redistribution of political power and cultural riches moving beyond their reach .
Employees ’ class feelings were well grounded in U . S . history . The post-1945 development of U . S . capitalism smashed the extraordinary employee class unity that had been formed during the Great Depression of the 1930s . After the 1929 economic crash and the 1932 election , a reform-minded “ New Deal ” coalition of labor union leaders and strong socialist and communist parties gathered supportively around the Franklin D . Roosevelt administration that governed until 1945 . That coalition won huge , historically unprecedented gains for the employee class including Social Security , unemployment compensation , the first federal minimum wage , and a large public jobs program . It built an immense following for the Democratic Party in the employee class .
As World War II ended in 1945 , every other major capitalist economy ( the UK , Germany , Japan , France , and Russia ) was badly damaged . In sharp contrast , the war had strengthened U . S . capitalism . It reconstructed global capitalism and centered it around U . S . exports , capital investments , and the dollar as world currency . A new , distinctly American empire emerged , stressing informal imperialism , or “ neo-colonialism ,” against the formal , older imperialisms of Europe and Japan . The United States secured its new empire with an unprecedented global military program and presence . Private investment plus government spending on both the military and popular public services marked a transition from the Depression and war ( with its rationing of consumer goods ) to a dramatically different relative prosperity from the later 1940s to the 1970s .
Cold War ideology clothed post-1945 policies at home and abroad . Thus the government ’ s mission globally was to spread democracy and defeat godless socialism . That mission justified both increasingly heavy military spending and McCarthyism ’ s effective destruction of socialist , communist , and labor organizations . The Cold War atmosphere facilitated undoing and then reversing the Great Depression ’ s leftward surge of U . S . politics . Purging the left within unions plus the relentless demonization of left parties and social movements as foreignbased communist projects split the New Deal coalition . It separated left organizations from social movements and both of them from the employee class as a whole .
Despite many employees staying loyal to the Democratic Party ( even as they disconnected from the persecuted left components of the New Deal ), the Cold War pushed all U . S . politics rightward . The Republican Party cashed in by being aggressively pro-Cold War and raising funds from employers determined to undo the New Deal . The Democratic Party leadership reduced its former reliance on weakening unions and the demoralized , deactivated remnants of the New Deal coalition . Instead that leadership sought funds from the same corporate rich that the Republicans tapped . The predictable results included the failure of the Democratic Party to reverse the rightward shift of U . S . politics . The Dems likewise abandoned most efforts to build on the achievements of the New Deal or move further toward social democracy . They increasingly failed even to protect what the New Deal had achieved . These developments deepened the alienation of many workers from the Democratic Party or political engagement altogether . A vicious downward cycle , with occasional temporary upsurge moments , took over “ progressive ” politics .
That vicious cycle entrapped especially older , white males . Among employees , they had gained the most from the 1945 – 75 prosperity . However , after the 1970s , employers ’ profit-driven automation and their decisions to relocate production abroad seriously undermined their employees ’ jobs and incomes , especially in manufacturing . This part of the employee class eventually turned against “ the system ” — against the prevailing economic tide . They mourned a disappearing prosperity . At first , they turned right politically . The Cold War had isolated and undermined the left-wing institutions and culture that might otherwise have attracted anti-system employees . Leftleaning mobilizations against the system as a whole were rare ( unlike more single-issue mobilizations around issues like gender , race , and ecology ). Neither unions nor other organizations had the social support needed to organize them . Or they simply feared to try . Even more recently the rising labor and union militancy has so far only secondarily and marginally raised themes of systematic anti-capitalism .
Republican politicians and media personalities seized the opportunity to transform the disappearing post-1970s prosperity into an idealized American past . They carefully avoided blaming that disappearance on profit-driven capitalism . They blamed Democrats and “ liberals ” whose social welfare programs cost too much . Excessive taxes were wasted , they insisted , on ineffective social programs for “ others ” ( the nonwhite and non-male ). If only those others worked as hard and as productively as white males did , Republicans repeated , they would have enjoyed the same prosperity instead of seeking a “ free ride from the government .” Portions of the employee class persuaded by such reasoning switched from Democrat to Republican and then often responded to Trump ’ s “ Make America Great Again ” ( MAGA ) mantra . Their switch stimulated Republican politicians to imagine a possible new mass base much broader than their existing mix of religious fundamentalists , gun lovers , and white supremacists . Leading Republicans glimpsed political possibilities unavailable since the Great Depression of the 1930s had turned U . S . politics leftward toward social democracy .
Emerging from within or around the Republican Party , the new 21st-century far Right revived classic U . S . isolationist patriotism around America First slogans . They combined that with a loosely libertarian blaming of all social ills on the inherent evil of government . By carefully directing neither criticism nor blame toward the capitalist economic system , Republicans secured the usual support ( financial , political , journalistic ) from the employer class . That included employers
78 x The Trial Lawyer