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Conservatism in the United States is a concept which has evolved over the history of the country, encompassing somewhat different political stances in various eras. The history of American conservatism has been marked by tensions and outright contradictions, with intellectual debates not only between types of anti-communists and anti-statists, but between traditionalist and individualists who affirmed the primacy of religion, politics, or economics^[1] The first sustained political movement that tried to bring together most of the different strands appeared in the 1950s ^[2]. Before this, however, Allitt (2009) finds that, "Certain continuities can be traced through American history. The conservative 'attitude' ... was one of trusting to the past, to long-established patterns of thought and conduct, and of assuming that novelties were more likely to be dangerous than advantageous."^[3] Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and a defense of "Western civilization from the challenges of modernist culture and totalitarian governments."^[4] From the late 19th century onward, conservatives have been dedicated to preventing the rise and spread of socialism and communism^[5]^[6]

The modern conservative movement is often identified with the ideas in Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind, published in 1953.^[7] In 1955, William F. Buckley, Jr. founded National Review, a conservative magazine that included traditionalists, such as Kirk, along with Roman Catholics, some libertarians, and anti-communists. This bringing together of separate ideologies under a conservative umbrella was known as "fusionism". Modern conservatism became a major political force in 1964, when Barry Goldwater, a U.S. Senator from Arizona and author of The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), won the Republican presidential nomination after a fierce contest. He lost badly in the national election but permanently shifted the party to the right. In the 1970s moral issues—abortion, sexuality, and the family—became politically prominent and conservatives staked out distinctive positions, often with grassroots support from religious organizations such as the Moral Majority.

In the 1980s President Ronald Reagan solidified conservative Republican strength with tax cuts, deregulation, a policy of rolling back Communism (rather than just containing it), a greatly strengthened military, and appeals to family values, Christian morality, and limited government. The Reagan model became the conservative standard for social, economic and foreign policy issues, and that era of American history became known as the "Reagan Era."^[8]

Core conservative beliefs in the 21st century include reduced government regulation of business and banking,^[9] resistance to world government and to environmentalism, support for Israel^[10] and for American military intervention overseas,^[11] opposition to abortion and homosexuality, support for Christian education in the public schools,^[12]^[13] support for the right to bear arms,^[14] securing the U.S borders and strict enforcement of the law,^[15] and a sharp reduction in taxes^[16]^[17]^[18]. As of June 2010^[update], 40% of American voters identify themselves as conservatives, 36% as moderates, and 22% as liberals, though a strong majority of both liberals and conservatives describe themselves moderate.^[19] ^[20]

The meaning of conservatism in America has little in common with the way the word is used in the rest of the world. Since the 1890s conservatism has been chiefly associated with the Republican Party However, before the 1990s many Southern Democrats were conservatives, and they played a key role in the Conservative Coalition that controlled Congress. In the 21st century about 30% of the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate-to-conservative Democrats are Southerners^[21].

History

The United States has never had a national political party called the Conservative Party. All major American political parties support the republican and liberal ideals on which the country was founded in 1776, with an emphasis on liberty, pursuit of happiness, rule of law, opposition to aristocracy, and emphasis on equal rights. Political divisions inside the United States have seemed minor or trivial to Europeans, where the divide between the Left and the Right led to very high polarization, starting with the French Revolution.^[22]

Since 1776 there have been no American spokesmen for the European ideals of "conservatism" such as an established church and a hereditary aristocracy. Rather, American conservatism is a reaction against utopian ideas of progress.^[23] Russell Kirk saw the American Revolution itself as "a conservative reaction, in the English political tradition, against royal innovation".^[24]

In the 1790s Jeffersonian Democracy arose in opposition to the elitism of the Federalist Party, and fears that it intended to impose a monarchical system like Britain's. While the Jeffersonians admired the French Revolution and were primarily liberal, they also opposed a strong federal government and activist judges -- themes later picked up by conservatives.^[25] The word "conservative" was coined in 1819 by the French politician Chateaubriand).^[26] By the 1830s, conservatism came to be identified with the Whig Party, which supported banks, business and modernization of the economy, while opposing the Jacksonian democracy which represented poor farmers and the urban working class. They chose the name "Whig" because it had been used by patriots in the Revolution. Daniel Webster and other Whig leaders referred to their new political party as the "conservative party", and they called for a return to tradition, restraint, hierarchy, and moderation.^[27]

During the American Civil War, both sides claimed that they, and they alone, were the champions of the conservative cause. The South fought to preserve the tradition of states rights and slavery. The North fought to preserve the Union and the principle of freedom for everyone.^[28] During the Reconstruction Era, conservative meant opposition to the Radical Republicans, who wanted to grant freed slaves political power as well as full-fledged citizenship.^[29]

American Revolution

American conservatives today strongly admire the Founding Fathers, and demand a return to their values. Historians have given considerable attention to the values of the Founding Fathers, and to conservatism in America at the time of the Revolution. By the 1750s and 1760s some colonial institutions had conservative aspects. These included political power held by small elites, established churches in half the colonies^[30], entailed property rights in Virginia, large landholdings operated by riotous tenants in New York, and slavery in every colony. Although the colonists lived under the freest government in the European world,^[31] they were fiercely determined to protect and preserve their historic rights. By the 1750s most Americans owned property and could vote in elections that controlled local government. Local and colonial taxes were low, and imperial taxes were few.^[32]^[33]^[34]^[35]

By the 1770s there was a large element tied to the British Empire, including wealthy merchants involved in international trade, and royal officials and patronage holders. Most of these conservative elites and their followers who remained loyal to the Crown are called Loyalists or "Tories". The Loyalists were "conservatives" in that they tried to preserve the status quo of Empire against revolutionary change. Their leaders were men of wealth and property who loved order, respected their betters, looked down on their inferiors, and feared democratic rule by the rabble at home more than rule by a distant aristocracy. When it came to a choice between protecting their historic rights as Americans or remaining loyal to the King, they chose King and Empire.^[36]^[37]

The patriots who fought the Revolution did so in the name of preserving traditional rights of Englishmen—especially the right of "no taxation without representation"; they increasingly opposed attempts by Parliament to tax and control the fast-growing colonies. When the British cracked down hard on Boston after the Boston Tea Party in 1773, the patriots organized colony-by-colony and were ready to fight.^[38] Fighting broke out in spring 1775, and all Thirteen Colonies rallied to expel royal officials. The colonies formed a Congress that became the de facto national government, raised an army under George Washington, won support from France, and declared independence as the "United States of America" in July 1776. The patriots formed a consensus around the ideas of republicanism, whereby the people were sovereign (not the king), every citizen had equal legal rights, elected assemblies made the laws, inherited titles, established armies and churches were rejected, and corruption of the sort practiced by royalty was repudiated.

Labaree (1948) has identified eight characteristics of the Loyalists that made them essentially conservative in opposing Independence. Psychologically they were older, better established, and resisted innovation. They thought resistance to the Crown—the legitimate government—was morally wrong. They were alienated when the Patriots' resorted to violence, such as burning houses and tarring and feathering. They wanted to take a middle-of-the road position and were angry when forced by the Patriots to declare their opposition. They had a long-standing sentimental attachment to Britain (often with business and family links). They were procrastinators who realized that independence was bound to come some day, but wanted to postpone the moment. They were cautious and afraid of anarchy or tyranny that might come from mob rule. Finally they were pessimists who lacked the confidence in the future displayed by the Patriots.^[39]^[40]^[41] Loyalists willing to accept republican principles remained after the war—80% stayed on—while those who rejected republicanism went elsewhere in the British Empire (mostly to Canada), taking their conservatism with them. The new principles of the Revolution became the core American political values agreed to by all sides, and became part of the core principles of what is now called American conservatism.

Thus the American Revolution disrupted the old networks of conservative elites. The departure of so many royal officials, rich merchants and landed gentry destroyed the hierarchical networks that had dominated most of the colonies. In New York, for example, the departure of key members of the DeLancy, DePester Walton, and Cruger families undercut the interlocking families that largely owned and controlled the Hudson Valley. Likewise in Pennsylvania, the departure of powerful families—Penn, Allen, Chew, Shippen—destroyed the cohesion of the old upper class there. New men became rich merchants but they shared a spirit of republican equality that replaced the elitism and the Americans never recreated such a powerful upper class. One rich patriot in Boston noted in 1779 that "fellows who would have cleaned my shoes five years ago, have amassed fortunes and are riding in chariots."^[42] Nevertheless the conservatism of the Loyalists did not die out. Eight in ten remained in America after the Revolution. For the most part, they avoided politics; certainly they never tried to form a revanchist movement seeking a return to the Empire. Samuel Seabury remained and abandoned politics but became the first Episcopalian bishop in the United States, rebuilding a church that appealed to the upper class that still admired hierarchy, tradition, and historic liturgy.^[43]

Federalists

The Federalist Party, dominated by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton used the presidency of George Washington to promote a strong nation capable of holding its own in world affairs, with a strong army and navy, capable of suppressing internal revolts (such as the Whiskey Rebellion) and founding the national finances on a sound basis while winning the broad support of the financial and business community.^[44]. Intellectually, Federalists, while devoted to liberty held profoundly conservative views atuned to the American character. As Samuel Eliot Morison explained, They believed that liberty is inseparable from union, that men are essentially unequal, that vox populi [voice of the people] is seldom if ever vox Dei [the voice of God], and that sinister outside influences are busy undermining American integrity.^[45] Historian Patrick Allitt concludes that Federalists promoted many conservative positions, including the rule of law under the Constitution, republican government, peaceful change through elections, judicial supremacy, stable national finances, credibile and active diplomacy, and protection of wealth. ^[46].

The Federalists were dominated by businessmen and merchants in the major cities and was supportive of the modernizing, urbanizing, financial policies of Hamilton. These policies included the funding of the national debt and also assumption of state debts incurred during the Revolutionary War (thus allowing the states to lower their own taxes and still pay their debts), the incorporation of a national Bank of the United States, the support of manufactures and industrial development, and the use of a tariff to fund the Treasury. In foreign affairs the Federalists opposed the French Revolution. Under John Adams they fought the "Quasi War" (an undeclared naval war) with France in 1798–99 and built a strong army and navy. Ideologically the controversy between Jeffersonian Republicans and Federalists stemmed from a difference of principle and style. In terms of style the Federalists distrusted the public, thought the elite should be in charge, and favored national power over state power. Republicans distrusted Britain, bankers, merchants and did not want a powerful national government. The Federalists, notably Hamilton, were distrustful of "the people," the French, and the Republicans.^[47] In the end, the nation synthesized the two positions, adopting representative democracy and a strong nation state. Just as importantly, American politics by the 1820s accepted the two-party system whereby rival parties stake their claims before the electorate, and the winner takes control of the government. As time went on, the Federalists lost appeal with the average voter and were generally not equal to the tasks of party organization; hence, they grew steadily weaker as the political triumphs of the Republican Party grew after 1800. After 1816 the Federalists had no national influence apart from John Marshall's Supreme Court. They had some local support in New England, New York, eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware.

