While the civil rights movement isolated liberals from the working class and southern Democrats, the Vietnam War threw another wedge into the liberal ranks, dividing pro-war "hawks" such as Senator Henry M. Jackson from "doves" such as Senator (and 1972 presidential candidate) George McGovern. As the war became the leading political issue of the day, agreement on domestic matters was not enough to hold the liberal consensus together. Vietnam was part of the strategy of containment of Soviet Communism which began in ernest after World War II with the descent of the so-called Iron Curtain. In the 1960 presidential campaign, the Kennedy was more hawkish on Southeast Asia than the Richard Nixon. Although it can be argued that the war expanded only under Johnson, there was much continuity of their cabinets. As opposition to the war grew, a large portion of that opposition came from within liberal ranks. After Johnson refused to run again, assassination removed Robert Kennedy from contention and noted liberal Vice President Hubert Humphrey emerged from the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention with the presidential nomination of a deeply divided party. Much of the party's right wing had left to support Governor of Alabama George Wallace. The result was a narrow victory for Republican Richard Nixon, a man who, although a California native, was largely regarded as from the old Northeast Republican Establishment. Nixon enacted many liberal policies, including the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, normalizing relations with Communist China, and starting the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to reduce the availability of ballistic missiles. Liberals hated Nixon for reasons going back to his attacks on Alger Hiss, who Nixon accused of being a spy for the Soviets. Their hostility grew as Nixon continued the Vietnam war. And yet, as president, Nixon had many policy positions that can only be described as liberal. Before Nixon was elected, the liberal wing of his own party favored politicians like Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton, while in the 1968 election Nixon appealed to a "silent majority" of conservatives, disgusted and frightened by soaring crime rates and widespread race riots.[37] Nixon's Enemies List was composed largely of liberals. And yet, as president Nixon pursued many liberal policies, often through executive orders. Examples include the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, which he achieved without a vote in Congress, and the increase in funding for such liberal programs as the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.[38]One of his top advisers was liberal Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said, "Nixon mostly opted for liberal policies, merely clothing them...in conservative rhetoric."[39] Nixon's conservative rhetoric rallied his base, but in addition to support for such liberal causes as the arts and the environment, he supported liberalization of laws against recreational drugs and even -- to the astonishment of conservatives-- imposed wage and price controls to counteract inflation. Noam Chomsky, who often attacks liberalism from the far left, has called Nixon, "in many respects the last liberal president."[40] Historians increasingly emphasize the liberalism of his administration's policies, while not attributing them to Nixon personally.[41] The 1965-1974 period was a major liberal activist era in Congress, with the Democratic-led Congresses during the presidency of Richard Nixon continuing to produce liberal domestic policies. They organized themselves internally to round up votes, track legislation, mobilize interests, and produce bills without direct assistance from the White House. A wide range of progressive measures were carried out, such as in Social Security (with a 20% benefit increase and linkage to automatic cost-of-living increases in 1972), public welfare (with expansion of unemployment compensation, food stamps, and supplemental security income additions to social security), workplace rules (with the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970), urban aid (with the addition of mass transit subsidies to highway construction enactments), environmentalism (with the passage of the National Environmental Protection Act of 1969 and the Clean Air Act of 1970), aid to education (including Title IX in 1972), civil rights (with the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 1970),[42] and nutrition (with the establishment of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children in 1972).[43] Although liberals turned increasingly against the Vietnam War to the point of running the war dove George McGovern for President in 1972, the war had been of largely liberal origin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States

• published: 02 Jun 2015
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