Originally published on Live Science on Sept. Once these things were in place, a small, hands-off government became better for business. In other words, earlier on, businesses needed things that only a bigger government could provide, such as infrastructure development, a currency and tariffs. "Although the rhetoric and to a degree the policies of the parties do switch places," he wrote, "their core supporters don't - which is to say, the Republicans remain, throughout, the party of bigger businesses it's just that in the earlier era bigger businesses want bigger government and in the later era they don't."
From this point on, Democrats stuck with this stance - favoring federally funded social programs and benefits - while Republicans were gradually driven to the counterposition of hands-off government.įrom a business perspective, Rauchway pointed out, the loyalties of the parties did not really switch. The admission of new western states to the union in the post-Civil War era created a new voting bloc, and both parties were vying for its attention.ĭemocrats seized upon a way of ingratiating themselves to western voters: Republican federal expansions in the 1860s and 1870s had turned out favorable to big businesses based in the northeast, such as banks, railroads and manufacturers, while small-time farmers like those who had gone west received very little.īoth parties tried to exploit the discontent this generated, by promising the general public some of the federal help that had previously gone to the business sector. The party's small-government platform cemented in the 1930s with its heated opposition to Roosevelt’s New Deal.īut why did Bryan and other turn-of-the-century Democrats start advocating for big government? Big GovernmentĪccording to Rauchway, they, like Republicans, were trying to win the West. 'In my late teens and early twenties I had two long-term relationships, one with a man and one with a.
Only gradually did Republican rhetoric drift toward the counterarguments. According to Anne, a 32-year-old nurse, being nonmonogamous wasn't a desire but a necessity. "Instead, for a couple of decades, both parties are promising an augmented federal government devoted in various ways to the cause of social justice," Rauchway wrote in an archived 2010 blog post for the Chronicles of Higher Education (opens in new tab).
(Image credit: Getty/ Bettmann) How did this switch happen?Įric Rauchway (opens in new tab), professor of American history at the University of California (opens in new tab), Davis, pins the transition to the turn of the 20th century, when a highly influential Democrat named William Jennings Bryan (best known for negotiating a number of peace treaties at the end of the First World War, according to the Office of the Historian) blurred party lines by emphasizing the government's role in ensuring social justice through expansions of federal power - traditionally, a Republican stance.īut Republicans didn't immediately adopt the opposite position of favoring limited government. The highly influential Democrat William Jennings Bryan, giving a speech.
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