On the (Supposed) Demise of Liberalism in American Politics

Conservatives in the 1960s, particularly Barry Goldwater, accused liberals of attempting to eliminate private property rights, increase the role of government in private lives, and join ranks with Communists.4When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he and his fellow conservatives charged liberalism with being responsible for the breakdown of morals, families, communities, and organized religion. According to Kevin P. Phillips, the rise of the Moral Majority led by Reverend Jerry Falwell, which encompasses 20 to 30 percent of the American people, gained energy as a militant neo-puritan counterforce by attacking liberals on the one hand for their acceptance of sexual permissiveness, homosexuality, and abortion, and on the other hand for their derogation of family, prayer, and the Bible.11 Although divided over the play of the morality card in 1976 with the born-again Christian-Jimmy Carter running as a Democrat-fundamentalists soon lost faith in the president, because ultimately, as Phillips pointed out, he was required to collaborate with the largely liberal national Democratic party.