Post-World War II Period in the United States
Republican Party: The Post-World War II Period
Introduction to Post-World War II Period
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s the moderates dominated the party on the national level. Republican moderate Wendell Willkie was defeated in 1940, as was Thomas E. Dewey in 1944 and 1948, but Dwight D. Eisenhower, also a moderate candidate, won the presidency in 1952 and again in 1956.
Seeking a way to break the power of economic issues with their disastrous effect on party fortunes, Republicans returned to the social issues of an earlier day, although with modern overtones. Party leaders again argued that they represented a particular kind of American society: traditional, small town, and family oriented. This ideal played a part in the popularity of Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s crusade against Communist subversion in the early 1950s and in conservative Republican attacks on Eastern establishment (meaning cosmopolitan and urban) values in the same decade. In the 1960s this approach became dominant: More and more the party represented itself as the movement of a better America-more homogeneous, simpler, happier, and unspoiled by the ruinous policies of the New Deal Democrats.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Post-World War II Period in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia