The concept of Cold War Liberalism developed after the end of World War II as President Truman turned to domestic issues, such as housing, health insurance, and civil rights. With the escalation of the Korean War, however, Truman worked on uniting Southern Democrats to support the war.
A leading voice of the left as the cold war with the Soviet Union escalated was former vice president Henry Wallace, who served under FDR's third term and became Secretary of Commerce in 1945. Wallace criticized Truman for backing away from the social welfare legislation that characterized the New Deal. Wallace believed the US government could work with Stalin toward a peaceful foreign policy, whereas Truman took a more authoritative position.
Wallace ran as a Progressive Party candidate for president in 1948 but only attracted less than three percent of the popular vote. His views became more accepted in the following decades, since war spending cut into social welfare programs. The 1950s political trend known as McCarthyism, in which conservative lawmakers accused American business leaders of being communists, reflected defiance toward liberals.
The Truman Doctrine was a dominant foreign policy for decades, in which the US agreed to protect democratic countries from internal or external authoritarian forces. Domestically, Truman had to plan for a transition from a wartime economy to peacetime employment. In 1948 he campaigned for national health insurance and an aggressive civil rights program.
President Kennedy's "New Frontier" marked a milestone for Cold War Liberalism, as he crafted legislation for the Civil Rights Act and inspired youth to become more involved with politics. He called for expanding Social Security to include more Americans and raising minimum wage. President Johnson continued liberal social programs with his "Great Society," which introduced Medicare in 1966. LBJ's "War on Poverty," introduced in 1964, was a training program that led to a significant decline in poverty within a decade.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/henry-wallace-criticizes-trumans-cold-war-policies
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/01/archives/beyond-the-new-deal-harry-truman-liberal-harry-s-truman-and.html
"Cold War Liberalism" is a term that is used to describe the domestic and international policies of Democratic Presidents after World War II, including Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. Their policies involved expanding the role of the federal government in fighting for Civil Rights and fighting poverty, and they also supported labor unions. Internationally, they opposed Communism and framed their liberal agenda as a battle against Communism.
Truman, who favored a policy of Containment, or stopping the spread of communism abroad, supported several liberal domestic policies, including expanding social security, public housing, and civil rights. Truman turned to an increasingly liberal agenda in the 1948 presidential election. He called for national health insurance and supported the Housing Act of 1949, which provided for an increased role of the federal government in building public housing. The act also provided for federal financing to clear slums and renew urban areas. Truman was a supporter of civil rights, but his policy was stymied by the opposition of southern Democrats, or Dixiecrats, who opposed an end to segregation.
After the relatively conservative presidency of Eisenhower, Kennedy came to office in 1961 with a youthful optimism that made him a beloved figure. He was the figurehead of Cold War Liberalism. While fighting Communism abroad, he was a proponent of a liberal domestic program called the New Frontier. He supported increasing the minimum wage, expanding Social Security, and passing the Equal Pay Act (supporting equal pay for women). He and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, also supported Civil Rights, including the integration of the University of Mississippi during a tense standoff with Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett in 1962 and the integration of the University of Alabama in 1963.
Kennedy was in the midst of gathering congressional support for a civil rights bill when he was tragically shot in November of 1963. Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society continued the liberal agenda, with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and the expansion of federal entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. His War on Poverty aimed to reduce the national poverty rate through the expansion of federal programs in education and health care.
However, economic woes and a backlash against the growing size of the federal government had made "liberalism" a dirty word by the 1970s. Many Americans resented the government interfering in what they felt were their private affairs, and they did not want an expansion in government spending. Therefore, Carter eschewed the label in his 1976 campaign for the presidency.
https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/civil-rights-movement
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