munism, with implications for domestic as well as foreign policy. Thus, not
only was it impossible for any American politician after 1948 to advocate
striking a deal with Russia or pursuing a foreign policy that would accom/
modate socialist countries such as North Vietnam or Hungary lest he or she
be labeled a communist sympathizer, but it also became impossible to advo/
cate left-of-center domestic policies such as national health care or childcare
services, inasmuch as these suggestions might be construed as “socialistic,”
collectivist, and hence sympathetic to communist ideology. In short, the
ground rules established by the paradigm clearly limited the terms of politi/
cal discourse.

The liberal consensus, as Hodgson described it, also constrained the ways
in which reformers could seek change on issues like race or poverty. Given
the premise that the American system was organically healthy, with no fun/
damental flaws, change had to be put forward as incremental reform. Civil
rights advocates focused, therefore, on remedial legislation to improve voting
rights or on lawsuits that would refine and enhance the meaning of equal
protection under the law. All of this occurred within the context of embrac/
ing the American Dream and seeking to make it more inclusive; the underly/
ing soundness of the American Dream never came into question. Similarly,
antipoverty warriors concentrated on making opportunities more available
to poor people, not on promoting structural change in the economy through
redistribution of income, because to do so would presume that there was
something wrong with the existing system.

Yet it had not always been the case that liberalism was so defined. Nor
would it necessarily remain so in the future. Indeed, the ways that liberalism
has changed in meaning provide a critical prism through which to under/
stand twentieth-century American politics. Although Hodgson applied his
definition of the liberal consensus specifically to the period from 1948 to
1968, it by no means exhausts the way the term liberal has altered over time.
If we presume a longer time frame, from the New Deal through the begin/
ning of the twenty-first century, the shifting definitions of liberalism provide
an ideal vehicle through which to understand what has and has not taken
place in American society. In this larger framework, each change in the con/
ception of liberalism potentially represents a pivotal variable in shaping
America's political history during this period.

Clearly, the New Deal constitutes the beginning point for any discussion
of liberalism. The Great Depression had ushered in a period of unrelenting
suffering for the American people. More than 25 percent of American work/
ers were unemployed; factory wages had shrunk from $12 billion to $7 bil/

-xii-