Right-wing politics
In modern times, "right-wing" is sometimes used to describe "laissez-faire" capitalism. In Europe, capitalists formed alliances with the Right during their conflicts with workers after 1848. In France, the Right's support of capitalism can be traced to the late-nineteenth century. The so-called neoliberal Right, popularised by US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, combines support for free markets, privatisation and deregulation with traditional right-wing support for social conformity. Right-wing libertarianism (sometimes known as libertarian conservatism or conservative libertarianism) supports a decentralised economy based on economic freedom and holds property rights, free markets and free trade to be the most important kinds of freedom. Russell Kirk believed that freedom and property rights were interlinked. Anthony Gregory has written that right-wing libertarianism "can refer to any number of varying and at times mutually exclusive political orientations". Gregory holds that the issue is neither right or left, but "whether a person sees the state as a major hazard or just another institution to be reformed and directed toward a political goal".
Political positions of the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. The party describes itself as supporting American liberalism and American progressivism. The party incorporates centrists liberals and progressives, as well as more left-wing or socialist movements, many aligned with the presidential campaign of independent Senator Bernie Sanders. There is also a small Conservative wing represented in the house by the Blue Dog Coalition, although Conservative Democrat ideology is different from the traditional Conservatism the Republican party supports. Policies of past Democratic platforms have sought to protect social programs, labor unions, consumer protection and workplace safety regulation, equal opportunity and racial equality, and regulation against pollution of the environment. Democrats support abortion rights and same-sex marriage, tend to support an easier pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.