Timeline: French Trafalgar, British Waterloo
Socialist Party of the United States | |
---|---|
Founder | Eugene V. Debs, Abraham Lincoln, |
Founded | 1887 |
Preceded by | Liberal Party, Workers of America Party |
Ideology | Civil rights, internationalism, Democratic Socialism, mixed economics |
Political position | Left |
International affiliation | International Socialist Congress |
Colours | red |
The Socialist Party of the United States is a left wing political party in the United States, and currently only one of the two major political parites in the US, the other being the Nationalist Party of the US
History[]
Established in 1887 by progressives from both the Liberal Party, as well as the trade unions, civil rights organizations and immigrant groups. However, the party began to change it positions, both with the political situation of the United States, and the need to present opposite view points to the more domestically oriented Nationalist Party. The increasing threat of the Confederacy, and the half-hearted Nationalist attempts in foreign policy, lead to the Socialists becoming the party of "Victory and Security," which won them their first presidency in 1912, in the beginning of the Second Global War. Afterwards, with many members who had fought in the war due either to conscription or patriotic duty, the Socialists continued their push for a strong foreign policy.
In the 1930s, with the pressures of the Great Depression the Socialists pushed for more state-run industry and business, which was popular during the Depression, and later during the Third Global War. However, This combination of continued pushing for government control of most industry, and hawkish foreign policy and "top down" economics lead to a series of defeats for 20 years after the impeachment of Harry S. Truman from 1956 to 1976, when Edward Kennedy in the 1976 Presidential Election pushed for a "New Socialism," pushing for more mixed economics, where the private sector that could provide services for a low price would not be interfered with, while services that could not be provided to some customers for a similar price would be taken care of by the government.