The "Old Republicans," led by John Randolph of Roanoke, refused to form a coalition with the Federalists and instead set up a separate opposition since James Madison, Albert Gallatin, James Monroe, John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay had in effect adopted Federalist principles by purchasing the Louisiana Territory, chartering the Second national bank, promoting internal improvements (like roads), raising tariffs to protect factories, and promoting a strong army and navy after the failures of the War of 1812.

Lincoln's conservatism

In his Cooper Union speech, Lincoln spoke of the sectionalism which was fracturing the country as a result of slavery; the Republican Party was new proclaimed its goal of putting slavery on the path to extinction. Lincoln and his party were called radical, abolitionist and destructive, but he counted himself among the earliest defenders of conservative principles, which was in essence a defense of time-honored, traditional values. Lincoln said that out of the 39 framers of the Constitution, 23 of the 39 voted on whether to prevent the spread of slavery, and that 21 of the 23 voted in favor of doing so. Lincoln explicitly called his position on slavery "conservative" and that it was the pro-slavery South that was radically breaking with the Founding Fathers. ^[48] Harris (2007) finds that Lincoln's "reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, the laws under it, and the preservation of the Republic and its institutions undergirded and strengthened his conservatism."^[49].

Southern conservatism

White Southerners took a lesson from the Reconstruction era that the radical experiments by Northern reformers violated the rights of white men and were inevitably tied to corruption. The race-based conservatism in the American South differed from the business-based conservatism in the North in its strong support for white supremacy, and insistence on a second-class powerless status for blacks, regardless of the Constitution. From 1877 to 1963, the "Solid South" voted for Democrats in almost all national elections; Democrats had firm control of state and local government in all southern states.

Fundamentalism, especially on the part of Southern Baptists, was a powerful force in Southern conservative politics beginning in the 1980s.^[50]

The Gilded Age

There was little nostalgia and backward looking in the dynamic North and West during the "Gilded Age"—the boom decades that followed the Civil War. Business was expanding rapidly, with manufacturing, mining, railroads, and banking leading the way. There were millions of new farms in the prairie states. Immigration reached record levels. Progress was the watchword of the day. The wealth of the period is highlighted by American upper-class opulence, but also by the rise of American philanthropy (referred to by Andrew Carnegie as the "Gospel of Wealth") that used private money to endow thousands of colleges, hospitals, museums, academies, schools, opera houses, public libraries, symphony orchestras, and charities.^[51]

Conservatives in the 20th Century, looking back at the Gilded Age, retroactively applied the word "conservative" to those who supported unrestrained capitalism. For example, Oswald Garrison Villard, writing in 1939, characterized his former mentor Horace White (1834–1916) as "a great economic conservative; had he lived to see the days of the New Deal financing he would probably have cried out loud and promptly demised."^[52]

In this sense, the conservative element of the Democratic party was led by the Bourbon Democrats and their hero President Grover Cleveland, who fought against high tariffs and on behalf of the gold standard. In 1896, the Bourbons were overthrown inside the Democratic Party by William Jennings Bryan and the agrarians, who preached "Free Silver" and opposition to the power that banks and railroads had over the American farmer. The agrarians formed a coalition with the Populists and vehemently denounced the politics of big business, especially in the decisive 1896 election, won by Republican William McKinley, who was easily reelected over Bryan in 1900 as well.

Religious conservatives of this period sponsored a large and flourishing media network, especially based on magazines, many with close ties to the Protestant churches that were rapidly expanding thanks to the Third Great Awakening. Catholics had few magazines but opposed agrarianism in politics and established hundreds of schools and colleges to promote their conservative religious and social values.^[53]

Modern conservatives often point to William Graham Sumner (1840–1910), a leading public intellectual of the era, as one of their own, citing his articulate support for free markets, anti-imperialism, and the gold standard, and his opposition to what he saw as threats to the middle class from the rich plutocrats above or the agrarians and ignorant masses below.^[54]^[55]

The Gilded Age came to an end with the Panic of 1893 and the severe nationwide depression that lasted from 1893 to 1897.

Empire

As the 19th century drew to a close the United States became a major world power, having acquired overseas territories in Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The two parties re-aligned in the election of 1896, with the Republicans, led by William McKinley, becoming the party of business, sound money, and assertive foreign policy, while the Democrats, led by William Jennings Bryan, became the party of the worker, the small farmer, "Free Silver", and anti-imperialism. Bryan was also popular with religious fundamentalists and white supremacists.^[56]

Imperialism won out, as the election of 1900 ratified McKinley's policies and the U.S. possession of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and (temporarily) Cuba. Theodore Roosevelt promoted the military and naval advantages of the U.S., and echoed McKinley's theme that America had a duty to civilize and modernize the heathen.^[57]^[58] The supposed business, religious, and military advantages of having an empire proved illusory; by 1908 or so the most ardent imperialists, including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Elihu Root^[59] turned their attention to building up an army and navy at home and to building the Panama Canal. They dropped the notion of additional expansion and agreed by 1920 that the Philippines should become independent.^[60]^[61]

Progressive Era

In the early years of the twentieth century, Republican spokesmen for big business in Congress included Speaker of the House Joe Cannon and Senate Republican Leader Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island. Aldrich introduced the Sixteenth Amendment, which allowed the federal government to collect an income tax; he also set in motion the design of the Federal Reserve System, which began in 1913.^[62] Pro-business conservatives supported many Progressive Era reforms, especially those opposed to corruption and inefficiency in government, and called for purification of politics. Conservative Senator John Sherman sponsored the nation's basic anti-trust law in 1890, and conservatives generally supported anti-trust in the name of opposing monopoly and opening up opportunities for small business.^[63] The issues of prohibition and woman suffrage split the conservatives.

The "insurgents" were on the Left of the Republican Party. Led by Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin, George W. Norris of Nebraska, and Hiram Johnson of California, they fought the conservatives in a series of bitter battles that split the GOP and allowed the Democrats to take control of Congress in 1910. Teddy Roosevelt, a hawk on foreign and military policy, moved increasingly to the Left on domestic issues regarding courts, unions, railroads, big business, labor unions and the welfare state.^[64]^[65] By 1910-11, Roosevelt had broken bitterly with Taft and the conservative wing of the GOP. In 1911-12 he took control of the insurgency, formed a third party, and ran an unsuccessful campaign for president on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912. His departure left the conservatives, led by President William Howard Taft, dominant in the Republican party until 1936.^[66] The split opened the way in 1912 for Democrat Woodrow Wilson to become president with only 42% of the vote.

World War I

The Great War broke out in 1914, with Wilson proclaiming neutrality. Former president Theodore Roosevelt denounced Wilson's foreign policy, charging, 'Had it not been for Wilson's pusillanimity, the war would have been over by the summer of 1916." Indeed, Roosevelt believed that Wilson's approach to foreign policy was fundamentally and objectively evil.^[67] He dropped the ill-fated Progressive Party and campaigned for the GOP. But Wilson gained many of the Progressive Party voters, and won a narrow victory in 1916. The GOP, under conservative leadership, regained Congress in 1918^[68] and the White House in 1920.

1920s

Conservative Republicans returned to dominance in 1920 with the election of President Warren G. Harding, who called for a return to "normalcy." Tucker (2010) argues that the 1924 election marked the "high tide of American conservatism," as both major candidates campaigned for limited government, reduced taxes, and less regulation. A third-party candidate on the left won only 17% of the vote, as Calvin Coolidge scored a landslide. ^[69]. Under Coolidge (1923–29) the economy boomed and the society was stabilized by moving to Americanize the immigrants already here, and not allowing many more in.

A representative conservative of the 1900-1930 era was James Beck, a lawyer under Presidents Roosevelt, Harding and Coolidge, and a congressman 1927-1933. His conservatism appeared in his support for nationalism, individualism, constitutionalism, laissez-faire, property rights, and opposition to reform. Conservatives like Beck saw the need to regulate bad behavior in the corporate world with the intention of protecting corporate capitalism from radical forces, but they were alarmed by the anti-business and pro-union proposals of Roosevelt after 1905. They began to question the notion of a national authority beneficial to big capital, and instead emphasized legalism, concern for the Constitution, and reverence for the American past.^[70]

Anti-Communism

With the success of the Communist takeover of Russia in 1917, both American political parties became strongly anti-Communist. Within the U.S., the far Left split and an American Communist Party, emerged in the 1920s.^[71] Conservatives denounced the movement as a subversion of American values and kept up relentless opposition until Communism collapsed in Russia in 1991. They paid special attention to Communist agents trying to change national policies and values in the U.S. government, the media, and academe. Conservatives gave enthusiastic support to anti-Communist agencies such as the FBI and the Congressional investigations of the 1940s and 1950s, particularly those led by Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy. They paid special attention to ex-Communists who exposed the system, such as Whittaker Chambers.^[72]

Writers and intellectuals

Classic conservative writing of the period includes Democracy and Leadership (1924) by Irving Babbitt. The Efficiency Movement attracted Progressive Republicans like Herbert Hoover with its pro-business, quasi-engineering approach to solving social and economic problems.

Numerous literary figures developed a conservative sensibility and warned of threats to Western Civilization. In the 1900-1950 era Henry Adams, T. S. Eliot, Allen Tate, Andrew Lytle, Donald Davidson, and others feared that heedless scientific innovation would unleash forces that would undermine traditional Western values and lead to the collapse of civilization. Instead they searched for a rationale for promoting traditional cultural values in the face of an onslaught by moral nihilism based on historical and scientific relativism.^[73]

Conservatism as an intellectual movement in the South after 1930 was represented by writers such as William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor, and especially the Southern Agrarians. The focus was on traditionalism and hierarchy.^[74]

Numerous former Communist or Trotskyite writers repudiated the Left in the 1930s or 1940s and embraced conservatism, becoming contributors to National Review in the 1950s. They included Max Eastman (1883–1969), John Dos Passos (1896–1970), Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961), Will Herberg (1901–1977), and James Burnham (1905–1987).^[75]

Great Depression

The Great Depression which followed the 1929 stock market collapse led to price deflation, massive unemployment, falling farm incomes, investment losses, bank failures, business bankruptcies and reduced government revenues. Herbert Hoover's conservative economic policies failed to halt the depression, and in the 1932 presidential election, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt won a landslide victory.

