Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The history of left-wing politics in the United States consists of a broad range of individuals and groups that have sought fundamental egalitarian changes. [1] Left-wing activists in the United States have been credited with advancing social change on issues such as labor and civil rights as well as providing critiques of capitalism .
At the end of the 18th century, upon the founding of the first liberal democracies, the term Left was used to describe liberalism in the United States and republicanism in France, supporting a lesser degree of hierarchical decision-making than the right-wing politics of the traditional conservatives and monarchists.
Peter Berkowitz writes that in the U.S., the term liberal "commonly denotes the left wing of the Democratic Party" and has become synonymous with the word progressive, [74] a fact that is usefully contextualized for non-Americans by Ware's observation that at the turn of the 21st century, both mainstream political parties in the United States ...
Left-libertarianism, [1] also known as left-wing libertarianism, [2] is a political philosophy and type of libertarianism that stresses both individual freedom and social equality. Left-libertarianism represents several related yet distinct approaches to political and social theory .
While liberal and conservative are the primary ideological descriptors in the United States, they do not necessarily correlate to usage of the terms in other countries. In the United States, liberalism refers specifically to social liberalism and cultural liberalism, and it leans farther to the left than liberalism in other countries.
Filmmaker Michael Moore directed a series of popular movies examining the United States and its government policy from a left-wing perspective, including Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story and Fahrenheit 9/11, which was the top grossing documentary film of all time. [86]
Major examples include Theodore Roosevelt's Square Deal and New Nationalism, Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal, John F. Kennedy's New Frontier and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. In the first half of the 20th century, both major American parties had a conservative and a liberal wing.
In the United States, liberalism took a strong root because it had little opposition to its ideals, whereas in Europe liberalism was opposed by many reactionary or feudal interests such as the nobility; the aristocracy, including army officers; the landed gentry; and the established church. [52]