Why didn't Republicans become the progressive/ liberal party?

[Clarence Boddicker]

Basically as the title says. The party was founded upon anti-slavery and internal improvements. Plus the first "modern" progressive president was the Republican Teddy. It seems the Democrats would have been a more natural home for the conservative party with its base in the South.

Was it the combo of Bull Moose/ Republican divide in 1912 leading to the progressive Wilson presidency, which was followed by the conservative Harding/ Coolidge/ Hoover presidencies? Or does it go back further to the Jacksonian distrust of big banks? I suppose William Jennings Bryan played a big part as well?

[RINO Tom]

This same topic has been covered a lot in this sub-forum, but the obvious flaw I see in your premise is the simplified assertion that (A) supporting abolition of slavery is INHERENTLY "progressive" in our modern political sense, and (B) it's even more ridiculous to act like supporting something as broad as "internal improvements" was inherently progressive - something Democrats at the time (understandably) derided as effectively corporate welfare, given American society at the time.  This amounts to the thinking that anything that led to positive ~progress~ has to be "progressive" in a left/right sense.  This is circular logic that just applies all of the good outcomes of history to the "progressives" and assigns anyone who opposed the "good" outcomes (which we view with 20/20 hindsight) as "conservative."  There were obviously left-wing GOPers who supported both abolition and internal improvements for "progressive" reasons, but there were also right-wing GOPers supporting both for "conservative" reasons.

To give a more "good faith" (if overly brief) answer, the GOP descended from the Whigs for a reason.  Once the big tent issue of opposing the expansion of slavery was out of the picture, the main two things tying the party together were nationalism and a generally pro-business attitude.  While there were obviously extremely left wing people in the GOP because it opposed slavery, it would be a mistake to think that had set the party on a natural path to be some left wing party.  The GOP was a unifying party of anti-slavery Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs ... and it seems clear that the Whig political influence was stronger.  In fact, it seems patently obvious that once slavery and Reconstruction were no longer at the forefront, the GOP very naturally and rather quickly showed its coalition's true colors.

If people want to try to argue the Whigs were to the left of the Democrats before this ... eh, I find that to be a super weak argument that is of the intellectual quality of "I just saw Hamilton and since I liked Alexander the most when it comes to race issues, he was obviously the progressive in that play."

[All Along The Watchtower]

1896.

[katelyn not caitlin]

This same topic has been covered a lot in this sub-forum, but the obvious flaw I see in your premise is the simplified assertion that (A) supporting abolition of slavery is INHERENTLY "progressive" in our modern political sense, and (B) it's even more ridiculous to act like supporting something as broad as "internal improvements" was inherently progressive - something Democrats at the time (understandably) derided as effectively corporate welfare, given American society at the time.  This amounts to the thinking that anything that led to positive ~progress~ has to be "progressive" in a left/right sense.  This is circular logic that just applies all of the good outcomes of history to the "progressives" and assigns anyone who opposed the "good" outcomes (which we view with 20/20 hindsight) as "conservative."  There were obviously left-wing GOPers who supported both abolition and internal improvements for "progressive" reasons, but there were also right-wing GOPers supporting both for "conservative" reasons.

To give a more "good faith" (if overly brief) answer, the GOP descended from the Whigs for a reason.  Once the big tent issue of opposing the expansion of slavery was out of the picture, the main two things tying the party together were nationalism and a generally pro-business attitude.  While there were obviously extremely left wing people in the GOP because it opposed slavery, it would be a mistake to think that had set the party on a natural path to be some left wing party.  The GOP was a unifying party of anti-slavery Democrats and anti-slavery Whigs ... and it seems clear that the Whig political influence was stronger.  In fact, it seems patently obvious that once slavery and Reconstruction were no longer at the forefront, the GOP very naturally and rather quickly showed its coalition's true colors.

If people want to try to argue the Whigs were to the left of the Democrats before this ... eh, I find that to be a super weak argument that is of the intellectual quality of "I just saw Hamilton and since I liked Alexander the most when it comes to race issues, he was obviously the progressive in that play."

Plus, it's often left out by modern day progressives -- including ones that are people of color -- that thinking blacks should not be enslaved is NOT the same as thinking blacks should be equal.

Non-white academics also tend to deliberately make whites who opposed racism seem more numerous, substantial and effective than they actually were (notably in the recent critique of Dr. Seuss).

