Was prohibition a right wing or left wing political movement?

Bitching feminists got it passed. Left wing. If Hillary wins we are so screwed...

Well if you are going to just say without any basis or facts...this was a good use of a thread!

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Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that I'll be over here looking through your stuff.

Statist diktat = right wing.

Marlon, Claudia & Dimby the cats 1989-2010. Clio the cat, July 1997 - 1 May 2016.

Define left/right wing.

When darkness overcomes the heart, Lil' Slugger appears...

Quite a fascinating concept. You cannot really put your finger on it.

All I can think is that it is the Bull Moose Party's platform. Essentially Progressive Republicans.

It was an alliance of social justice and big industrialism. The industrialists wanted their workers to show up to work sober to increase production, and the 1st wave feminists did not want the drunk workers beating up their wives and drinking away their children's money.

In the 1920s, Republicans were fiscally conservative, but they had a socially liberal and socially conservative wing of their party. Democrats were socially conservative and fiscally liberal. The only fiscal liberals and social liberals were the communists and socialists.

That's why Republicans dominated the White House in the 1920s. Communists and Socialists took so many votes away from the Democrats that Democrats were unable to win an election.

Prohibition can't be attributed simply to Democrat-left or Republican-right. A previous responder mentioned the Bull Moose (progressive) party as the source. There is no mention of temperance/prohibition in their platform of 1912.

There were temperance movements against alcoholic consumption in the US for at least 100 years before it was passed during the Woodrow Wilson administration, and they were going on in other parts of the world as well.

President Wilson (D) vetoed it after it had been passed by congress because he did not believe it could be enforced/policed. Congress voted again and over rode his veto.

In December 1917, the 18th Amendment, also known as the Prohibition Amendment, was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. (the US entered WW1 officially - April 6th, 1917).

Part of the time in 1917 the Democrats held a majority in the senate and House of representatives (64th congress) and later in 1917 (65th congress) the Republicans held a majority in the House while the Democrats retained their majority in the Senate. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774721.html

January 29, 1919, the 18th Amendment achieved the necessary three-fourths majority of state (legislatures and governors voting, not the public at large) ratification. Prohibition essentially began in June 1919, but the amendment did not officially take effect until January 29, 1920.

Just like today, a majority by any given party does not guarantee a victory for their agenda. Often there are members within a majority party who want to be bribed or given a marker for a future favor in order to get them to vote along party lines. And of course the same is true to get a few of the opposing party to go along with whatever the scheme is. The primary goal of prohibition was to get a larger liquor tax established. They had to destroy the home brew industry in order for that to happen and used the guise of morals and religion to do it.

There were many farms that had stills, before prohibition. It wasn't just about laying around drunk, wife beating or shooting up the town. The alcohol was used for medicine and sterilization, even by religious people when they needed to, despite their belief that it came from the devil.

If you paid close attention to this series, you should have noticed that there was an abundance of corruption, deal making, bribing and so on. Lies told by politicians in order to get elected then do as they please or rat when cornered.

Notice that every election mentioned in this series (not documentary) was to get people to vote Republican.

You saw that many young men got duped into a foreign war (for their countries freedom?) then came home (if they did) and were not allowed to drink. The war and prohibition benefited Wall St. and Congress the most, a few gangsters made out as well. The regular citizens who wanted to drink had to pay extra and face jail, beatings and other extreme loss simply because some did not want to and didn't want anyone else to either.

The entire goal of political parties is to keep voters arguing over who is best and then bawling when their liar/idealist loses. The party that wins then gets to put the butts of their high dollar supporters in ground floor positions and grant them lucrative IPO opportunities. The general public eventually marches on and celebrities continue to believe their opinions carry extra weight.

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Books and movies are usually better than real life.

Right or left, it was a gift to organized crime.

Oh yeah of course! Making unsupported statements is the way to go.