For years following World War II, there existed a widely accepted agreement known as the “liberal consensus.” This agreement embraced the idea that the federal government should play a role in regulating businesses, providing social safety nets, and promoting infrastructure. In fact, it became so popular that in 1950, critic Lionel Trilling famously stated that “liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition” in the United States.
However, the federal government’s involvement in civil rights became a game-changer with the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Opponents of the liberal consensus argued that the government was misusing tax dollars to promote civil rights for Black citizens, labeling it as a form of socialism. The deployment of troops to Little Rock Central High School in 1957, for example, incurred significant costs. Critics claimed that the government’s defense of civil rights resulted in wealth redistribution and therefore, aligned with socialism.
This intersection of race and economics was not a new phenomenon; it dated back to the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. Former Confederates had long argued against federal protection of Black rights, and this sentiment resurfaced during the latter half of the 20th century. Today, there are certain Republicans who are actively working to turn this argument into reality. Their labeling of all their opponents as socialists coincides with their efforts to suppress the voting rights of Black and brown individuals. Essentially, when former President Donald Trump refers to the country as falling under communism and “Marxists,” it suggests that a government that includes racial minorities is illegitimate.
During the 1950s, the accusation of socialism held great weight as Americans feared the growing influence of the Soviet Union and Communist China. However, the way Republicans used the term had little to do with actual socialism in the Bolshevik sense. Instead, it carried a unique meaning in the United States, rooted in the white supremacist backlash against Black civil rights in the 1870s.
Following the Civil War, the Republican-led government implemented national taxation and abolished legal slavery (with the exception of as a punishment for crime). This marked the first time in U.S. history that voting in federal elections directly impacted people’s wallets. In 1867, Congress passed the Military Reconstruction Act, granting Black men the right to vote in the South. White southerners who opposed Black voting rights resorted to terrorizing their Black neighbors. They disguised themselves as ghosts of deceased Confederate soldiers, donning white robes and hoods to intimidate formerly enslaved people from voting.
In response, Congress established the Department of Justice in 1870 to safeguard Black voting rights. Attorney General Amos Akerman prosecuted over 3,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan and secured more than 1,000 convictions. Additionally, Congress enacted laws to protect Black voting rights. As a result, white southerners could no longer object to Black rights based on racial grounds, so they shifted their argument to economics.
They argued against Black men voting because they believed that formerly enslaved people were financially disadvantaged and would vote for leaders who promised public investments such as roads and hospitals. Those endeavors would require tax levies, and since most post-war property owners in the South were white, they claimed that Black voting would redistribute wealth from white men to Black individuals. One magazine even claimed that Black voting represented “socialism in South Carolina.”
This argument portrayed poor Black workers as dangerous socialists, justifying the denial of their voting rights, marginalizing them within American society, and eventually leading to lynching. It was a uniquely American version of “socialism” that might have remained a historical anomaly had it not been revived in the 20th century by a small group of business leaders and southern racists bent on destroying the liberal consensus.
After World War II, most Republicans, like Democrats, understood the need for government oversight in business regulation, welfare programs, and infrastructure. They had witnessed the consequences of unregulated capitalism during the Great Depression and did not view the New Deal system as a radical idea. They saw the benefits of government involvement in their lives, from their homes to their cars cruising on the newly built interstate highways, and their increased wages due to strong unions in a nation experiencing its highest gross domestic production ever. Consequently, they dismissed those who sought to undermine this successful system as a radical minority.
However, the expansion of civil rights brought forth a new challenge to the liberal consensus, ultimately straining it. The stagflation of the 1970s pushed middle-class Americans into higher tax brackets at a time when they needed their income the most. This led to a perception that white tax dollars were being redirected to benefit racial minorities. As towns and governments tried to compensate for dwindling funds by raising property taxes, disgruntled property owners grew resentful of the government. Republicans capitalized on this discontent, painting Democrats as a party that catered to special interests, only interested in appeasing lazy Black supporters rather than working for the betterment of America as a whole.
In 1976, former California Governor Ronald Reagan ran for president and popularized the story of a “welfare queen” from Chicago’s South Side, a thinly veiled reference to a Black individual, who allegedly abused government benefits. Reagan claimed that this woman had multiple identities, addresses, and Social Security cards, and collected benefits fraudulently. While there was indeed a criminal matching this description, she was the exception rather than the norm. Nevertheless, this anecdote perfectly exemplified the notion that government intervention in the economy resulted in tax dollars going to supposedly undeserving Black Americans.
Reagan presented a solution to this perceived corruption by advocating for states’ rights in a speech delivered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980. This location was significant, as it was just miles away from where civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered by Ku Klux Klan members in 1964 while registering Black voters during Freedom Summer. By referencing states’ rights, Reagan invited voters to reminisce about a time before racial minorities and women began demanding equal rights. His campaign actively distributed buttons and posters that urged voters to “make America great again.”
Reagan’s presidency saw tax cuts, reduced spending on public welfare programs (while increasing defense spending and tripling the national debt), and a gradual erosion of the middle class. All of this was done in the name of preventing socialism, further undermining the liberal consensus.
Since 1981, wealth has become increasingly concentrated among the wealthy. However, the language associating socialism with minority voting has continued to escalate. Talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh propagated the idea that socialism was infiltrating America via Black individuals, feminists, and liberals. When Fox News debuted in 1996, it joined the chorus of voices claiming that political opponents were socialists with intentions to destroy the nation. Republicans relentlessly accused Barack Obama of being a socialist, and during Trump’s presidency, his team perpetuated this rhetoric.
Denial of responsibility! Vigour Times is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
