Archive Report
Archive Report
Liberalism's Decline
Liberal Crisis and Conservative Gains
On Jan. 21, Americans will witness the second inauguration of Republican President Ronald Reagan. Many of his supporters view Reagan's landslide victory last November as the ratification of a conservative political philosophy, out of vogue since the New Deal days of the 1930s but redeemed by Reagan's first election in 1980. In addition, many political pundits describe Reagan's triumph over Walter F. Mondale as another body blow, perhaps a fatal one, to the liberalism that has dominated the Democratic Party for the past half-century.
Obituaries for liberalism have been written before but seldom with such good reason. Mondale, who regarded himself as the bearer of a torch passed to him by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy, ...