Such deliberate fabrications and exaggerations discredit attempts to draw attention to the real unpleasant facts of history.

As even TV Tropes notes, there were far more people that tried to be a Schindler than Schindler -- but they were caught early and they and the persecuted they were trying to save were killed -- and nobody makes a movie about *them*.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fridge/SchindlersList

[°Leprechaun]

The Democratic party wasn't always as liberal as it is now, but that doesn't mean that the GOP had to be liberal.

The Democrats were once the establishment party and the Whigs anti establishment; many Whigs became Republicans.

Being anti establishment isn't the same as being liberal.

I do think Bryan was liberal for his time although obviously very conservative religiously.

[RINO Tom]

The Democratic party wasn't always as liberal as it is now, but that doesn't mean that the GOP had to be liberal.

The Democrats were once the establishment party and the Whigs anti establishment; many Whigs became Republicans.

Being anti establishment isn't the same as being liberal.

I do think Bryan was liberal for his time although obviously very conservative religiously.

Curious what you mean about the Whigs?  Most contemporary attack ads against them from Democrats seem to have painted them as a party of monied interests (in bed with Wall Street and the railroad companies), anti-immigration and morally judgmental.

[katelyn not caitlin]

How were the U. S. Whigs related to the British Whigs (the latter are the direct ancestor of today's Liberal Democrats)?

[wnwnwn]

1896

[OSR stands with Israel]

I mean Teddy Roosevelt was never someone who was really backed by the GOP establishment. He was only put in as VP because the Republicans thought that would be the best possible way to appease his base and sideline him at the same time.

Also despite the fact he was a progressive he utterly despised Woodrow Wilson and his side of the family went on to despise FDR too. I would actually say Teddy Roosevelt was more of a populist than he was a progressive and Wilson 100% fit the progressive label far more.

[°Leprechaun]

The Democratic party wasn't always as liberal as it is now, but that doesn't mean that the GOP had to be liberal.

The Democrats were once the establishment party and the Whigs anti establishment; many Whigs became Republicans.

Being anti establishment isn't the same as being liberal.

I do think Bryan was liberal for his time although obviously very conservative religiously.

Curious what you mean about the Whigs?  Most contemporary attack ads against them from Democrats seem to have painted them as a party of monied interests (in bed with Wall Street and the railroad companies), anti-immigration and morally judgmental.

I think that Whigs were formed as an opposition party to Jackson and that Jackson was seen as an establishment President.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

It's important to identify what the Republican Party of the era was. It was a nationalist developmentalist coalition with an aim to unify, industrialise and purify the American nation. Its planks were patriotism, Protestant moralism and the protective tariff. One could in a way compare the 19th century GOP to the interwar KMT in China: both had progressive elements, both set themselves against pre-industrial landlordism, but the parties were not "left" as a whole.

The Democratic Party represented everyone who felt threatened and left out of this drive for national modernisation: urban ethnics, labour unions, southern sectionalists, poor farmers and so on. They saw the Republican vision for America as exclusivist and hierarchical: a corrupt nexus of big business and federal government steamrolling the common man under the presumption that everyone should be a good, obedient, industrious Yankee. In this context it's easy to understand why the Democratic Party absorbed the new left and the Republican Party did not.

[Battista Minola 1616]

How were the U. S. Whigs related to the British Whigs (the latter are the direct ancestor of today's Liberal Democrats)?

The US Whigs appear to have taken their name because of opposition to "King" Andrew Jackson, drawing a parallel to the patriots of the American Revolution who had revolted against King George III and were sometimes known as Whigs (because of course, Whigs on the British mainland were the faction opposed to absolute monarchy).

[RINO Tom]

The Democratic party wasn't always as liberal as it is now, but that doesn't mean that the GOP had to be liberal.

The Democrats were once the establishment party and the Whigs anti establishment; many Whigs became Republicans.

Being anti establishment isn't the same as being liberal.

I do think Bryan was liberal for his time although obviously very conservative religiously.

Curious what you mean about the Whigs?  Most contemporary attack ads against them from Democrats seem to have painted them as a party of monied interests (in bed with Wall Street and the railroad companies), anti-immigration and morally judgmental.

I think that Whigs were formed as an opposition party to Jackson and that Jackson was seen as an establishment President.

