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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy do US Republicans revere Winston Churchill?
When Winston Churchill was Prime Minister in 1951-1955 Britain had:
* 97% top rate of tax
* Keynesian demand management for full employment
* increased social security benefits
* increase of government-built social housing
* socialised medicine
* open-door immigration policies
Turbineguy
(37,427 posts)He was good at it.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)The Republicans were isolationists before WWII, some because they didn't think we belonged in foreign wars & some because they didn't want us impeding Hitler.
But once they caught on to the potential value of the Cold War, they suddenly decided they liked ol' Winnie.
ashling
(25,771 posts)On the Road
(20,783 posts)in opposition to the Labor Party. Clement Attlee, who he lost to in 1945, had a most more liberal -- one might say socialist -- platform.
Many of the policies under Churchill would certainly be considered very liberal today, but there was a different political consensus then. Conservatives accepted things like higher income taxes and social security as a hedge against even more collectivist policies including Marxism, which still had a lot of adherents in Churchill's time.
geardaddy
(24,936 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)there was a very strong socialist move in many areas. Both the UK and the USA adopted our safety net programs to combat the movement.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)former9thward
(32,179 posts)FDR revered him. I didn't know FDR has become a Republican.
Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)When I've debated Republicans on the web before about Winston Churchill they refuse to believe aspects of the OP
former9thward
(32,179 posts)Post war Great Britain was a wreak economically. Whether Churchill would have had those same policies in today's Great Britain is hard to say.
Lawlbringer
(550 posts)Which falls directly into the 20th-21st century GOP's line of thinking.
firehorse
(755 posts)If you look at it contextually, America was still coming out of a depression, the last thing we wanted was to go to war. Our allies in England were being blown to bits by the Germans in WWII. Some critics say we waited too long to help them out. But those who are old enough to have lived through the era revere Churchill.