater lost a landslide in 1964.

Among the factors that contributed to this conservative reaction were the high percentage of evangelicals (compared to other countries) who were wedded to the conservative movement after Roe v. Wade and other perceived affronts, racial polarization (particularly in the South), and the US's central place in the Cold War.

You could also put the point of divergence in the 1930s-40s, when the US did not move as far left as some others in reaction to the Great Depression and World War II.

This is why we should thank FDR
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« Reply #21 on: October 09, 2015, 03:57:19 PM »

I think the U.S. Constitution and our republic's long history have ingrained a strong sense of the importance of negative liberties (and less emphasis on positive liberties) in the minds of people.  In a lot of other nations in which democracy is newer, negative rights and positive rights are seen as going hand-in-hand (as in, right to speech, assembly, etc. goes along with right to housing, healthcare, etc.) , whereas in the United States, the imposition of positive liberties as rights is met with far more opposition than in other parts of the world.
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« Reply #22 on: October 09, 2015, 03:59:02 PM »

Well, I think it is more conservative than most of Europe, at least.

I'd say the point of divergence was the 1960s-80s, when the US experienced an uncommonly strong conservative reaction to the counterculture movement and to the perceived failure of Keynesian economics. Reagan and Goldwater did not have hugely different positions, but Reagan won a landslide in 1984 while Goldwater lost a landslide in 1964.

Among the factors that contributed to this conservative reaction were the high percentage of evangelicals (compared to other countries) who were wedded to the conservative movement after Roe v. Wade and other perceived affronts, racial polarization (particularly in the South), and the US's central place in the Cold War.

You could also put the point of divergence in the 1930s-40s, when the US did not move as far left as some others in reaction to the Great Depression and World War II.

That movement destroyed American family values, and that led to crime skyrocketing so I believe the US didnt react enough against the counter culture movement
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Mr. Reactionary
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« Reply #23 on: October 09, 2015, 05:24:42 PM »

It isn't unless you consider Lockean liberalism a conservative tradition.

It is now.
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #24 on: October 09, 2015, 06:18:23 PM »

This question's premise is flawed: America is not a conservative nation. Americans, more so than the citizens of most "Western Nations", do not have an abiding faith in the customs, values and conventions of "tradition". Furthermore, the idiom of American politics is an idiom that's actively hostile to the idea of collective or corporate bodies. When Americans speak of politics, they use the language of the American religion: Individualism. This is all to say that America is a nation that tends to be hostile to the modern European political tradition, which is located in forms of corporate interest: confessional traditions, class etc. This does not mean that Americans do not possess a sense of collective responsibility but that Americans tend to be averse to using the government to meet these responsibilities. This is why Americans love the direct action of unions but disdain the welfare state and love the idea of "co-ops" but deplore the idea of nationalization. It's also why America has a storied tradition of labor radicalism but only a brief history of working class politics.

One of the ironies of American Individualism is that it has been reconciled with good old American communalism, which remains an important but often overlooked American article of faith. Our political language may be located in the individual but not those individuals, who are Papists or swarthy or Jew-y etc. American racial caste played a crucial role in limiting the potential of socialism: how could there be "class consciousness" in the early 20th century when skilled workers were largely WASPs or assimilated Irish or Germans and unskilled workers could hardly speak English? In Europe, skilled workers formed the bedrock of socialism. In the US, skilled workers tended to oppose socialism, especially after World War I.

If I had to succinctly re-state my argument, I'd say that America is many things but it's certainly not conservative and that it is defined by the odd interaction between American caste and American Individualism, which often produces a garbled politics that's hard to define using comparative terms. In this sense, American is a very exceptional nation. It defies easy explanation. 

Note: my claims are gross over-generalizations but that's inevitable when discussing American values or political traditions.
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