Ah, gotcha, that makes sense.  However, I would argue that it in the minds of the Whigs (and quite possibly even the Democrats, with a much more positive spin, of course!), it was Jackson who was the anti-establishment figure, and his reign as President was effectively the "inmates running the asylum."  So, "anti-establishment" sentiment among the Whigs seemed to have a flavor much more comparable to "bring back the good ole days!" than "tear down the system!"

It's important to identify what the Republican Party of the era was. It was a nationalist developmentalist coalition with an aim to unify, industrialise and purify the American nation. Its planks were patriotism, Protestant moralism and the protective tariff. One could in a way compare the 19th century GOP to the interwar KMT in China: both had progressive elements, both set themselves against pre-industrial landlordism, but the parties were not "left" as a whole.

The Democratic Party represented everyone who felt threatened and left out of this drive for national modernisation: urban ethnics, labour unions, southern sectionalists, poor farmers and so on. They saw the Republican vision for America as exclusivist and hierarchical: a corrupt nexus of big business and federal government steamrolling the common man under the presumption that everyone should be a good, obedient, industrious Yankee. In this context it's easy to understand why the Democratic Party absorbed the new left and the Republican Party did not.

Great response and a much more eloquent articulation of some of the things I was at least trying to say, haha.

[°Leprechaun]

Religion is probably one of the big factors.

It is also useful to look at the maps of POTUS elections.

The southeastern, northeastern and western states are a good example.

Start with Vermont once the most Whigs/GOP state.

Today only DC is more Democratic than Vermont.
The best example is 1976. The west was very GOP.
The southern states for the most part went for Carter.
A lot changed from 1876-1976.
Obviously the GOP has moved to the right over the last 100 years.

Although FDR was more liberal than the GOP today, but I think Dewey was liberal for his time. There are probably few Rockefeller (who was VP) Republicans today.

[wnwnwn]

Southerns favored initially currency populism (silver) and later fiscal spending. The latter started to change in the Old Right late 30s/early 40s years, but by then the northern democrats had enough of a base with labor unions and urbans.

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

The Republican Party was the party of business from the Civil War onward.  Democrats were more socially conservative in many ways, but the GOP was the business party.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Around 1881, the Republican party was heavily split into 2 factions. The Half-Breeds were generally more progressive while the Stalwarts were more conservative. However, the Stalwarts were more pro civil rights, so I guess civil rights was seen as a right wing issue then.

[oldkyhome]

If the GOP ever had a “progressive” President, it was assuredly Lincoln, but even that stretches the definition, I think.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The income tax institution divided the R v D party and FDR and Truman used it for new entitlement that's how we ended Depression and we are still divided by the income tax Rs wants to give giant tax cuts to oil Corporation

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The problem with assuming that the GOP were the "progressives" and Democrats were "conservatives", using slavery as a proxy for progressive vs conservative, is that this is an anachronism based on a gross oversimplification of American history (but a very common one, so I can't blame anyone for it).

If you frame the Republicans as the party of radical social justice activists who fought for the abolition of slavery and establishment of racial equality, and the Democrats as the party that fought to maintain slavery, then you'd think the Republicans were left and Democrats were right. But let's frame it differently - the Republicans were the party of highly conservative and puritanically religious Protestants, mostly of Anglo-Saxon stock, who were friendly towards business interests and hostile towards immigrants and religious minorities, and the Democrats were the party supported by recent immigrants and religious minorities who opposed both the business-friendliness and social conservatism of the Republicans. Based on that, you'd think nothing has changed, the Republicans have always been right-wing and Democrats have always been left-wing.

Of course, the reality is that neither narratives are entirely true. The Republicans were the party of abolitionists, some of whom (radical republicans) went further than just abolition and were advocating ideas on racial and social justice that sound a lot like how 21st century liberals talk about these things, yet they were also the party of business interests and nativist religious conservatives. The Democrats were the party of southern slaveholders, yet they were also the party of the northern working class, and ethnic/religious minorities like Irish Catholics, Jews, etc. You can't really apply 21st century political divides to the 19th century and reach a meaningful conclusion.

