# Lecture 1 - Political and economic trends after WW2 I. I. Civil Rights and the War on Poverty : 60s liberalism
A liberal in the US is someone who believe the role of the federal government in regulating the economy, investing in the economy to boost it and has one of his priorities being equality ( even before some type of freedom ). One way to do that is to regulate the economy or also redistribute money through taxes and social services. Famous example are : Roosevelt, Johnson and Kennedy.
→ The New Frontier :
→ The Great Society ( liberal Programm by Johnson ) : idea of more equality in the USA by creating more
Civil Rights legislation : Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965
Women’s Rights : Supreme Court case Roe v Wade in 1973
# II. From Reagan to Trump : a conservative backlash
Started in the 80’s and came from a clash between politics adopted in the 60s and people with conservative beliefs.
New ideology that comes from the conservatives implies that there should be a free market, by going through deregulation. They went to be freer so it will be easier to invest.
When Trump was elected, he clearly used Reagan’s ideas and used a reference to a Reagan quote as his slogan. He promised the largest tax cuts ( it was especially for corporation and business) as well as pushing for environmental deregulation.
Trumpism has an even more extreme anti-government position : instead of saying a smaller government is better, he says the government is corrupt and that people not elected by Americans are the ones actually deciding what the gouvernement will be doing. He undermined constantly the democracy in America and said he was the only one who was honest and would work for the American people. His slogan “drain the swamp“ was a clear illustration of these ideas because it pushed to “clean“ Washington.
# III. Obama and Biden : old ans News faces of liberalism
After 4 years of Trump presidency, the Democrats chose Biden ( seen as safer because he is an old white man that has been in politics for long ), that is still a bit more conservative than others because he is not progressive so he could attract some more moderate conservatives and republicans who didn’t to vote for Trump.
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