Liberals Modern liberalism in the United States began during the
Progressive Era with President
Theodore Roosevelt (a
Republican) and his
Square Deal and
New Nationalism policies, with center-left ideas increasingly leaning toward the political philosophy of social liberalism, better known in the United States as modern liberalism. Following
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 (the latter of which established
Medicare and
Medicaid) further established the popularity of liberalism in the nation and became part the Democratic tradition. While the resurgence of conservatism and the
Third Way of
Bill Clinton's
New Democrats briefly weakened the influence of modern liberalism,
Barack Obama acted as an ideological bridge. While characterizing himself as a New Democrat, Obama toed the ideological line between Third Way and modern liberalism. poll:|266x266px The key legislative achievement of the
Obama administration, the passage and enactment of the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), was generally supported among liberal Democrats. Under Obama, Democrats achieved an expansion of LGBT rights and federal hate crime laws, rescinded the
Mexico City policy (later reinstituted by President
Donald Trump) and the ban on federal taxpayer dollars to fund research on
embryonic stem cells, and implemented the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and the
Cuban thaw. In 2011, the
Democratic Leadership Council, which supported centrist and Third Way positions, was dissolved. In 2016, Democratic presidential nominee
Hillary Clinton eschewed her husband's "
New Covenant" centrism and pursued more liberal proposals, such as rolling back mandatory minimum sentencing laws, a debt-free college tuition plan for public university students, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. President
Joe Biden, a moderate Democrat, also adopted more traditional liberal policies during his presidency and was more willing to address the concern of the progressive wing than Presidents Clinton and Obama. Liberals include most of academia, as well as large portions of the
professional class. The liberal wing differs from the traditional organized labor base. According to political scientists Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, the increase in
educational attainment in the United States has led to the increase of liberalism in the Democratic Party.
Moderates Generally speaking, moderate Democrats are Democrats who are fiscally moderate-to-conservative and socially moderate-to-liberal. They are more likely to be located in
swing states and
swing seats. The success of modern liberalism was weakened with the presidency of
Ronald Reagan and the ensuing tide of conservative popularity in response to a perception of liberal failure. In reaction to angst following Reagan's landslide victory over liberal Democrat
Walter Mondale in the
1984 United States presidential election, the Third Way movement was formed. It is associated with the
presidency of Bill Clinton and the
New Democrats. During the
1992 United States presidential election, Clinton and running mate
Al Gore ran as New Democrats who were willing to synthesize
fiscally conservative views with the more
culturally liberal position of the Democratic Party ethos, or to harmonize center-left and
center-right politics. Clinton was both the first Democrat elected president since 1976 and the first re-elected to a second full term since 1948. Most moderate Democrats in the
United States House of Representatives are members of the
New Democrat Coalition, although there is considerable overlap in the membership of New Democrats and Blue Dogs, with most Blue Dogs also being New Democrats. Presidents
Barack Obama and
Joe Biden largely tried to unify the various factions of the Democratic Party while still addressing the goals of the progressive wing, although Obama was hammered by the conservative factions and the
Tea Party movement. The
historical progressive wing of the Democratic Party is associated with
William Jennings Bryan and the
People's Party. They gained control of the party in 1896, when the Democratic Party selected at that time the youngest presidential candidate in Bryan and repudiated the more conservative administration of
Grover Cleveland, and kept it until 1908, the last time Bryan was the presidential nominee. With the exception of 1904, when the
Bourbon Democrats and conservative allies of Cleveland regained control while Theodore Roosevelt's platform included progressive policies advocated by Bryan and his supporters, the Democratic Party nominee was from the progressive wing. Bryan and the historical progressives successfully turned the Democratic Party from a conservative party to a progressive alliance that elected Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
John F. Kennedy, and
Lyndon B. Johnson. Unlike some members of the historical progressive wing, such as Bryan who held fundamentalist religious views, While it does not transcend the political philosophy of modern liberalism, the progressive wing has fused tenets of cultural liberalism with the economic left-leaning traditions of the
Progressive Era, as well as drawing more robustly from
Keynesian economics,
left-wing populism, and democratic socialism/
social democracy, particularly through Franklin D. Roosevelt's
Four Freedoms. , while an
independent, caucuses with the Democratic Party and is often considered an influential figure in the
modern progressive movement in the United States. President Johnson and
civil rights movement activists, such as King, were influential to progressives not only for their positions on race and identity but also on economics, for example Johnson for the
Great Society, which has been called by some a "second
Reconstruction", or King for his support of
democratic socialism. While there are differences between them, both historical progressivism and the
modern progressive movement share the belief that
free markets lead to economic inequalities, and therefore that the free market must be aggressively monitored and regulated with broad
economic and social rights to protect the working class. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is a caucus of progressive
House Democrats in the
United States Congress, along with one independent in the Senate (
Bernie Sanders), a progressive who identifies as a democratic socialist, and ran in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. Sanders is credited, alongside the Democratic Party's broader progressive wing, with influencing a leftward shift in the party, as well as for the election of several democratic socialists within the Democratic Party. In 2016, the
Blue Collar Caucus, a pro-labor and anti-outsourcing caucus, was formed by representatives
Marc Veasey and
Brendan Boyle. Since 2019, there have been at least six democratic socialists in the House of Representatives as members of the Democratic Party, and in doing so some of them defeated notable New Democrats incumbents, such as
Joe Crowley and
Eliot Engel, in the primaries. As of 2024, at least thirteen of
socialist Democratic representatives had at some point been affiliated with the
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
Rashida Tlaib, and
Greg Casar, who was elected in 2024 to lead the progressive caucus. Former Democratic representatives, such as
Ron Dellums,
David Bonior,
Major Owens,
Cori Bush, and
Jamaal Bowman, were also affiliated with the DSA. elevated progressive politics, and influenced the country and party. The progressive wing has voiced support for legislation such as the
Green New Deal and
Medicare for All.
Conservatives , a leader of the informal but powerful
conservative coalition The
conservative coalition was an unofficial coalition in the
United States Congress bringing together a conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly
Southern wing of the
Democratic Party. It was dominant in Congress from 1937 to 1963 and remained a political force until the mid-1980s, eventually dying out in the 1990s. In terms of Congressional roll call votes, it primarily appeared on votes affecting labor unions. The conservative coalition did not operate on civil rights bills, for the two wings had opposing viewpoints. However, the coalition did have the power to prevent unwanted bills from even coming to a vote. The coalition included many committee chairmen from the South who blocked bills by not reporting them from their committees. Furthermore,
Howard W. Smith, Chairman of the
House Rules Committee, often could kill a bill simply by not reporting it out with a favorable rule and he lost some of that power in 1961. The conservative coalition was not concerned with foreign policy as most of the Southern Democrats were internationalists, a position opposed by most
Republicans. Today, conservative Democrats are generally regarded as members of the Democratic Party who are more conservative than the national political party as a whole. The
Blue Dog Coalition was originally founded as a group of
conservative Democrats. After reaching a peak of 59 members in 2008, the caucus was decimated following the 2010 election, reduced to only 26 members. The caucus has shifted left in recent years, adopting more liberal stances on social issues and aligning more closely with Democratic Party policies. The Coalition remains the most conservative grouping of Democrats in the house, broadly adopting
socially liberal and
fiscally conservative policies and promoting fiscal restraint, although some members retain
socially conservative views. Currently, 10 House members are part of the Blue Dog Coalition.
Libertarians == Congressional caucuses ==