Liberalism is political philosophy that has shaped the United States and the world into what we know of the modern world. American politicians have proudly claimed to be a liberal while others have tried to portray liberals are the root causes of all problems in America. Ever since the early 1900s, Liberalism has been in a deep ideological battle with Conservatism. To be a liberal and a conservative have evolved over the centuries but it has been the liberal thinkers who have purposed ideas that are ahead of their time. Conservatives evolve when liberal ideas become mainstream and adopt them but continue to oppose other liberal ideas. But many people don’t seem to know what a liberal is today but only knows the negative image given by the Conservative Republicans. To understand the meaning of liberal is to look at the dictionary definition of liberal, liberals who claim to be liberal, and the conservatives.

            Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines liberal as a : one who is open-minded or not strict in the observance of orthodox, traditional, or established forms or ways b capitalized : a member or supporter of a liberal political party c : an advocate or adherent of liberalism especially in individual rights. That kind of definition of a liberal doesn’t have any negative connotations or put into any unflattering context or used as a derogatory term. Not too many people in the American culture see themselves as closed-minded, stuck in the established forms, or fight against individual rights. This doesn’t necessarily mean everybody in the United States is a liberal nor even most people in the United States are liberal. The liberal-conservative rating is only relative and it based on current society attitudes, historical attitudes, and the individual’s willingness to change from an insufficient status quo. An example of this would be Thomas Jefferson, third president of the U.S., he was a radical liberal of his day but some of his positions he took during his day would be conservative by today’s standards. What disconnects him from the conservatives and what makes him a liberal is his willingness to change from the status quo to increase individual freedom during his time. Another way of assessing liberal-conservative attitudes is comparing groups of people to other groups of people like organizations, cities, and countries. An example of this is the modern United States is more liberal than Iran. Even though both countries are controlled by their religious right, America has more dissenting groups working against them promoting freedom than Iran has. To a culture that supposedly stands for freedom, the term liberal seems to have very positive ideas attached to it. But in the United States, the self-proclaimed liberals are shunned and treated as if they are way off line from the mainstream.

            This wasn’t always so in America. Presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy proudly called themselves liberals. George Washington said “As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.” This kind of thinking of a liberal is explained well by Kennedy by saying “But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a Liberal, then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal.” This was part of his speech after accepting the Liberal Party of New York’s nomination. The term was more popular back in the 1960s because many people associated liberals with progress in social fields and caring for people’s economic well-being. Kennedy was connecting himself to a group of people that created the welfare program, social security, and economic securities like bank protections, rules on the stock market. Roosevelt and Kennedy both catered to liberal organizations in their day.

            Kennedy was using the connotation of liberals as freedom loving people who protect the people’s well being to his advantage. Before anything else, Kennedy was a politician and as a politician he did things that would go against liberal ideals and the very core of liberal beliefs. Kennedy wasn’t so fast to accept the civil rights of the black people in fear of losing Southern Democrats and he also followed a conservative policy of fighting communists, like the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam. There was many ways the United States fought against communists back in 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s that had very little connection to the freedom of people and in many cases the United States fought against them. In the 1950s, Kennedy was very friendly with Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator that destroyed people’s lives that were accused of being or sympathetic to communists. Even Kennedy’s brother Robert was working for McCarthy at the time. This kind of support for McCarthy goes against the law and against the morals of many liberals that usually supported Kennedy. Luckily for Kennedy, he was having medical problems at the time and he didn’t have to publicly show any type of anti-McCarthy sentiments his constituency had or publicly show any anti-liberalness that would upset his liberal constituency. Also his support for an anti-communist foreign policy that included support for dictatorships that happen to be not communist is not liberal but common practice for the United States government. Although he did not put an end to imperialistic policies all together, he did limit them and spent a lot more resources to finding non-military ways of helping people from turning to dictatorships.  Kennedy is only liberal comparatively speaking to his political opponents like Richard Nixon. The term liberal is subjective and is usually used comparatively between different kinds of people. But Nixon would be considered liberal compared to current day conservatives like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

            “They call their policy the new realism, but their new realism is just the old liberalism. They will place higher and higher taxes on small businesses, on family farms, and on other working families so that government may once again grow at the people's expense. You know, we could say they spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors,” said Ronald Reagan at the Republican National Convention in 1984. Reagan and people like him seem to have a totally different definition of liberals. According to Reagan, liberals are for higher and higher taxes and for big government spending. In Reagan’s speech, he portrays his opponents as liberals and then he tries to define liberalism as supporting big government and big tax increases. Him saying, “government may once again grow at the people’s expense” shows he doesn’t believe in any kind of government intervention that’s supposed to help improve people’s lives. Conservatives like Reagan believe in less government spending on domestic causes and allow the “free” market take control of that sector except when it comes to dictating morals. Reagan, like Kennedy and other politicians, used people’s emotion to help define conservatism and liberalism in his own terms. The conservatives have been continuously saying similar bad things about the liberals ever sense Franklin Roosevelt’s time, even in Kennedy’s speech he shows he recognizes it when he said, “What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of Liberal." Only after Reagan’s presidency did the term liberal become a bad word in politics. Many people have attributed the negative connotations of the liberal label to the perceived failures of liberalism in the 1970s.

