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    Conservatism in The USA

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    lwassim453

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    Conservatism in The USA

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    lwassim453
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    Conservatism in the USA

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    Conservatism in The USA

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    Conservatism in the United States

    Conservatism in the United States has a long and evolving history. Modern conservatism as
    we know it emerged in the 1920s with the Republican party. Although conservatism aimed to
    isolate America from Europe's messy wars, this proved unrealistic throughout the twentieth
    century.

    Modern Conservatism in the United States

    In the 1920s, after the First World War, a series of three Republican presidents were in
    power, and all were strongly committed to conservatism.

    In the United States, this political ideology favours a free economy, private ownership, a
    limited federal government, and maintaining traditional social ideas.

    Modern Republican conservatism opposed the idea of government intervention. Here are
    three ideologies that define modern conservatism:

    Laissez-faire capitalism

    This meant businesses were free to expand without government restrictions. Conservatives
    believed that as these businesses grew wealthier, everyone would benefit as wealth would
    ‘trickle down’ in the form of employment opportunities. In practice, this led to policies like
    lowering taxes on personal income and business profits, weakening the power of unions, and
    reducing overall government spending.

    Laissez-Faire economics is the ideology that the government should have no intervention in
    the free market or economy.

    Protectionism

    It involved increasing taxes on foreign goods, in order to protect American businesses from
    competition.

    Isolationism

    When a country ignored international events in favour of focusing on national interests.


    However, complete withdrawal from international relations was impractical during the
    1920s.

    Conservatism in the United States - Key takeaways

     Conservatism became popular after the First World War as it offered the American
    people ‘a return to normalcy’ in comparison to the reforms of the Progressive Era.

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     Key economic concepts of conservatism include laissez-faire capitalism, the trickle-
    down principle, and protectionism.
     The conservative ideal for foreign policy was isolationism, but this period focused on
    disarmament, cooperation, and policies that helped US national interests.
     The three conservative Republican presidents of the 1920s were Warren Harding,
    Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, who were consistent in their conservative
    policies.
     Conservative policies included tariffs on foreign goods, reduction in government
    spending, and tax reduction.
     Social conservatism focused on maintaining traditions, which manifested in the 1920s
    as fear of anything ‘alien’, including socialists, immigrants, and minorities. It was also
    the basis for prohibition and fundamentalist Protestants banning the teaching of
    evolution.

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