America's Right Turn

Historian William Berman's America's Right Turn reads like a case study of separation between liberalism and conservatism in American politics. The backdrop against which the study in politics is set is the American economy. Berman contends that America's liberal welfare state politics, instituted by Franklin D. Roosevelt, were not effective in dealing with 1970s cultural and economic crises. He argues that this inefficacy created a shift in American mentality toward the conservative right. Thus, Ronald Reagan and George Bush enjoyed a twelve year reign of control that included tax cuts for the well-off and increases in military spending at the expense of and instead of social programs and development favoring the poor. Ironically, he points out that this same inefficacy with regard to cultural and economic crises that allowed Reagan and Bush to come to office, was similar to the inefficacy of the Bush administration which allowed Bill Clinton to gain the presidency, one which declared "It's the economy, stupid" in its first term and promised "The end of big government" in its second. Berman contends that Clinton could not find a viable political alternative to the GOP and eventually focused on the federal deficit and economics, the legacy of Reagan and Bush. Further, the author argues Clinton continued to shift his policies away from the left and more toward middle-ground, to the point of co-opting numerous issues of th

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sh the party in a left-liberal direction both in 1984 and 1988. Neoliberalism attracted such Democrats as Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton, who sought to shift their party's focus solely from the problems and concerns of marginalized workers and the unemployed to the larger structural requirements of an American economy facing severe competition in the global marketplace" (Berman 190). The globalization of the marketplace remained a driving force throughout both conservative and liberal administrations. Part of the reason for the shifting mentality of American voters was America's struggle during the 1980s to regain its political and economic hegemony. America seemed in jeopardy of losing its unlimited ability for profit, and millions of lost jobs added fuel to the fire. It was a fire that Reagan's policies were able to squelch, but the policies came at the expense of the poor and working class. Carter's inefficacy where the national economy was concerned helped fuel the conservative fervor sweeping across America. Americans began to lose faith in the Democratic party as being able to responsibly handle the economy. Big government seemed to be on the backs of working-class and middle-class Americans, spending m

Category: History - A