When Roosevelt tried to bring the country out of depression and ease the plight of the unemployed with the New Deal, conservatives fought him every inch of the way. The counterattack first came from conservative Democrats, led by presidential nominees John W. Davis (1924) and Al Smith (1928), who mobilized business men into the American Liberty League. Opposition to the New Deal also came from the Old Right, a group of conservative free-market anti-interventionists, originally associated with Midwestern Republicans led by Hoover and Robert A. Taft, the son of former President William Howard Taft. The Old Right accused Roosevelt of promoting socialism and being a "traitor to his class".

Vice President John Nance Garner worked with congressional allies to prevent Roosevelt from packing the Supreme Court with six new judges, so the court would not over-rule New Deal legislation as unconstitutional. U.S. Senator Josiah Bailey (D-NC) released the "Conservative Manifesto" in December 1937 which marked the beginning of the "conservative coalition" between Republicans and Southern Democrats.^[76] Roosevelt tried and failed to purge conservative Democrats in the 1938 primaries, but all but one beat him back and the Republicans made nationwide gains in 1938. The Conservative Coalition generally controlled Congress until 1963; no major legislation passed which the Coalition opposed. Its most prominent leaders were Senator Robert Taft (R-OH) and Senator Richard Russell (D-GA). Robert Taft unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in 1940, 1948, and 1952, and was an opponent of American membership in NATO and of American participation in the Korean War.

Many conservatives, especially in the Midwest, in 1939-41 favored isolationism and opposed American entry into the World War II--and so did many liberals. (see America First Committee). Conservatives in the East and South were generally interventionist, as typified by Henry Stimson. However, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Dec. 1941 united all Americans behind the war effort, with conservatives in Congress taking the opportunity to close down many New agencies, such as the bete noir the WPA.

Jefferson's image

In the New Deal era of the 1930s, Jefferson's memory became contested ground. Franklin D. Roosevelt greatly admired Jefferson and had the Jefferson Memorial built to honor his hero. Even more dramatic, however, was the reaction of the conservatives, as typified by the American Liberty League (comprising mostly conservative Democrats who resembled the Bourbon Democrats of the 1870-1900 era), and the Republican Party. Conservative Republicans dropped Hamiltonianism because it led to enlarged national government. Their opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal was cast in explicitly Jeffersonian small-government terms, and Jefferson also became a hero of the Right.^[77]

Post 1945

Modern conservatism, which combines elements from both traditional conservatism and libertarianism, emerged following World War II, has its immediate political roots in reaction to the New Deal. In 1946, conservative Republicans took control of Congress and opened investigations into communist infiltration of the federal government under Roosevelt. Congressman Richard Nixon exposed Alger Hiss, a senior State Department official, as a Soviet spy. Senator Joe McCarthy in 1950-54 led investigations into the coverup of spies in the government, using careless tactics that allowed his opponents to effectively counterattack, and censure McCarthy formally in 1954. Meanwhile the major job of rooting out Communists from labor unions and the Democratic party was undertaken by liberals, such as Walter Reuther of the autoworkers union and Ronald Reagan of the Screen Actors Guild.^[78] President Harry Truman adopted a rollback strategy against Communism in 1950 in Korea, planning to free the entire country by force. But when the Chinese entered he reversed positions, fired the conservative hero General Douglas MacArthur, and settled for containment, accepting the status quo at a cost of 37,000 Americans killed and a sharp decline in Truman's base of support.

1950-1980

Isolationism had weakened the Old Right, as shown by General Eisenhower's defeat of Senator Robert Taft for the GOP nomination in 1952. Eisenhower then defeated Truman by crusading against "Korea, Communism and Corruption." Eisenhower quickly ended the Korean War, which most conservatives now opposed and adopted a conservative fiscal policy while cooperating with Taft, who became the Senate Majority Leader. The regulatory and welfare policies of the New Deal were retained, with the Republicans taking credit for the expansion of Social Security.

Russell Kirk

While Republicans in Washington were tweaking the New Deal, the most critical opposition to liberalism came from writers. Russell Kirk claimed that both classical and modern liberalism placed too much emphasis on economic issues and failed to address man's spiritual nature, and called for a plan of action for a conservative political movement. He said that conservative leaders should appeal to farmers, small towns, the churches, and others.^[79] This target group is similar to the core constituency of the British Conservative Party.

William F. Buckley

The most effective organizer and proponent of conservative ideas was William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008), the founder of National Review in 1955 and a highly visible writer and media personality. There had been numerous small circulation magazines on the right before, but the National Review gained national attention and shaped the conservative movement, thanks to strong editing and a strong stable of regular contributors. Erudite, witty and tireless, Buckley inspired a new enthusiasm.^[80]

Buckley assembled an eclectic group of writers: traditionalists, Catholic intellectuals, libertarians and ex-Communists. They included: Russell Kirk, James Burnham, Frank Meyer, Willmoore Kendall, L. Brent Bozell, and Whittaker Chambers In the magazine’s founding statement Buckley wrote:^[81]

The launching of a conservative weekly journal of opinion in a country widely assumed to be a bastion of conservatism at first glance looks like a work of supererogation, rather like publishing a royalist weekly within the walls of Buckingham Palace. It is not that of course; if National Review is superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no other is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.

Libertarians

Economists Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler engaged with various blocks of conservatives and advocated a return to classical liberal or libertarian policies and together provided a vigorous criticism of the welfare state and Keynesian economics.^[82] William F. Buckley, Jr. formed the magazine the National Review in 1955 as a forum for these writers to voice their disagreements with modern liberalism and also with one another.

Judeo-Christian elements

By the 1950s conservatives were emphasizing the Judeo-Christian roots of their values^[83] As economist Elgin Groseclose explained, it was ideas "drawn from Judeo-Christian Scriptures that have made possible the economic strength and industrial power of this country."^[84] Barry Goldwater noted that conservatives "believed the communist projection of man as a producing, consuming animal to be used and discarded was antithetical to all the Judeo-Christian understandings which are the foundations upon which the Republic stands."^[85] Ronald Reagan frequently emphasized Judeo-Christian values as necessary ingredients in the fight against communism. He argued that the Bible contains "all the answers to the problems that face us."^[86] Belief in the superiority of Western Judeo-Christian traditions led conservatives to downplay the aspirations of Third World and to denigrate the value of foreign aid.^[87]^[88]

The emergence of the "religious right" as a political force and part of the conservative coalition dates from the 1970s. As Wilcox and Robinson conclude, "The Christian Right is an attempt to restore Judeo-Christian values to a country that is in deep moral decline. ....[They] believe that society suffers from the lack of a firm basis of Judeo-Christian values and they seek to write laws that embody those values".^[89] Especially important was the hostile reaction to the "Roe v. Wade" Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, which brought together Catholics (who had long opposed abortion) and Fundamentalist Protestants (who were new to the issue.)^[90]

John Birch Society

Robert W. Welch Jr. (1900–1985) founded the John Birch Society as an authoritarian top-down force to combat Communism. It had tens of thousands of members and distributed books, pamphlets and the magazine American Opinion. It was so tightly controlled by Welch that its effectiveness was limited, and it focused on calls to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren, as well as supporting local police^[91] Instead it became a lighting rod for liberal attacks, and indeed Welch was denounced by Goldwater, Buckley and other mainstream conservatives.

Internal disagreements

The main disagreement between Kirk, who would become described as a traditionalist conservative, and the libertarians was whether tradition and virtue or liberty should be their primary concern. Frank Meyer tried to resolve the dispute with "fusionism": America could not conserve its traditions without economic freedom. He also noted that they were united in opposition to "big government" and made anti-communism the glue that would unite them. The term "conservative" was used to describe the views of National Review supporters, despite initial protests from the libertarians, because the term "liberal" had become associated with "New Deal" supporters. They were also later known as the "New Right", as opposed to the New Left.

Goldwater

The conservatives united behind the unsuccessful 1964 presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater, who had published The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), a best-selling book that explained modern conservative theory. Some support for the campaign came from the newly-formed Young Americans for Freedom, a project sponsored by William F. Buckley. In 1965 conservatives campaigned for Buckley as a third party candidate for Mayor of New York and in 1966 for Ronald Reagan, who was elected governor of California. Reagan increasingly dominated the conservative movement, especially in his failed 1976 quest for the Republican presidential nomination and his successful run in 1980.

Neoconservatives

A major development of the 1970s was the movement of many prominent liberal intellectuals to the right, many of them from New York City Jewish roots and well-established academic reputations. They had become disillusioned with liberalism, especially the foreign policy of détente with the Soviet Union.

Irving Kristol and Leo Strauss were the major founders of the movement. The magazines Commentary and Public Interest were their key outlets, as well as op-ed articles for major newspapers and position papers for think tanks. Activists around Democratic senator Henry Jackson became deeply involved as well. Prominent spokesmen include Gertrude Himmelfarb, Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Richard Pipes, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Elliott Abrams and Ben Wattenberg. Meanwhile, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was highly sympathetic but remained a Democrat. Neocons such as Irving Kristol, have promoted a support of Big Business.^[17] Some went on to high policy-making or advisory positions in the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Some of Leo Strauss' influential neoconservative disciples included Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, Paul Wolfowitz (who became Deputy Secretary of Defense), Alan Keyes (who became Assistant Secretary of State), William Bennett (who became Secretary of Education), Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, political philosopher Allan Bloom, writer John Podhoretz, college president John T. Agresto; political scientist Harry V. Jaffa; and Nobel Prize winning novelist Saul Bellow.