Anyway, to the actual question. It's undeniable that the Republicans took the more "progressive" position on the slavery issue. And seeing as that was the most pressing issue during the time of the GOP's founding, you could say that GOP was functionally the progressive party of the time, despite its conservative elements and conservative attitudes on many other issues (and indeed, many white northerners opposed slavery not on moral grounds, but because they feared southern planters would buy up all the land out west and they'd be left with nothing - for many northerners, it had little to do with slavery itself, and more to do with their economic self-interest). Regardless of motivations, Republicans clearly took the progressive position. The GOP reached "peak progressive" during Reconstruction, when the radical republicans dominated the agenda, and conservative northerners went along with it because of their alignment on Reconstruction. As Reconstruction went on though, many northerners started losing interest in reconstruction, which turned into something of a quagmire. In some ways the Civil War was actually similar to Iraq. Beating the South wasn't the hard part (at least when competent generals were put in charge), just like beating Saddam wasn't the hard part. The hard part was establishing order. Here we can think of the KKK as a parallel to the Islamic groups that rose up in the power vacuum left behind by Saddam. And similar to Iraq, many Americans who had previously supported the efforts decided that it was no longer worth it.

The radical republicans had fulfilled their purpose, at least partially. Slavery was abolished, but black southerners weren't really "freed" in the way the radical republicans had envisioned. America entered the Gilded Age, and northern businessmen who had built ties with the governing GOP were now in the driver's seat, with radical Republicans largely marginalized. After all, the only reason the radical Republicans ever had influence was because of the slavery/Confederacy/reconstruction issue. Once this issue lost salience, so did the left wing of the GOP.

This of course wasn't the end of Republican progressivism. But it did end the radical streak within the GOP. Even during the progressive era when Republican presidents like TR and Taft enacted a number of progressive reforms like trust-busting, this wasn't the kind of radical left-wing Republican ideology from the Reconstruction era, but a much more moderate form of progressive conservatism (Teddy did move further left later in his career, but at his most progressive, he was the Bull Moose candidate, not Republican). And even then, we can see how anachronism can cloud the historical context - while progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt supported left-wing economic reforms like trust-busting, he was also a rabid imperialist. Again, if you frame Roosevelt as a warmonger who wanted to conquer small Latin American countries, and Democrats as the anti-imperialists, you could easily argue that Roosevelt was right-wing and Democrats were left-wing, which would not be accurate.

As for the Democrats, once reconstruction ended and especially after Jim Crow was put into place, the south was basically guaranteed for them. This meant the South had less political influence. After all, if southerners are going to vote for you anyway, why pander to their conservative sensibilities? Obviously, southern Democrats were very much on the political right, and northern Democrats knew better than to upset them. But your average Democratic politician wasn't thinking "hmm, how will Alabama react to this policy", because Alabama was going to vote Democratic anyway, as long as they didn't touch segregation (or run a Catholic). And in the north, Democrats realized that they would be permanently out of power if they were seen as the "southern party". So the Democrats also started ignoring the south and running presidential campaigns mainly based on "northern" issues.

Woodrow Wilson is a good example. Among the things he's remembered for is his southern roots and confederate sympathies, even Klan sympathies. But he wasn't exactly Strom Thurmond either, the policies he advanced were broadly progressive, just like Roosevelt and to a lesser extent Taft. Both Republicans and Democrats were competing for the same states, running on similar policies, because roughly between 1900 and 1920, progressivism became the default political position outside the south, which wasn't competitive anyway. But Wilson, arguably the most progressive of the TR-Taft-Wilson trio, alienated a lot of conservatives - there just weren't that many conservatives at the time, and even his Republican opponent in 1916 supported many of Wilson's reforms.

Post-WWI is when conservatism makes a comeback via the GOP. Americans were exhausted from the turbulence of the progressive era and wanted something more conservative. Wilson had moved the country to the left relative to Taft, so when Harding comes in with a conservative, "return to normalcy" platform, Republicans dominate northern conservatives even more than they already used to. Throughout the roaring 20s, the GOP rode this wave of economic prosperity, and business interests were happy with how things were going. But when the Depression struck, Republicans were blamed for it, and FDR came in on a promise of being the opposite of Republicans. During times of crisis, voters often crave the exact opposite of the current guy, and that's what FDR promised - it wasn't really true, Hoover wasn't a laissez-faire Republican like Coolidge, but his interventions were ineffective and FDR was able to paint this as Hoover "doing nothing" for "the common man", that sort of thing.