            There were many problems in the 1970s with the economy, domestic issues, and foreign issues. The economy was suffering from “stagflation” caused by problems from the energy crisis. With inflation increasing and unemployment rising, the United States wasn’t having economic growth like it had in last few decades and the president of the time, Jimmy Carter, had very little control of it. Also President Carter had very little control of the hostages taken in Iran. Ronald Reagan and his conservative allies led a campaign of blaming liberalism for many problems the United States was suffering from. Reagan claimed the government should be smaller in size, businesses allowed more freedom, and lessen the progressive tax. Reagan proudly claimed he was a conservative and liberals were opposite of him, which would be big government, government take over of business, and high taxes.

In an article called “The Liberal Label” written by Geoffrey Nunberg, he describes the changing meaning of the term liberal. He claims the conservatives are on a campaign of “branding” the liberals into something else. This process of branding is using connotations continuously until the connotations become part of the definition or become the only definition. The common conservative definition of a liberal tends to be someone who supports big government, high taxes, weak on defense, special rights for blacks and other minorities, soft on crime, anti-Christian, love gays, baby killers, and depending on which conservative asked, liberals are either out of the mainstream radicals or the rich elite eastern establishment. The self-proclaimed liberals have supported increased government involvement in the economy and support a government welfare system to provide a safety net. Liberals also support increased funding into education and crime prevention but to pay for these programs they believed in higher taxes on the wealthiest members of society. Conservatives are basing their definition from their perceptions of how the world should work.

            But which definition of liberal is correct? Is it the more common modern definition made by the conservatives or the definition from the self-proclaimed liberals that have a historical ideological connection to liberals of the past? As mentioned before, the conservatives are on a campaign of branding liberalism with some new definition. The term liberal could be thought of as a brand name, a product that political activists want to sell to voters. The term conservative also could be thought of the same way. Even though liberalism is not dogmatic like other ideologies, most self-proclaimed liberals support certain policies that they feel fulfills the chief tenants of liberalism. As liberal political groups try to achieve these goals, they try to convince the voting members of the public that the policies are good or in other words, try to sell their brand of liberalism. An example of a chief tenant of liberalism being turned into a policy is “equal opportunity for all.” The self-proclaimed liberals believe the best way to achieve that goal of giving everyone the ability to achieve success in society is to give a high quality education for everybody. They also believe in a welfare system that will help get people take control of their own lives without starving, going cold, and going without medical treatment if needed. Because they support those policies, liberals usually campaign to gain public support of those policies. Many of their ads are made to draw in people’s compassionate side to help people. The intended meaning of their campaigns is to gain support of government help to people but the conservatives may look at their campaigns see something else. Many conservatives may believe that liberal campaigns appeal to “bleeding hearts” to get more tax money to increase the size of the government.

            But why do conservatives not like the self-proclaimed liberals policies. There are studies that make the claim that conservatives simply fear change. All Humans fear change to some extent but liberals are noted to have a higher tolerance towards change. Many conservatives describe themselves as traditional people and usually talk to with like-minded people. There is some comfort in keeping everything the same and if that’s all someone knows then, that person will more likely dismiss liberal points of view. Also some conservatives, the very wealthy ones, don’t want liberal policies in place because of the fear of losing their wealth and influence. The status quo has benefited them and the fear of change will lead some to spending a great amount of money to secure the status quo. Another reason people don’t like liberal policies is because they simply don’t know enough information about what the liberals policies are suppose to do and how they work. It doesn’t help people when a politician claims the other guy will raise taxes, causing people to fear their taxes will be raised but the other guy will only raise taxes on the wealthy. An example of this is the 2004 election, George Bush against John Kerry.

            But does that mean the self-proclaimed liberals have the right definition even though most people don’t even know their version of the definition. Someone could question the actual creditability of the conservative definition of a liberal by examining the massagers of the definition. President Reagan by his own definition of what a liberal is actually makes him a liberal. In his first years of presidency, he did lower taxes but only for the rich and effectively raised taxes on the lower income families. Also through out his presidency he raised taxes. As for big government, he increased the size of the military considerably and made record high deficits until conservative President George W. Bush surpassed that. But just because political groups made up a new definition to discredit their opponents, does that mean a common a way of viewing liberals wrong?

            It’s possible to have two definitions coexisting together and people simply have to point out which definition they are using by saying directly or using it in a certain context. The future of one of the definitions could depend on how successful the self-proclaimed liberals do in the future political arena. If the self-proclaimed liberals gain success in the future with their definition of a liberal, the conservative definition will probably lose out entirely. But if the self-proclaimed liberals abandon the liberal label, only following the ideology, the conservative definition will throw out the other. There is a strong chance that liberalism as described by John F. Kennedy will continue on and gain resurgence. As Kennedy said, “…liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today.”