Conservatism in the South

The growth of conservatism within the Republican Party attracted White conservative Southern Democrats in presidential elections. A few big names switched to the GOP, including South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond in 1964 and Texas Governor John Connally in 1973. Starting in 1968 the GOP dominated most presidential elections in the South (1976 was the lone exception), but not until the 1990s did the GOP become dominant in state and local politics in the region. The Republicans built their strength among Southern Baptists and other religious Fundamentalists, among the middle class suburbs, and among migrants from the North, and Cubans in Florida. Meanwhile, starting in 1964, African American voters in the South began to show overwhelming support for the Democratic Party at both the presidential and local levels. They elected a number of Congressmen and mayors. By 1990 there were still many moderate white Democrats holding office in the South, but when they retired they were typically replaced by very more conservative Republicans, or by liberal blacks.^[92]

Think tanks

In 1971 Lewis F. Powell Jr. urged conservatives to retake command of public discourse by "financing think tanks, reshaping mass media and seeking influence in universities and the judiciary." In the coming decades policies once considered outside the mainstream consensus—abolishing welfare, privatizing Social Security, deregulating banking, embracing preemptive war—were taken seriously and sometimes passed into law thanks to the work of the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Fox News Network, as well as numerous corporate lobbying organizations and university professorships.^[93]^[94]

Nixon

The Republican administrations of President Richard Nixon in the 1970s were characterized more by their emphasis on realpolitik, détente, and economic policies such as wage and price controls, than by their adherence to conservative views in foreign and economic policy. Nixon's successor Gerald Ford angered conservatives with his policy of détente with the Soviet Union, and hisd inability to control inflation. Liberal Democrats made major gains in 1974, and the Democrats reclaimed the White House in 1976 with Jimmy Carter. Carter proved much too liberal for the conservative movement, too conservative for the mainstream of the Democratic Party, and too incompetent in foreign affairs to please anyone. Carter realized there was a strong national sense of malaise, for which he blamed the people, as inflation skyrocketed, interest rates soared, the economy stagnated, and prolonged humiliation resulted when Islamic militants in Tehran kept American diplomats hostage for 444 days in 1979-81.^[95].

Reagan Era

Conservative ascent

In Tehran, Islamic militants released the hostages at the moment Ronald Reagan was sworn in. With is victory in 1980 the modern American conservative movement finally yook power. In that election, Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 1954, and conservative principles dominated Reagan's economic and foreign policies, with supply side economics and strict opposition to Soviet Communism defining the Administration's philosophy. Reagan's ideas were largely espoused and supported by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which grew dramatically in its influence during the Reagan years as Reagan and his senior aides looked to Heritage for policy guidance.

An icon of the American conservative movement, Reagan is credited by his supporters with transforming the politics of the United States, galvanizing the success of the Republican Party. He brought together a coalition of economic conservatives, who supported his supply-side economics; foreign policy conservatives, who favored his staunch opposition to Communism and the Soviet Union; and social conservatives, who identified with his religious and social ideals. Reagan labeled the former Soviet Union as the "evil empire." He was attacked by liberals at the time as a dangerous warmonger, but conservative historians conclude that he decisively won the Cold War.^[96]

In defining conservatism, Reagan said: "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals—if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is."^[97] Reagan's views on government were influenced by Thomas Jefferson, especially his hostility to strong central governments.^[98] "We're still Jefferson's children," he declared in 1987. "Freedom is not created by Government, nor is it a gift from those in political power. It is, in fact, secured, more than anything else, by limitations placed on those in Government".^[99]^[100] Likewise he greatly admired and often quoted Abraham Lincoln^[101]

Supply-side economics dominated the Reagan Era.^[102]

Since 1990

In 1992 many conservatives repudiated President Bush because he violated his promise, "Read My Lips: No New Taxes." He was defeated for reelection in 1992 in a three way race, with populist Ross Perot attracting considerable support on the right. Democrat Bill Clinton was stopped in his plan for government health care, and in 1994 the GOP made sweeping gains under the leadership of Newt Gingrich, the first Republican to become Speaker in 40 years. Gingrich overplayed his hand by cutting off funding for the Federal government, allowing Clinton to regain momentum and win reelection in 1996. The "Contract with America" promised numerous reforms, but little was accomplished beyond the ending of major New Deal welfare programs. A national movement to impose term limits failed to reach Congress (because the Supreme Court ruled that a constitutional amendment was needed) but did transform politics in some states, especially California

George W. Bush

In an extremely close race George W. Bush was elected president in 2000 after a contested recount in Florida, and brought a new generation of conservative activists to power in Washington. Bush cut taxes dramatically in a 10-year plan that is up for renewal in 2011. Bush forged a bipartisan coalition to pass "No Child Left Behind", which for the for the first time imposed national standards on public schools. The 9-11 Attacks unified the nation in a War against Terrorism, with invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 (which is still underway in 2010), and Iraq in 2003 (which was winding down in 2010). Bush won solid support from Republicans in Congress and from conservative voters in his reelection bid in 2004. When the financial system verged on total collapse in 2008, Bush pushed through very large scale rescue packages for banks and auto companies that conservatives in Congress very reluctantly supported. Some noted conservatives, including Richard A. Viguerie and William F. Buckley, Jr. concluded that Bush was not a conservative, either in foreign policy nor in domestic economic policy.^[103]^[104]

Obama

The Republican contest for the nomination in 2008 was a free-for-all, with maverick Senator John McCain the winner, facing the first black candidate in Barack Obama. McCain electrified conservatives by choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate; she immediately emerged as a major political leader on the right. The economic crisis of 2008 doomed McCain, and Congress had already shifted to the left in 2006.

Tea Party

In 2009-10 the GOP in Congress was unified in almost total opposition to the programs of the liberal Democrats, but they failed to stop a $814 billion stimulus spending program, new regulations on the financial system, and a large-scale change in the national health care system. Obama followed Bush's foreign policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, but at home steadily lost support because the economy refused to respond to stimulus measures, with unemployment near 10%, investment levels low, and the housing crisis continuing. No progress was made on immigration reform. A new element was the Tea Party Movement of 2009-10, a populist political grass-roots movement with little organization or funding that led to activism and protests. The stated purpose of the movement has been to stop what it views as wasteful government spending, excessive taxation, and strangulation of the economy through regulatory bureaucracies. Tea Party candidates upset establishment Republicans in several primaries, giving a new momentum to the conservative cause in the 2010 elections, and boosting Palin's visibility. House Republicans, optimistic about regaining control, announced "A Pledge to America," in Sept. 2010. It called for permanent extension of all the Bush tax cuts, including those on the wealthy; cancellation of $250 billion in unspent stimulus money, and repeal of the Obama health care bill, replacing it with conservative proposals, including limits on malpractice lawsuits.^[105]

Types

In the United States today, the word "conservative" is often used very differently from the way the word was used in the past and still is used in many parts of the world. The Americans after 1776 rejected the core ideals of European conservatism, based on the landed aristocracy, the established church, and the powerful, prestigious army.

Barry Goldwater in the 1960s spoke for a "free enterprise" conservatism. Jerry Falwell in the 1980s preached traditional moral and religious social values. It was Reagan's challenge to form these groups into an electoral coalition.^{[citation needed]}

In the 21st century U.S., some of the groups calling themselves "conservative" include:

Traditionalist conservatism — Opposition to rapid change in governmental and societal institutions. This kind of conservatism is anti-ideological insofar as it emphasizes means (slow change) over ends (any particular form of government). To the traditionalist, whether one arrives at a right- or left-wing government is less important than whether change is effected through rule of law rather than through revolution and sudden innovation.

Christian conservatism — Conservative Christians are primarily interested in family values. Some preach that the United States was founded as a Christian nation; all believe that abortion is wrong; many favor teacher-led prayer in state schools; most are against homosexuality and define marriage as between one man and one woman. Most attack the profanity and sexuality in the media and movies.

Limited government conservatism — Limited government conservatives look for a decreased role of the federal government. They follow Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in their suspicion of a powerful federal government.

Neoconservatism — A modern form of conservatism that supports a more assertive, interventionist foreign policy, aimed at promoting democracy abroad. It is tolerant of an activist government at home, but is focused mostly on international affairs. Neoconservatism was first described by a group of disaffected liberals, and thus Irving Kristol, usually credited as its intellectual progenitor, defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who was mugged by reality." Although originally regarded as an approach to domestic policy (the founding instrument of the movement, Kristol's The Public Interest periodical, did not even cover foreign affairs), through the influence of figures like Dick Cheney, Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman and (Irving's son) Bill Kristol, it has become most famous for its association with the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration. Many of the nation's most prominent and influential conservatives during the two terms of the Bush administration were considered "neoconservative" in their ideological orientation.^[106]

Paleoconservatism — Arising in the 1980s in reaction to neoconservatism, stresses tradition, especially Christian tradition and the importance to society of the traditional family. Some, Samuel P. Huntington for example, argue that multiracial, multi-ethnic, and egalitarian states are inherently unstable.^[107] Paleoconservatives are generally isolationist, and suspicious of foreign influence. The magazines Chronicles and The American Conservative are generally considered to be paleoconservative in nature.

Libertarian conservatism or Fusionism — Emphasizes a strict interpretation of the Constitution, particularly with regard to federal power. Libertarian conservatism is constituted by a broad, sometimes conflicted, coalition including pro-business social moderates, those favoring classic states' rights, individual liberty activists, and many of those who place their socially liberal ideology ahead of their fiscal beliefs. This mode of thinking tends to espouse laissez-faire economics and a critical view of the federal government. Libertarian conservatives' emphasis on personal freedom often leads them to have social positions contrary to those of Christian conservatives. The libertarian branch of conservatism may have similar disputes that isolationist paleoconservatives would with neoconservatives. However libertarian conservatives may be more militarily interventionist or support a greater degree of military strength than other libertarians. Contrarily strong preference for local government puts libertarian conservatives in frequent opposition to international government.

Ideology and political philosophy

Classical conservatives tend to be anti-ideological, and some would even say anti-philosophical,^[108] promoting rather, as Russell Kirk explains, a steady flow of "prescription and prejudice." Kirk's use of the word "prejudice" here is not intended to carry its contemporary pejorative connotation: a conservative himself, he believes that the inherited wisdom of the ages may be a better guide than apparently rational individual judgment.

In contrast to classical conservatism, social conservatism and fiscal conservatism are concerned with consequences as well as means.

There are two overlapping subgroups of social conservatives—the traditional and the religious. Traditional conservatives strongly support traditional codes of conduct, especially those they feel are threatened by social change. For example, traditional conservatives may oppose the use of female soldiers in combat. Religious conservatives focus on conducting society as prescribed by a religious authority or code. In the United States this translates into taking hard-line stances on moral issues, such as opposition to abortion and homosexuality. Some religious conservatives go so far as to support the use of government institutions to promote religiosity in public life.