Was it inevitable that Republicans become the party of the right, and Democrats the left? No, because there's a bunch of butterfly effect scenarios that could have changed that. If let's say Roosevelt wins in 1912, runs for re-election and wins in 1916 as well (no term limits back then), then it's possible that in 1920, it's the Democrats who put forward a "return to normalcy" campaign. But ultimately, the Republicans were always more likely to be the conservative party. The conservative wing of the Democratic party was disproportionately in the south, which was irrelevant as far as elections go. And there weren't many Republicans in the south at all. So the way the two parties diverged was influenced mostly by the industrial north, where the Republicans usually sided with industrialists and Democrats with the workers. So in some ways, the Republicans were never the natural party of the left, even when they used to advocate for some left-wing policies.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

On top of everything else that people have discussed there is also an element of the Republican Party having, quite simply, become the right because they won so hard on policy over the course of the 1860s. There's a letter from Justin Smith Morrill where he talks to a friend about Republican policy "hardening into the bones of the Constitution" via Radical Reconstruction. That sort of sentiment is in and of itself inevitably going to come across as more "left-wing" before it actually happens and more "right-wing" once it has happened.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

On top of everything else that people have discussed there is also an element of the Republican Party having, quite simply, become the right because they won so hard on policy over the course of the 1860s. There's a letter from Justin Smith Morrill where he talks to a friend about Republican policy "hardening into the bones of the Constitution" via Radical Reconstruction. That sort of sentiment is in and of itself inevitably going to come across as more "left-wing" before it actually happens and more "right-wing" once it has happened.

That's an interesting point and one I hadn't thought of, but it makes sense. Republicans of course dominated the presidency between the Civil War and the depression, and in the 70 years between 1860 and 1930, Republicans controlled the house for about 46 of those years. It would only make sense that the party that was able to control and dominate public policy would come to favour the status quo, and the party that spend most of that time out of power would come to oppose the status quo.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Just adding onto my lengthy post about the two parties - this is also why the "Democrats used to be right-wing and there was a big party switch in the 1960s" is such a lazy narrative that again is based on modern politics and not actual history. The reality is, the last time the Democratic presidential candidate was clearly to the right of his Republican counterpart was Cleveland vs Harrison in 1892. Maybe you could say 1904 (which wasn't really a competitive election anyway), but since then, in every presidential election, the Republican candidate was more right-wing. At best you had exceptions like 1940 and 1944 when the GOP ran to the left of FDR on civil rights, hoping to exploit growing divides between northern and southern Democrats. But civil rights was a second-order issue at the time, it wasn't the relevant metric of left vs right. On issues that most voters cared about, Willkie and Dewey were to the right of FDR. Truman ran to Dewey's left, just as Ike was to the right of Stevenson, just as JFK was to the left of Nixon. The "party switch" didn't happen in 1964, it never really happened at all, civil rights just became relevant post-WW2 in a way it hadn't been previously.

The reality is that the Democrats had generally been the more liberal of the two, and Republicans the more conservative, for all of the 20th century. The reason why Democrats opposed civil rights was not because they were conservative, but because civil rights was not an issue that (white) voters cared about between reconstruction and the 1960s. The idea of a liberal party being okay with racial segregation makes no sense today, but it made sense during the time.

[RINO Tom]

If the GOP ever had a “progressive” President, it was assuredly Lincoln, but even that stretches the definition, I think.

Ironically, you could argue that there has never been a President before or since Lincoln that was so clearly the embodiment of a "moderate" both nationally and relative to his party's various factions.  So, I cannot agree with this one.

[Agonized-Statism]

The New Deal, pretty much. You could make a case for the 1920s as the turning point, as the turn-of-the-century middle class progressive Republican drive for reform and muckraking had petered out into a purely efficiency-focused "business progressivism", but I contend that old school Theodore Rooseveltian progressivism would have come right back had a Democrat been at the helm on Black Thursday.

FDR didn't start as progressive as he wound up becoming. He still indulged the traditional small-government sectionalists and free-wheeling palm-greasing political machines as president early on. His approach to education reform, for instance, was very indirect and circumvented the Republican-affiliated progressive-dominated Office of Education, a move likely driven by his belief in states' rights, fiscal conservatism, and means-tested entitlements. It actually wasn't until the Great Society that a significant federal aid package would be provided directly to public education. The New Deal was intended to be a temporary relief effort at first, and Democrats' embrace of progressivism was a right-place, right-time, pragmatic sort of thing. The support for government intervention and social welfare programs just kept going on the momentum of the New Deal Coalition, the war effort, and then the need to put a human face on capitalism during the Cold War, and Republicans defined themselves in opposition to it as their own coalition lost the industrial proletariat.