Let's look over US history.
Revolution and Constitution - liberal period, of course - also a Samuel Huntington creedal-passion period. The American creed of governance: "In terms of American beliefs, government is supposed to be egalitarian, participatory, open, noncoercive, and responsive to the demands of individuals and groups." SH conceded that that is rather impractical: "Yet no government can be all these things and still remain a government."
Hamilton Era (yes, that Alexander Hamilton) - conservative period (not sure why) - George Washington was an Eisenhower figure, a respected military leader who preferred to stay out of partisan squabbles. It was the start of the first party system: the Federalists vs. the Democratic-Republicans, with the Feds dominant at first.
Jefferson Era - liberal period (not sure why) - I don't know of any notable reforms. Though Thomas Jefferson was a DR, he ended up governing much like a Fed.
Era of Good Feelings - conservative period (a bit like the Fifties)
Jackson Era - liberal period - populism and mass-mobilization politics, also a creedal-passion period. Life was great if you were an ordinary person, but only if you were white. Also the start of the second party system: Andrew Jackson's Democrats vs. his opponents, who formed the National Republicans, and then the Whigs. AJ's politics one might almost call national socialist: economic populism like opposing big banks and ethnonationalism like stealing Natives' lands.
Era of Slaveowner Dominance - conservative period - Northerners chafed at what they called "slave power" and "slaveocracy". This was definitely a period of property rights over human rights -- the right to own human beings like farm animals vs. the rights of those owned people.
The Civil War Era - liberal period - the Civil War and its aftermath - a rather obvious race-relations upheaval - the third party system started a little before, when the Whig Party split up because of slavery, and its successor the Republican Party started as a northern antislavery party - the North got lots of its priorities without the South interfering, like land-grant colleges and western railroad building.
The Gilded Age - conservative period - major industrialization, with workers in horrible conditions and their managers liking European immigrants to make it hard for workers to organize against them - a major regression on black civil rights, unusual for conservative periods, which usually carry over previous reforms - its name comes from it only looking like a golden age, with its gold being only a thin layer.
The Progressive Era - liberal period - the fourth party system, with Democrats and Republicans continuing - lots of reforms like national parks and the Food and Drug Administration, which cracked down on the numerous fraudulent medicines of back then - also creedal passion, implementing ballot initiatives and recalls in several states and making US Senators popularly elected rather than the original: chosen by state legislatures - black civil-rights efforts did not go much farther than founding the NAACP - it ended with women getting the right to vote.
The Roaring Twenties - conservative period - Warren Harding's corrupt underlings, Calvin Coolidge's "the chief business of America is business" - the stock market seemed like a reliable source of wealth, until it collapsed and led to the Great Depression.
The New Deal Era - liberal period - Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his fellow New Dealers did a lot of experimenting, with some experiments enduring, like Social Security and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the National Labor Relations Board and its support for labor unions. The fifth party system started, with the Democratic Party becoming the party of the New Deal and the Republican Party opposed to it - only a little bit of civil-rights activism, like a March on Washington and Harry Truman's desegregation of the armed forces.
The Fifties Era - conservative period - known for its conformity, it nevertheless enabled many ordinary Americans to live very comfortably. It was a sort of second Era of Good Feelings. But civil-rights activism restarted in the middle of it.
The Sixties Era - liberal period - also a creedal-passion period and a race-relations-upheaval period - lots of reforms: Medicare, Medicaid, civil rights, feminism, access to birth control and abortion, environmentalism, ... - and lots of social upheaval.