Fiscal conservatives support limited government, limited taxation, and a balanced budget. Some admit the necessity of taxes, but hold that taxes should be low. A recent movement against the inheritance tax labels such a tax a death tax. Fiscal conservatives often argue that competition in the free market is more effective than the regulation of industry, with the exception of industries that exhibit market dominance or monopoly powers. For some this is a matter of principle, as it is for the libertarians and others influenced by thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises, who believed that government intervention in the economy is inevitably wasteful and inherently corrupt and immoral. For others, "free market economics" simply represents their belief that it is the most efficient way to promote economic growth: they support it not based on some moral principle, but pragmatically, because they hold that it just "works."

Most modern American fiscal conservatives accept some social spending programs not specifically delineated in the Constitution. As such, fiscal conservatism today exists somewhere between classical conservatism and contemporary consequentialist political philosophies.

Throughout much of the 20th century, one of the primary forces uniting the occasionally disparate strands of conservatism, and uniting conservatives with their liberal and socialist opponents, was opposition to communism, which was seen not only as an enemy of the traditional order, but also the enemy of western freedom and democracy. Thus it was the British Labour government—which embraced socialism—that pushed the Truman administration in 1945-47 to take a strong stand against Soviet Communism.^[109] In the 1980s, the United States government spent billions of dollars arming and supporting Islamic terrorists, because these terrorists were fighting communists.^[110]

Social conservatism and tradition

Social conservatism is generally dominated by defense of traditional social norms and values, of local customs and of societal evolution, rather than social upheaval, though the distinction is not absolute. Often based upon religion, modern cultural conservatives, in contrast to "small-government" conservatives and "states-rights" advocates, increasingly turn to the federal government to overrule the states in order to preserve educational and moral standards.

Social conservatives emphasize traditional views of social units such as the family, church, or locale. Social conservatives would typically define family in terms of local histories and tastes. Social conservatism may entail support for defining marriage as between a man and a woman (thereby banning gay marriage) and laws placing restrictions on abortion.

Fundamentalist Protestants, rejecting Darwinism, often advocate the teaching of intelligent design in the public schools, and believe that the theory of a God-created universe should be presented as a legitimate explanation for the world's creation.

Conservatives tend to strongly identify with American nationalism and patriotism. They denounce anti-war protesters and hail the police and the military. Conservatives hold that military institutions embody admirable values like honor, duty, courage, and loyalty. Military institutions are independent sources of tradition and ritual pageantry that conservatives tend to admire.

Some conservatives want to use federal power to block state actions they disapprove of. Thus in the 21st century came support for the "No Child Left Behind" program, support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage, support for federal laws overruling states that attempt to legalize marijuana or assisted suicide or use eminent domain to take private property. The willingness to use federal power to intervene in state affairs is the negation of the old state's rights position.

Richard Hofstadter in 1966 claimed that opposition to conservatism has been common among intellectuals since about 1890.^[111] In the 1920s, religious Fundamentalists like William Bell Riley and William Jennings Bryan (a liberal Democrat) led the battle against Darwinism and evolution, a battle which Fundamentalists are still fighting today. More recently the anti-intellectualism has taken the form of attacks on elites, experts, scientists, public schools and universities.^[112]

Fiscal conservatism

Fiscal conservatism is the economic and political policy that advocates restraint of governmental taxation and expenditures. Fiscal conservatives since the 19th century have argued that debt is a device to corrupt politics; they argue that big spending ruins the morals of the people, and that a national debt creates a dangerous class of speculators. The argument in favor of balanced budgets is often coupled with a belief that government welfare programs should be narrowly tailored and that tax rates should be low, which implies relatively small government institutions.

This belief in small government combines with fiscal conservatism to produce a broader economic liberalism, which wishes to minimize government intervention in the economy. This amounts to support for laissez-faire economics. This economic liberalism borrows from two schools of thought: the classical liberals' pragmatism and the libertarian's notion of "rights." The classical liberal maintains that free markets work best, while the libertarian contends that free markets are the only ethical markets.

The economic philosophy of conservatives in the United States tends to be more liberal allowing for more economic freedom. Economic liberalism can go well beyond fiscal conservatism's concern for fiscal prudence, to a belief or principle that it is not prudent for governments to intervene in markets. It is also, sometimes, extended to a broader "small government" philosophy. Economic liberalism is associated with free-market, or laissez-faire economics.

Economic liberalism, insofar as it is ideological, owes its creation to the "classical liberal" tradition, in the vein of Adam Smith, Friedrich A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig von Mises.

Classical liberals and libertarians support free markets on moral, ideological grounds: principles of individual liberty morally dictate support for free markets. Supporters of the moral grounds for free markets include Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises. The liberal tradition is suspicious of government authority, and prefers individual choice, and hence tends to see capitalist economics as the preferable means of achieving economic ends.

Modern conservatives, on the other hand, derive support for free markets from practical grounds. Free markets, they argue, are the most productive markets. Thus the modern conservative supports free markets not out of necessity, but out of expedience. The support is not moral or ideological, but driven on the Burkean notion of prescription: what works best is what is right.

Another reason why conservatives support a smaller role for the government in the economy is the belief in the importance of the civil society. As noted by Alexis de Tocqueville, there is a belief that a bigger role of the government in the economy will make people feel less responsible for the society. These responsibilities would then need to be taken over by the government, requiring higher taxes. In his book Democracy in America, De Tocqueville describes this as "soft oppression."

It must be noted that while classical liberals and modern conservatives reached free markets through different means historically, to-date the lines have blurred. Rarely will a politician claim that free markets are "simply more productive" or "simply the right thing to do" but a combination of both. This blurring is very much a product of the merging of the classical liberal and modern conservative positions under the "umbrella" of the conservative movement.

The archetypal free-market conservative administrations of the late 20th century—the Margaret Thatcher government in Britain and the Ronald Reagan administration in the U.S. -- both held the unfettered operation of the market to be the cornerstone of contemporary modern conservatism (this philosophy is called neoliberalism by critics on the left). To that end, Thatcher privatized industries and public housing and Reagan cut the maximum capital gains tax from 28% to 20%, though in his second term he agreed to raise it back up to 28%. He wanted to increase defense spending and achieved that; liberal Democrats blocked his efforts to cut domestic spending.^[113] Reagan did not control the rapid increase in federal government spending, or reduce the deficit, but his record looks better when expressed as a percent of the gross domestic product. Federal revenues as a percent of the GDP fell from 19.6% in 1981 when Reagan took office to 18.3% in 1989 when he left. Federal spending fell slightly from 22.2% of the GDP to 21.2%. This contrasts with statistics from 2004, when government spending was rising more rapidly than it had in decades.^[114]

Electoral politics

In the United States, the Republican Party is generally considered to be the party of conservatism. This has been the case since the 1960s, when the conservative wing of that party consolidated its hold, causing it to shift permanently to the right of the Democratic Party. The most dramatic realignment was the white South, which moved from 3-1 Democratic to 3-1 Republican between 1960 and 2000.

Map of results by state of the 2004 U.S. presidential election with states won by Republicans in red and states won by Democrats in blue.

In addition, some United States libertarians, in the Libertarian Party and even some in the Republican Party, see themselves as conservative, even though they advocate significant economic and social changes – for instance, further dismantling the welfare system or liberalizing drug policy. They see these as conservative policies because they conform to the spirit of individual liberty that they consider to be a traditional American value.

On the other end of the scale, some Americans see themselves as conservative while not being supporters of free market policies. These people generally favor protectionist trade policies and government intervention in the market to preserve American jobs. Many of these conservatives were originally supporters of neoliberalism^[115] who changed their stance after perceiving that countries such as China were benefiting from that system at the expense of American production. However, despite their support for protectionism, they still tend to favor other elements of free market philosophy, such as low taxes, limited government and balanced budgets.

Geography

Geographically the South, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountain states, and Alaska are conservative strongholds. The "Left Coast" (California, Oregon, Washington), and the Northeast are liberal strongholds, albeit with some pockets of conservative strength. Conservatives are strongest in rural areas and, to a lesser extent, in the "exurbs" or suburbs. Voters in the urban cores of large metropolitan areas are much more liberal and Democratic. Thus, within each state, there is a division between urban, suburban, exurban, and rural areas.^[116]^[117]

Thinkers and leaders

Major American conservatives

Clinton Rossiter, a professor at Cornell, in 1955 wrote an essay for American Heritage magazine on what "conservatism" meant to him. Praising President Dwight D. Eisenhower as an exemplar of true conservatism, he defined conservatism as a devotion to tradition, support for liberty with order, and "government by the wise, the good, and the rich". He named four men who, in his view, "loom above all other men of their age as models of conservative statesmanship and wellsprings of conservative thought," stressing their opposition to democracy and to universal suffrage: George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and John Marshall.^[132]

Politicians

Vice-President John C. Calhoun (1782–1850)
President Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)
President Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
Senator Robert Taft (1889–1953)
Senator Strom Thurmond (1903–2003)
Senator Barry Goldwater (1909–1998)
President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004)
Senator Jesse Helms (1921–2008)
Vice President Dick Cheney (1941–)
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (1943–)
President George W. Bush (1946–)
Senator Jim DeMint (1951–)
Governor Sarah Palin (1964–)

Jurists

Chief Justice William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1868–1948)
Chief Justice William Rehnquist (1924–2005)
Chief Justice John Roberts (1955–)
Justice Antonin Scalia (1936–)
Justice Clarence Thomas (1948–)
Justice Samuel Alito (1950–)
Judge Robert Bork (1927–)
Judge Richard Posner (1939–)

Writers and Activists

William Graham Sumner (1840–1910)
Albert Jay Nock (1873–1945)
William Faulkner (1897–1962)
F. A. Hayek (1899–1992)
Leo Strauss (1899–1973)
Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961)
Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963)
George J. Stigler (1911–1991)
Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
Robert A. Nisbet (1913–1996)
Russell Kirk (1918–1994)
Irving Kristol (1920–2009)
Phyllis Schlafly (1924–)
William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008)
Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008)
Norman Podhoretz (1930–)
Thomas Sowell (1930–)
James Q. Wilson (1931–)
Walter Williams (1936–)
George Will (1941–)
Cal Thomas (1942–)
Michael Medved (1948–)
Peggy Noonan (1950–)
Charles Krauthammer (1950–)
Karl Rove (1950–)
Lee Atwater (1951–1991)
Bill Kristol (1952–)
Brent Bozell (1955–)
Neil Cavuto ( 1958–)
Ann Coulter (1961–)
Jonah Goldberg (1969–)
Michelle Malkin (1970–)

