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| - For similarly named political parties, both historical and fictional, in the works of Harry Turtledove, see Socialist Party. The Socialist Party was a left-wing party that became a major political force in the United States after the Second Mexican War. Abraham Lincoln and a group of left-wing Republicans formed the Socialist Party in 1882 from a variety of leftist organizations. The Socialists were known for their mostly lenient foreign policy and their progressive views on labor. The Socialists had some success in regional elections the years following the Second Mexican War, but were never considered a threat to win a presidential election until after the Great War, when the widespread post-war labor strife catapulted them to victory, first as a senior partner in a governing coalition w
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| - For similarly named political parties, both historical and fictional, in the works of Harry Turtledove, see Socialist Party. The Socialist Party was a left-wing party that became a major political force in the United States after the Second Mexican War. Abraham Lincoln and a group of left-wing Republicans formed the Socialist Party in 1882 from a variety of leftist organizations. The Socialists were known for their mostly lenient foreign policy and their progressive views on labor. The Socialists had some success in regional elections the years following the Second Mexican War, but were never considered a threat to win a presidential election until after the Great War, when the widespread post-war labor strife catapulted them to victory, first as a senior partner in a governing coalition with the Republicans in the House of Representatives in 1918, and then to the Powel House in 1920, when Upton Sinclair and his running mate Hosea Blackford defeated Democratic incumbent Theodore Roosevelt. The inauguration of Sinclair was attended by numerous party militants waving red flags. However, once in power the party did not institute any radical changes and certainly did not abolish the capitalist economy. It did institute numerous reforms, although not as many as it would have liked; even as a minority party, the Democrats were sufficiently unified to block many of the Socialists' plans. The Socialists in power also made no change in the policy of open-ended military occupation of Canada which they inherited from the Roosevelt Administration. They offered the Canadians neither an option of renewed independence nor of incorporation in the United States and gaining of full civil rights, and President Sinclair authorized brutal repression of an uprising early in the 1920s. Moreover, Socialist administrations, like Democrat ones, left the running of captured Confederate territories in the hands of ex-Confederate officials like Luther Bliss in Kentucky - willing to collaborate with US rule, but just as racist as most other Confederates - with the result that Blacks in these states remained disenfranchised, second-class citizens. The Socialist anti-military stance led to decrease of the Army's upkeep. Military projects like Colonel Irving Morrell's Barrel Works were stopped and the money sent to other areas. Equipment and tactical upgrade was not given much attention, unlike in other countries. This left the US very unprepared when the CSA invaded and caught the country by surprise in June 1941, which began the Second Great War. Unlike in the Great War, the Socialists supported the war effort with enthusiasm as great as that of the Democrats, and would ultimately lead the country to victory. Despite this, the Democrats were able to regain power after the war, winning on the platform that the Socialists allowed the Confederates to regain their strength under Jake Featherston. In 1944, the Democrats gained a majority in Congress, and saw the election of Thomas Dewey to the office of the President.
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