Wikipedia:Peer review/Political ideologies in the United States/archive1

Political ideologies in the United States

This is the first article I've done a comprehensive rewrite for, so I want to ensure that I've done everything correctly. I'm mainly interested in ensuring that it complies with the manual of style and that it's readable. I'd also be interested in feedback on images in the article.

Thanks, Thebiguglyalien (talk) 08:00, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Rublov

• Lead
  • Per MOS:BOLDAVOID, I think it would be better not to include the bolded article title in the lead since it forces the first sentence to be a little unwieldy. Basically the first sentence can be deleted with no harm to the article.
  • These ideologies were developed in the 20th century in response to the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, and the New Deal — A little imprecise. "In response to the Great Depression" makes sense. "In response to the Gilded Age" makes a bit less sense because the Gilded Age was not an event that could be responded to but an entire era. "In response to the New Deal" doesn't pair well with the others because the New Deal was itself a response to the Great Depression. Something like These ideologies cohered in the 20th century in the aftermath of the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, and the world wars might be better, perhaps with an additional sentence noting the impact of the New Deal on conservative politics.
  • and further developments continue to shape American political ideology to the present day — Without further details this is basically fluff; it doesn't say anything meaningful.
• Prominent ideologies
  • Link left–right spectrum.
  • Per MOS:ALLCAPS, the Tom Smith article title should be rendered in title case.
  • The United States uses a two-party system. — Might be good to throw in a de facto as the two-party system is not mandated by law.
  • As of the mid-20th century, the Democratic Party typically supports liberal policies and the Republican Party typically supports conservative policies. — I think you mean either "Since the mid-20th century" or "As of the early 21st century".
  • Third parties play a minor role in American politics, but members of third parties rarely hold office at the federal level. — "and" instead of "but" as these sentences are not contrasting.
• Prominent ideologies — Conservatism
  • I think it might be worth devoting a whole paragraph to the history of (modern) conservatism as this section touches on a lot of issues (the New Deal, civil rights movement, Cold War) without explaining them.
  • The movement was further strengthened by the Christian right and fiscal conservatism. — "Christian right" and "fiscal conservatism" don't pair well because the former is an actual movement while the latter is just a philosophy. In other words, "The movement was further strengthened by fiscal conservatism" doesn't make sense on its own.
  • over one third of the American public — per MOS:FRACTION, this fraction (and all others in the article) should be hyphenated.
  • that promote different motivations and priorities for the conservative movement — Fluffy; recommend deleting.
• Prominent ideologies — Liberalism
  • Similar comment to the previous section: needs more history, especially from the second half of the twentieth century with prominent liberals like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton who broke away from New Deal politics.
  • Is "fiscal liberalism" a commonly-used term? Without context I would have assumed it was a synonym of classical liberalism, but that is not how you are using it here.
  • Should probably also mention racial justice as an important goal of modern progressivism.
• Prominent ideologies — Moderates
  • doesn't — per MOS:CONTRACTION, this contraction (and all others in the article) should be written out.
  • people that identify as moderate aren't always centrist — This distinction needs further clarification.
• Minor and historical ideologies
  • Some commentators have described the Donald Trump administration and American right-wing populism as resembling fascism — The inclusion of this disputed claim may be considered WP:UNDUE.
  • The status Puerto Rico — missing "of".
• Comparison to global politics
  • the ideas of classical liberalism and Christian belief — "belief" and "ideas" are redundant.
  • American politics is dominated by individualist ideology instead of the collectivist ideology that influences politics in some European countries — This seems like an important idea which belongs in a more prominent place in the article.
• Other comments
  • I generally like the organization of the article, but I wonder if it would be better to have a dedicated "History" section describing the evolution of political ideology in the United States, followed by dedicated sections for modern ideologies that go into more detail. One issue with the article as it is is that it has a lot of historical information, but it's fragmented across many sections.
  • I don't know of a great way to illustrate an article about ideologies, but the number of portraits seems excessive to me.
  • One thing I did not really check is the sources cited. They mostly look like reliable sources to me; you might consider leaning more heavily on "high quality reliable sources" like published books and journal articles, versus news articles.

This is impressive work for your first real article. I hope my feedback is helpful to you. Ruбlov (talk • contribs) 22:50, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to look over the article! The history section was a really good idea. That's been my project for the last few days, and I think the article really benefits from it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:42, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Glad to help. I think the article's organization works well. Ruбlov (talk • contribs) 00:38, 17 April 2022 (UTC)