Foundations

Radio Hosts and Media

Think-tanks

Magazines and media

Organizations

Religious Leaders

References

^ Bruce Frohnen, ed. American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (2006) pp ix to xiv
^ Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (Yale U.P. 2009), p. 2
^ Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History p. 278
^ Gregory Schneider, The Conservative Century: From Reaction to Revolution (Rowman & Littlefield. 2009) p. xii
^ Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History, p. 278; see also pp 98, 117, 124, 126, 143, 159, 162,
^ Paul Edward Gottfried, Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right, p. 9, "Postwar conservatives set about creating their own synthesis of free-market capitalism, Christian morality, and the global struggle against Communism." (2009); Gottfried, Theologies and moral concern (1995) p. 12
^ Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, (1953)
^ Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (2009); John Ehrman, The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan (2008)
^ James Q. Wilson (2008). American Government. Cengage Learning. p. 104. ISBN 9780547212760.
^ Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right (2010)
^ Jim Mann, Rise Of The Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet(2004)
^ Donald T. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: a Woman's Crusade, p. 217, Princeton University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0691136240
^ George H. Nash, Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservatism, "abortion, school prayer, pornography, drug use, sexual deviancy ... In a very real sense the Religious Right was closest in its concerns to traditionalist conservatism." p. 325, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2009, ISBN 9781935191650
^ James Snyder (2004). "9. The Right to Bear Arms". The Conservative Mind: A New Model for Government. Universal-Publishers. ISBN 9781581125252. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
^ The "law and order" issue was a major factor weakening liberalism in the 1960s, argues Michael W. Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s (2005)
^ Helen Jones (1997). Towards a classless society?. Routledge. pp. 215. ISBN 9780415153300.
^ ^a ^b Kristol, Irving (1995). Neoconservatism: the autobiography of an idea. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-028-74021-8. {{cite book}}: Text "page 347" ignored (help), page 347.
^ Paul Gottfried, Multiculturalism and the politics of guilt(2004) p. 81
^ Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, "Voters Rate the Parties' Ideologies" Pew press release July 16, 2010, online
^ Juliana Horowitz, "Winds of Political Change Haven’t Shifted Public’s Ideology Balance," Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, press release November 25, 2008
^ Clair Suddath, A Brief History of Blue Dog Democrats.Time July 28, 2009
^ For example, Arthur Aughey, Greta Jones, W. T. M. Riches, The Conservative Political Tradition in Britain and the United States (1992), p. 1: "...there are those who advance the thesis that American exceptionalism means...there can be no American conservatism precisely because the American Revolution created a universally liberal society."
^ Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, p. 114, "Conservative ideas are, thus, more genuine and profound than many critics suggest, but such unity as they have is purely negative, definable only by its opposition and rejection of abstract, universal, and ideal principles..."
^ ^a ^b Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1950), p. 6, 63.
^ Joyce Appleby, Thomas Jefferson (Times Books, 2003) ch 7
^ The Scary Echo of the Intolerance of the French Revolution in America Today
^ Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities (2009), p. 65
^ Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities, p. 67
^ George Brown Tindall & David Emory Shi, America: A narrative History, pp. 665, W. W. Norton, ISBN 9780393927320.
^ These churches were much weaker, poorer, and less central to American politics and society than established churches in Europe or Latin America.
^ Robin W. Winks, ed. The Oxford history of the British Empire: Historiography, Volume V (2001) p107
^ Leonard Woods Labaree, Conservatism in Early American History (1948) ch 1-2
^ Richard Hofstadter, America at 1750: A Social Portrait (1971) ch 5
^ Robert E. Brown and B. Katherine Brown, Virginia 1705-1786: Democracy or Aristocracy? (1964) pp 307-8
^ Edward Countryman, American Revolution (1996) pp 36-44
^ Norman Risjord, Jefferson's America, 1760-1815 (2002) p 129
^ Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson: Loyalism and the Destruction of the First British Empire (1974)
^ David F. Burg, A World History of Tax Rebellions: An Encyclopedia of Tax Rebels, Revolts, and Riots from Antiquity to the Present (Routledge, 2003) p 253
^ Labaree, Conservatism pp 164-65
^ See also N. E. H. Hull, Peter C. Hoffer and Steven L. Allen, "Choosing Sides: A Quantitative Study of the Personality Determinants of Loyalist and Revolutionary Political Affiliation in New York," Journal of American History, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Sep., 1978), pp. 344-366 in JSTOR
^ Edwin G. Burrows and Michael Wallace, "The American Revolution: The Ideology and Psychology of National Liberation," Perspectives in American History, (1972) vol. 6 pp 167-306
^ Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991) pp. 176-77; quote on p 177.
^ Ross N. Hebb, Samuel Seabury and Charles Inglis: Two Bishops, Two Churches (2010) p 82
^ Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives (2009) pp 6-26
^ Samuel Eliot Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 1765-1848: the urbane Federalist (2nd ed. 1969) pages x-xi
^ Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives (2009) p 26
^ Chernow (2004)
^ Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999) pp 238-9
^ William C. Harris, Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency (2007) p.2
^ Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (2003)
^ Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities (2009), ch 5
^ quoted in: David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, "Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896-1900, p. 559" Independent Review 4 (Spring 2000), 555-75 online
^ Ronald Lora, ed. The Conservative Press in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century America (1999) part 4 and 5.
^ Robert Green McCloskey, American conservatism in the age of enterprise, 1865-1910: a study of William Graham Sumner, Stephen J. Field, and Andrew Carnegie (1964)
^ Late in life Sumner wrote an essay focused on the dangers of monopoly. His unpublished essay of 1909, "On the Concentration of Wealth" shows his concern that pervasive corporate monopoly could be a grave threat to social equality and democratic government. Bruce Curtis, "William Graham Sumner 'On the Concentration of Wealth,'" Journal of American History 1969 55(4): 823-832.
^ R. Hal Williams, Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896 (2010)
^ Frank Nincovich, "Theodore Roosevelt: Civilization as Ideology," Diplomatic History (summer 1986) 10:222-30
^ Kenton J. Clymer, John Hay: The Gentleman as Diplomat (1975)
^ Richard Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition (1954)
^ Frederick W. Marks III, Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
^ Walter LaFeber, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913, vol. 2 (1995)
^ Elmus Wicker, Great Debate On Banking Reform: Nelson Aldrich and the Origins of the Fed (2005)
^ William Letwin, Law and Economic Policy in America: The Evolution of the Sherman Antitrust Act (1965)
^ George W. Ruiz, "The Ideological Convergence of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson," Presidential Studies Quarterly, Mar 1989, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp 159-177
^ William Henry Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (1975)
^ Norman M. Wilensky, Conservatives in the Progressive era: The Taft Republicans of 1912 (1965)
^ H. W. Brands, T.R.: The Last Romantic (1997) p. 753
^ Seward W. Livermore, Politics is Adjourned Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, 1916-1918 (1966)
^ Garland S. Tucker III, The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge and the 1924 Election (2010)
^ Morton Keller, In Defense of Yesterday: James M. Beck and the Politics of Conservatism, 1861–1936 (1958)
^ Dorothy Healey and Maurice Isserman, Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party, Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0195038194
^ Richard Gid Powers, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (1996)
^ David A. Hallman, "The Southern Voice in the Conservative Complaint of Modernist Literature," Continuity, 1984, Issue 9, pp 169-185
^ Joseph M. Flora, Lucinda Hardwick MacKethan, and Todd W. Taylor, The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs (2001)
^ See John P. Diggins, Up from Communism: Conservative Odysseys in American Intellectual History (1976)
^ Troy Kicker, "The Conservative Manifesto", North Carolina History project
^ Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson image in the American mind (1960) pp 355-79
^ Lou Cannon, President Reagan: the role of a lifetime (2000) p. 245
^ Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1950), pp 423-424.
^ John B. Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1990) full-scale biography by liberal journalist.
^ Our Mission Statement, National Review Online, November 19, 1955.
^ Hayek, Friedman and Stigler won the Nobel Prize in economics.
^ Rossiter, Conservatism in America (1968) p. 268
^ A. G. Heinsohn G. Jr., ed. Anthology of Conservative Writing in the United States, 1932-1960 (Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1962) p. 256.
^ Barry Morris Goldwater. With no apologies (1979)
^ John Kenneth White, Still seeing red: how the Cold War shapes the new American politics (1998) p 138
^ Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (2002) p. 173
^ By the 1990s "Judeo-Christian" terminology was now mostly found among conservatives. Douglas Hartmann, et al., "One (Multicultural) Nation Under God? Changing Uses and Meanings of the Term "Judeo-Christian" in the American Media," Journal of Media & Religion, 2005, Vol. 4 Issue 4, pp 207-234
^ Clyde Wilcox and Carin Robinson, Onward Christian Soldiers?: The Religious Right in American Politics (2010) p. 13
^ Donald T. Critchlow, ed. The politics of abortion and birth control in historical perspective (1996)
^ Schoenwald, (2001) pp. 83-91. Some chapters without Welch's approval did organize opposition to fluoridation of local water supplies or pushed a slate for election to local school boards.
^ Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (2003)
^ September 29, 2009 Books of The Times, The Waxing and Waning of America's Political Right By JACKSON LEARS
^ Powell, Lewis F., "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System." 1971 memorandum to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
^ Laura Kalman, Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974-1980 (2010) details the collapse one by one of alternatives to Reagan.
^ Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989 (2009), 625-32. Liberals say that Gorbachev ended the Cold War as the Soviet Union collapsed. Conservatives counter that Reagan's heavy pressure (such as "Star Wars") caused the collapse. Stephen G. Brooks, and William Wohlforth, "Clarifying the End of Cold War Debate," Cold War History 2007 7(3): 447-454
^ Reason Magazine, 1975-07-01
^ Ronald Reagan, Reagan in His Own Hand (2001), p. 14, 232, 359
^ Quoted in Time July 13, 1987
^ Hayward, The Age of Reagan p.52
^ Hayward, The Age of Reagan pp. 26, 52-54; Lou Cannon. President Reagan: TheRole of a Lifetime (1991) 118, 480-1.
^ Tanner, Michael (2007). Leviathan on the Right: how big-government conservatism brought down the Republican revolution. Cato Institute. ISBN 978-1-933-99500-7.
^ William F. Buckley, Buckley: Bush Not a True Conservative, July 22, 2006, Retrieved from cbsnews.com August 25, 2009.
^ Carl M. Cannon, Reagan's Disciple (PublicAffairs, 2008) p xii.
^ Jonathan Karl and Gregory Simmons, "'Contract' 2.0: House Republicans Roll Out 'A Pledge to America'" ABC News Sept. 23, 2010
^ "List of prominent neoconservatives," Sourcewatch.org.
^ Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations," Foreign Affairs Summer 1993, v72, n3, p22-50, online version.
^ The Value-Centered Historicism of Edmund Burke
^ John Callaghan, The Cold War and the March of Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Contemporary British History, Autumn 2001, Vol. 15 Issue 3, pp 1-25
^ National Geographic, September 2007.
^ Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, p. 407, Vintage, 1966, ISBN 978-0394703176
^ Schuman and Zelizer, eds. Rightward Bound (2008) p 158; Allitt, Conservatives, pp 178, 241
^ Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989 (2009), pp. 477
^ Chris Edwards, "Reagan's Budget Legacy," CATO Institute June 8, 2004
^ Thde term "neoliberalism" is usually used by the left in negative fashion to attack free market policies.
^ The changing colors of America (1960-2004)
^ The Self-Segregation of America into Red and Blue
^ Russello, Gerald J., 1996, "The Jurisprudence of Russell Kirk," Modern Age 38: 354-63. Issn: 0026-7457
^ Book Review by Robert S. Griffin of Chilton Williamson, Jr., The Conservative Bookshelf: Essential Works That Impact Today’s Conservative Thinkers, robertsgriffin.com.
^ Stephen Goode, Higher Education: Uniting the Great Books and Faith (August 2, 2004), Thomas Aquinas College.
^ William Safire, Safire's political dictionary (2008) pp. 175-76
^ Robert Taft, The Papers of Robert A. Taft, edited by Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr., (2003), 3:313.
^ William Safire, Safire's political dictionary (2008) pp. 18, 157
^ Donald T. Critchlow, The conservative ascendancy: how the GOP right made political history (2007) p. 43
^ I. Where Americans Go for News: News Audiences Increasingly Politicized
^ The conservative political tradition in Britain and the United States (1992), Arthur Aughey, Greta Jones, William Terence Martin Riches, pp. 1-2
^ The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Louis Hartz, p. 3
^ The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Louis Hartz, p. 17
^ Conservative parties and right-wing politics in North America (2003), Rainerp-Olaf Schultze and others, p. 15
^ The Conservative Illusion (1959), M. Morton Auerbach
^ The radical right, (2000-2002) ed. Daniel Bell, p. 75
^ Clinton Rossiter, "The Giants of American Conservatism," American Heritage 1955 6(6): 56-59, 94-96
^ See Humanitas

