History tells us that World War II united Americans, but as in
other conflicts it was soon back to politics as usual. Nancy Beck
Young argues that the illusion of cooperative congressional
behavior actually masked internecine party warfare over the New
Deal.
Young takes a close look at Congress during the most consensual war
in American history to show how its members fought intense battles
over issues ranging from economic regulation to social policies.
Her book highlights the extent of--and reasons for--liberal
successes and failures, while challenging assumptions that
conservatives had gained control of legislative politics by the
early 1940s. It focuses on the role of moderates in modern American
politics, arguing that they, not conservatives, determined the
outcomes in key policy debates and also established the methods for
liberal reform that would dominate national politics until the
early 1970s.
"Why We Fight"--which refers as much to the conflicts between
lawmakers as to war propaganda films of Frank Capra--unravels the
tangle of congressional politics, governance, and policy formation
in what was the defining decade of the twentieth century. It
demonstrates the fragility of wartime liberalism, the nuances of
partisanship, and the reasons for a bifurcated record on economic
and social justice policy, revealing difficulties in passing
necessary wartime measures while exposing racial conservatism too
powerful for the moderate-liberal coalition to overcome.
Young shows that scaling back on certain domestic reforms was an
essential compromise liberals and moderates made in order to
institutionalize the New Deal economic order. Some programs were
rejected-including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National
Youth Administration, and the Works Progress Administration-while
others like the Wagner Act and economic regulation were
institutionalized. But on other issues, such as refugee policy,
racial discrimination, and hunting communist spies, the discord
proved insurmountable.
This wartime political dynamic established the dominant patterns
for national politics through the remainder of the century.
Impeccably researched, Young's study shows that we cannot fully
appreciate the nuances of American politics after World War II
without careful explication of how the legislative branch redefined
the New Deal in the decade following its creation.
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