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Patterson, James. Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933-39 (1967)
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Buckley, William F., Jr., ed. Up from Liberalism Stein and Day, (1958)
Buckley, William F., Jr., ed. Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? American Conservative Thought in the 20th Century Bobbs-Merrill, (1970)
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Irving Kristol, Neoconservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea, ISBN 0-02-874021-1
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Irwin Stelzer ed. The NeoCon Reader (2005) ISBN 0-8021-4193-5
Wolfe, Gregory. Right Minds: A Sourcebook of American Conservative Thought. Regnery, (1987)

External links

"The Origins of the Modern American Conservative Movement," Heritage Foundation.
"Conservative Predominance in the U.S.: A Moment or an Era?", 21 experts from the U.S. and abroad, ponder the future of conservatism.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Conservatism at the University of Virginia.
"Comparative Decades: Conservatism in the 1920s and 1980s" Lesson plans
Mark Riebling, "Prospectus for a Critique of Conservative Reason."
Paul Gottfried, "How Russell Kirk (And The Right) Went Wrong"
A History of Conservative Movements - slideshow by Newsweek magazine

[1] Bruce Frohnen, ed. American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (2006) pp ix to xiv

[2] Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (Yale U.P. 2009), p. 2

[3] Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History p. 278

[4] Gregory Schneider, The Conservative Century: From Reaction to Revolution (Rowman & Littlefield. 2009) p. xii

[5] Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History, p. 278; see also pp 98, 117, 124, 126, 143, 159, 162,

[6] Paul Edward Gottfried, Conservatism in America: Making Sense of the American Right, p. 9, "Postwar conservatives set about creating their own synthesis of free-market capitalism, Christian morality, and the global struggle against Communism." (2009); Gottfried, Theologies and moral concern (1995) p. 12

[7] Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, (1953)

[8] Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008 (2009); John Ehrman, The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan (2008)

[9] James Q. Wilson (2008). American Government. Cengage Learning. p. 104. ISBN 9780547212760.

[10] Benjamin Balint, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right (2010)

[11] Jim Mann, Rise Of The Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet(2004)

[12] Donald T. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: a Woman's Crusade, p. 217, Princeton University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0691136240

[13] George H. Nash, Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservatism, "abortion, school prayer, pornography, drug use, sexual deviancy ... In a very real sense the Religious Right was closest in its concerns to traditionalist conservatism." p. 325, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2009, ISBN 9781935191650

[14] James Snyder (2004). "9. The Right to Bear Arms". The Conservative Mind: A New Model for Government. Universal-Publishers. ISBN 9781581125252. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

[15] The "law and order" issue was a major factor weakening liberalism in the 1960s, argues Michael W. Flamm, Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s (2005)

[16] Helen Jones (1997). Towards a classless society?. Routledge. pp. 215. ISBN 9780415153300.

[kristol1-17] Kristol, Irving (1995). Neoconservatism: the autobiography of an idea. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-028-74021-8. {{cite book}}: Text "page 347" ignored (help), page 347.

[18] Paul Gottfried, Multiculturalism and the politics of guilt(2004) p. 81

[19] Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, "Voters Rate the Parties' Ideologies" Pew press release July 16, 2010, online

[20] Juliana Horowitz, "Winds of Political Change Haven’t Shifted Public’s Ideology Balance," Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, press release November 25, 2008

[21] Clair Suddath, A Brief History of Blue Dog Democrats.Time July 28, 2009

[22] For example, Arthur Aughey, Greta Jones, W. T. M. Riches, The Conservative Political Tradition in Britain and the United States (1992), p. 1: "...there are those who advance the thesis that American exceptionalism means...there can be no American conservatism precisely because the American Revolution created a universally liberal society."

[23] Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, p. 114, "Conservative ideas are, thus, more genuine and profound than many critics suggest, but such unity as they have is purely negative, definable only by its opposition and rejection of abstract, universal, and ideal principles..."

[Russell_Kirk_1953_p._6,_63-24] Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1950), p. 6, 63.

[25] Joyce Appleby, Thomas Jefferson (Times Books, 2003) ch 7

[26] The Scary Echo of the Intolerance of the French Revolution in America Today

[27] Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities (2009), p. 65

[28] Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities, p. 67

[29] George Brown Tindall & David Emory Shi, America: A narrative History, pp. 665, W. W. Norton, ISBN 9780393927320.

[30] These churches were much weaker, poorer, and less central to American politics and society than established churches in Europe or Latin America.

[31] Robin W. Winks, ed. The Oxford history of the British Empire: Historiography, Volume V (2001) p107

[32] Leonard Woods Labaree, Conservatism in Early American History (1948) ch 1-2

[33] Richard Hofstadter, America at 1750: A Social Portrait (1971) ch 5

[34] Robert E. Brown and B. Katherine Brown, Virginia 1705-1786: Democracy or Aristocracy? (1964) pp 307-8

[35] Edward Countryman, American Revolution (1996) pp 36-44

[36] Norman Risjord, Jefferson's America, 1760-1815 (2002) p 129

[37] Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson: Loyalism and the Destruction of the First British Empire (1974)

[38] David F. Burg, A World History of Tax Rebellions: An Encyclopedia of Tax Rebels, Revolts, and Riots from Antiquity to the Present (Routledge, 2003) p 253

[39] Labaree, Conservatism pp 164-65

[40] See also N. E. H. Hull, Peter C. Hoffer and Steven L. Allen, "Choosing Sides: A Quantitative Study of the Personality Determinants of Loyalist and Revolutionary Political Affiliation in New York," Journal of American History, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Sep., 1978), pp. 344-366 in JSTOR

[41] Edwin G. Burrows and Michael Wallace, "The American Revolution: The Ideology and Psychology of National Liberation," Perspectives in American History, (1972) vol. 6 pp 167-306

[42] Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1991) pp. 176-77; quote on p 177.

[43] Ross N. Hebb, Samuel Seabury and Charles Inglis: Two Bishops, Two Churches (2010) p 82

[44] Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives (2009) pp 6-26

[45] Samuel Eliot Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 1765-1848: the urbane Federalist (2nd ed. 1969) pages x-xi

[46] Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives (2009) p 26

[47] Chernow (2004)

[48] Allen C. Guelzo, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (1999) pp 238-9

[49] William C. Harris, Lincoln's Rise to the Presidency (2007) p.2

[50] Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (2003)

[51] Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities (2009), ch 5

[52] quoted in: David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, "Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896-1900, p. 559" Independent Review 4 (Spring 2000), 555-75 online

[53] Ronald Lora, ed. The Conservative Press in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century America (1999) part 4 and 5.

[54] Robert Green McCloskey, American conservatism in the age of enterprise, 1865-1910: a study of William Graham Sumner, Stephen J. Field, and Andrew Carnegie (1964)

[55] Late in life Sumner wrote an essay focused on the dangers of monopoly. His unpublished essay of 1909, "On the Concentration of Wealth" shows his concern that pervasive corporate monopoly could be a grave threat to social equality and democratic government. Bruce Curtis, "William Graham Sumner 'On the Concentration of Wealth,'" Journal of American History 1969 55(4): 823-832.

[56] R. Hal Williams, Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896 (2010)

[57] Frank Nincovich, "Theodore Roosevelt: Civilization as Ideology," Diplomatic History (summer 1986) 10:222-30

[58] Kenton J. Clymer, John Hay: The Gentleman as Diplomat (1975)

[59] Richard Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition (1954)

[60] Frederick W. Marks III, Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)

[61] Walter LaFeber, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: The American Search for Opportunity, 1865-1913, vol. 2 (1995)

[62] Elmus Wicker, Great Debate On Banking Reform: Nelson Aldrich and the Origins of the Fed (2005)

[63] William Letwin, Law and Economic Policy in America: The Evolution of the Sherman Antitrust Act (1965)

[64] George W. Ruiz, "The Ideological Convergence of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson," Presidential Studies Quarterly, Mar 1989, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp 159-177

[65] William Henry Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (1975)

[66] Norman M. Wilensky, Conservatives in the Progressive era: The Taft Republicans of 1912 (1965)

[67] H. W. Brands, T.R.: The Last Romantic (1997) p. 753

[68] Seward W. Livermore, Politics is Adjourned Woodrow Wilson and the War Congress, 1916-1918 (1966)

[69] Garland S. Tucker III, The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge and the 1924 Election (2010)

[70] Morton Keller, In Defense of Yesterday: James M. Beck and the Politics of Conservatism, 1861–1936 (1958)

[71] Dorothy Healey and Maurice Isserman, Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party, Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 978-0195038194

[72] Richard Gid Powers, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (1996)

[73] David A. Hallman, "The Southern Voice in the Conservative Complaint of Modernist Literature," Continuity, 1984, Issue 9, pp 169-185

[74] Joseph M. Flora, Lucinda Hardwick MacKethan, and Todd W. Taylor, The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs (2001)

[75] See John P. Diggins, Up from Communism: Conservative Odysseys in American Intellectual History (1976)

[Kicker-76] Troy Kicker, "The Conservative Manifesto", North Carolina History project

[77] Merrill D. Peterson, The Jefferson image in the American mind (1960) pp 355-79

[78] Lou Cannon, President Reagan: the role of a lifetime (2000) p. 245

[79] Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1950), pp 423-424.

[80] John B. Judis, William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1990) full-scale biography by liberal journalist.

[81] Our Mission Statement, National Review Online, November 19, 1955.

[82] Hayek, Friedman and Stigler won the Nobel Prize in economics.

[83] Rossiter, Conservatism in America (1968) p. 268

[84] A. G. Heinsohn G. Jr., ed. Anthology of Conservative Writing in the United States, 1932-1960 (Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1962) p. 256.

[85] Barry Morris Goldwater. With no apologies (1979)

[86] John Kenneth White, Still seeing red: how the Cold War shapes the new American politics (1998) p 138

[87] Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (2002) p. 173

[88] By the 1990s "Judeo-Christian" terminology was now mostly found among conservatives. Douglas Hartmann, et al., "One (Multicultural) Nation Under God? Changing Uses and Meanings of the Term "Judeo-Christian" in the American Media," Journal of Media & Religion, 2005, Vol. 4 Issue 4, pp 207-234

[89] Clyde Wilcox and Carin Robinson, Onward Christian Soldiers?: The Religious Right in American Politics (2010) p. 13

[90] Donald T. Critchlow, ed. The politics of abortion and birth control in historical perspective (1996)

[91] Schoenwald, (2001) pp. 83-91. Some chapters without Welch's approval did organize opposition to fluoridation of local water supplies or pushed a slate for election to local school boards.

[92] Earl Black and Merle Black, The Rise of Southern Republicans (2003)

[93] September 29, 2009 Books of The Times, The Waxing and Waning of America's Political Right By JACKSON LEARS

[94] Powell, Lewis F., "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System." 1971 memorandum to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,

[95] Laura Kalman, Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974-1980 (2010) details the collapse one by one of alternatives to Reagan.

[96] Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989 (2009), 625-32. Liberals say that Gorbachev ended the Cold War as the Soviet Union collapsed. Conservatives counter that Reagan's heavy pressure (such as "Star Wars") caused the collapse. Stephen G. Brooks, and William Wohlforth, "Clarifying the End of Cold War Debate," Cold War History 2007 7(3): 447-454

[97] Reason Magazine, 1975-07-01

[98] Ronald Reagan, Reagan in His Own Hand (2001), p. 14, 232, 359

[99] Quoted in Time July 13, 1987

[100] Hayward, The Age of Reagan p.52

[101] Hayward, The Age of Reagan pp. 26, 52-54; Lou Cannon. President Reagan: TheRole of a Lifetime (1991) 118, 480-1.

[biggov_conservatives-102] Tanner, Michael (2007). Leviathan on the Right: how big-government conservatism brought down the Republican revolution. Cato Institute. ISBN 978-1-933-99500-7.

[103] William F. Buckley, Buckley: Bush Not a True Conservative, July 22, 2006, Retrieved from cbsnews.com August 25, 2009.

[104] Carl M. Cannon, Reagan's Disciple (PublicAffairs, 2008) p xii.

[105] Jonathan Karl and Gregory Simmons, "'Contract' 2.0: House Republicans Roll Out 'A Pledge to America'" ABC News Sept. 23, 2010

[106] "List of prominent neoconservatives," Sourcewatch.org.

[107] Samuel P. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations," Foreign Affairs Summer 1993, v72, n3, p22-50, online version.

[108] The Value-Centered Historicism of Edmund Burke

[109] John Callaghan, The Cold War and the March of Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Contemporary British History, Autumn 2001, Vol. 15 Issue 3, pp 1-25

[110] National Geographic, September 2007.

[111] Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, p. 407, Vintage, 1966, ISBN 978-0394703176

[112] Schuman and Zelizer, eds. Rightward Bound (2008) p 158; Allitt, Conservatives, pp 178, 241

[113] Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989 (2009), pp. 477

[114] Chris Edwards, "Reagan's Budget Legacy," CATO Institute June 8, 2004

[115] Thde term "neoliberalism" is usually used by the left in negative fashion to attack free market policies.

[116] The changing colors of America (1960-2004)

[117] The Self-Segregation of America into Red and Blue

[118] Russello, Gerald J., 1996, "The Jurisprudence of Russell Kirk," Modern Age 38: 354-63. Issn: 0026-7457

[119] Book Review by Robert S. Griffin of Chilton Williamson, Jr., The Conservative Bookshelf: Essential Works That Impact Today’s Conservative Thinkers, robertsgriffin.com.

[120] Stephen Goode, Higher Education: Uniting the Great Books and Faith (August 2, 2004), Thomas Aquinas College.

[121] William Safire, Safire's political dictionary (2008) pp. 175-76

[122] Robert Taft, The Papers of Robert A. Taft, edited by Clarence E. Wunderlin, Jr., (2003), 3:313.

[123] William Safire, Safire's political dictionary (2008) pp. 18, 157

[124] Donald T. Critchlow, The conservative ascendancy: how the GOP right made political history (2007) p. 43

[autogenerated1-125] I. Where Americans Go for News: News Audiences Increasingly Politicized

[126] The conservative political tradition in Britain and the United States (1992), Arthur Aughey, Greta Jones, William Terence Martin Riches, pp. 1-2

[127] The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Louis Hartz, p. 3

[128] The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), Louis Hartz, p. 17

[129] Conservative parties and right-wing politics in North America (2003), Rainerp-Olaf Schultze and others, p. 15

[130] The Conservative Illusion (1959), M. Morton Auerbach

[131] The radical right, (2000-2002) ed. Daniel Bell, p. 75

[132] Clinton Rossiter, "The Giants of American Conservatism," American Heritage 1955 6(6): 56-59, 94-96

[133] See Humanitas

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@@ Line 157: / Line 157: @@
 {{See also|American liberalism#Nixon and the liberal consensus|l1=Nixon and the liberal consensus}}
-The Republican administrations of President [[Richard Nixon]] in the 1970s were characterized more by their emphasis on ''[[realpolitik]]'', [[détente]], and economic policies such as wage and price controls, than by their adherence to conservative views in foreign and economic policy.
+The Republican administrations of President [[Richard Nixon]] in the 1970s were characterized more by their emphasis on ''[[realpolitik]]'', [[détente]], and economic policies such as wage and price controls, than by their adherence to conservative views in foreign and economic policy. Nixon's successor [[Gerald Ford]] angered conservatives with his policy of [[détente]] with the Soviet Union, and hisd inability to control inflation.  Liberal Democrats made major gains in 1974, and the Democrats reclaimed the White House in 1976 with [[Jimmy Carter]].  Carter proved much too liberal for the conservative movement, too conservative for the mainstream of the Democratic Party, and too incompetent in foreign affairs to please anyone.  Carter realized there was a strong national sense of malaise, for which he blamed the people, as inflation skyrocketed, interest rates soared, the economy stagnated, and prolonged humiliation resulted when [[Iran hostage crisis|Islamic militants in Tehran]] kept American diplomats hostage for 444 days in 1979-81.<ref>Laura Kalman, ''Right Star Rising: A New Politics, 1974-1980'' (2010) details the collapse one by one of alternatives to Reagan.</ref>.
 ====Reagan Era====
@@ Line 163: / Line 163: @@
 =====Conservative ascent=====
-It was not until the election of [[United States presidential election, 1980|1980]] and the subsequent eight years of [[Ronald Reagan]]'s presidency that the modern American conservative movement truly achieved ascendancy. In that election, Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 1954, and conservative principles dominated Reagan's economic and foreign policies, with [[supply side economics]] and strict opposition to Soviet Communism defining the Administration's philosophy. Reagan's ideas were largely espoused and supported by the conservative [[The Heritage Foundation|Heritage Foundation]], which grew dramatically in its influence during the Reagan years as Reagan and his senior aides looked to Heritage for policy guidance.
+In Tehran, Islamic militants released the hostages at the moment [[Ronald Reagan]] was sworn in. With is victory in [[United States presidential election, 1980|1980]] the modern American conservative movement finally yook power.  In that election, Republicans took control of the Senate for the first time since 1954, and conservative principles dominated Reagan's economic and foreign policies, with [[supply side economics]] and strict opposition to Soviet Communism defining the Administration's philosophy. Reagan's ideas were largely espoused and supported by the conservative [[The Heritage Foundation|Heritage Foundation]], which grew dramatically in its influence during the Reagan years as Reagan and his senior aides looked to Heritage for policy guidance.
 An icon of the American conservative movement, Reagan is credited by his supporters with transforming the politics of the United States, galvanizing the success of the Republican Party. He brought together a coalition of economic conservatives, who supported his [[supply-side economics]]; foreign policy conservatives, who favored his staunch opposition to [[Communism]] and the [[Soviet Union]]; and social conservatives, who identified with his religious and social ideals. Reagan labeled the former [[Soviet Union]] as the "[[evil empire]]." He was attacked by liberals at the time as a dangerous warmonger, but conservative historians conclude that he decisively won the [[Cold War]].<ref>Steven F. Hayward, ''The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989'' (2009), 625-32. Liberals say that Gorbachev ended the Cold War as the Soviet Union collapsed. Conservatives counter that Reagan's heavy pressure (such as "Star Wars") caused the collapse. Stephen G. Brooks, and William Wohlforth, "Clarifying the End of Cold War Debate," ''Cold War History'' 2007 7(3): 447-454</ref>
@@ Line 421: / Line 421: @@
 '''Organizations'''
 *[[Eagle Forum]]
-*[[Council of Conservative Citizens]]
 *[[Federalist Society]]
 *[[Focus on the Family]]
 *[[Intercollegiate Studies Institute]]
-*[[John Birch Society]]
 *[[National Rifle Association]]
 *[[United States Chamber of Commerce]]

v t e Conservatism in North America
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