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American conservatism
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Conservatism in the United States is a major American political ideology. In contemporary American politics, it is often associated with the Republican Party. Core conservative principles include outspoken belief in God and country, and many U.S. conservatives support a fiscal policy rooted in small government, laissez faire capitalism, and supply-side economics. In foreign policy, American conservatives usually advocate "American exceptionalism," a belief that the U.S. is unique among nations and that its standing and actions do and should guide the course of world history.
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Encyclopedia
Conservatism in the United States is a major American political ideology. In contemporary American politics, it is often associated with the Republican Party. Core conservative principles include outspoken belief in God and country, and many U.S. conservatives support a fiscal policy rooted in small government, laissez faire capitalism, and supply-side economics. In foreign policy, American conservatives usually advocate "American exceptionalism," a belief that the U.S. is unique among nations and that its standing and actions do and should guide the course of world history. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, American conservatives have been the driving force behind increased U.S. military power.
Although there has always been a conservative tradition in America, the modern American conservative movement was popularized by Russell Kirk who, in 1953, published The Conservative Mind. Two years later, in 1955, William F. Buckley, Jr. founded National Review, a conservative magazine that included traditionalists, such as Kirk, along with libertarians and anti-communists. This bringing together of separate ideologies under a conservative umbrella was known as "fusionism." Politically, the conservative movement in the U.S. has often been a coalition of various groups, which has sometimes contributed to its electoral success and other times been a source of internal conflict.
Modern conservatism saw its first national political success with the 1964 nomination of Barry Goldwater, a U.S. Senator from Arizona and author of The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), as the Republican candidate for president. In 1980, the conservative movement was able to attract disaffected Southern Democrats, Cold War liberal Democrats, and evangelical Christians to nominate and elect the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, a self-identified American conservative, as president. Subsequent electoral victories included gaining a Republican congressional majority in 1994 and the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.
The conservative movement has been advanced by influential think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution, Hudson Institute and Manhattan Institute. Major media outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The Washington Times, and Townhall.com, are often described as conservative.
The two major American political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, have become increasingly polarized in the 21st Century, with the Democrats described as "liberal" and "left wing" and the Republicans as "conservative" and "right wing".
History
Origins
Unlike England, Europe and even former European colonies, the United States does not have major ideological, class-based parties. Therefore, conservatism cannot be identified with a specific party, and there is vast disagreement over which politicians and writers from the past should be included as conservatives. Generally however the Federalist, Whig and Republican Parties are considered the "conservative" parties, while the Democratic Party is considered "liberal."
Prior to the American Revolution, colonial institutions were generally conservative, including established churches, entailed property ownership and bondage labor. Local land-owning and merchant elites became powerful through patronage from colonial governors and formed "court" factions in the colonial legislatures, opposed by "popular" factions representing less privileged voters. These conservative elites and their followers are often referred to by modern historians as "Tories", the term later used by leaders of the American Revolution to describe those loyal to the Crown. Some of the leading Tory writers included Joseph Galloway, Thomas Hutchinson, Peter Oliver and Samuel Seabury. Following the Revolution, approximately 100,000 loyalists fled the United States, although the great majority remained in America.
Russell Kirk, in The Conservative Mind, wrote that the American Revolution was "a conservative reaction, in the English political tradition, against royal innovation" , and saw the Federalists, led by John Adams as "the first conservative faction in an independent America" . Federalists had rebelled only because the British government had threatened the English traditions and institutions that the colonists enjoyed. The Federalist leadership had enjoyed considerable power and influence under British rule and unsurprisingly former Tories joined in the new party.
The Federalists, led by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, feared that the American Revolution could follow the radical course of the French Revolution of 1789, and concentrated power in the central government, restricted voting franchise to property-owners, and introduced the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were laws designed to target subversion. Conservatives who could be relied on to invalidate radical legislation were appointed to the Supreme Court. However, the Federalist Party declined following Jefferson's victory in 1800, leaving the Democratic Republican Party dominant. The Federalist party dissolved in 1815. In 1824, the Democratic-Republican Party split into several factions, notably the Jacksonians (later the Democratic Party) and the National Republicans.
In the early 1830s, the National Republicans combined with various other political factions to form the Whig Party, choosing the name "Whig" because it had been used by patriots in the Revolution and therefore appealed to Americans' sense of tradition. Daniel Webster and other Whig leaders called themselves the "conservative party" and used the word "conservative." This word had been coined by French politician Chateaubriand in 1819, and introduced into American politics by John C. Calhoun. In Whig usage, it emphasized preservation of the union and constitutionalism (as opposed to abolitionism). However, the term "conservative" was omitted from Whig's final 1856 presidential platform.
Unlike the Federalists, the Whigs made a direct appeal to ordinary voters, successfully running the well-known General William Henry Harrison as its presidential candidate in 1840. The campaign portrayed Harrison as a rugged frontiersman, whereas he was a Virginia Planter. But lack of unity, especially over the issue of slavery, led to the party's decline and it disappeared by 1860.
The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who is widely regarded as one of America's best presidents and, unlike Harrison, an actual frontiersman, was able to appeal to both Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian elements, security and democracy. The Republican constituency grew to include northern farmers and freed slaves, and led to Republican dominance for the next eighty years.
Southern Conservatism
John Randolph of Roanoke and John C. Calhoun expressed a traditional conservatism in the Southern states before the Civil War.
Randolph declared in 1829: "I am an aristocrat: I love liberty, I hate equality". He is considered, along with John Calhoun, to be one of the main defenders of Southern plantation interests before the Civil War.
Calhoun, a Democrat, articulated a sophisticated conservatism in his writings. Richard Hofstadter (1948) called him "The Marx of the Master Class." He believed that only property holders should be allowed to vote, and resisted the growing strength of the federal government. He also argued that a conservative minority should be able to limit the power of a "majority dictatorship" because tradition represents the wisdom of past generations. (This argument echoes one made by Edmund Burke, the founder of British conservatism, in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)).
However, as Russell Kirk wrote, after the Civil War and Reconstruction, traditional conservatism faded in the South. "Grant and Sherman ground their valor into powder, Emancipation and Reconstruction demolished the loose structure of their old society, economic subjugation crushed them into the productive machine of modern times. No political philosophy has had a briefer span of triumph than that accorded Randolph's and Calhoun's."
Southern conservatism revived after the Civil War with the rise of the Dixiecrats and the "Solid South". The Democratic Party styled itself "The Party of the White Man", and worked to overturn the gains in civil rights accomplished by civil rights workers from the north, who were largely Republican. Northerners who came south to teach Negroes to read and write were denigrated as carpetbaggers, while Southerners who fought for civil rights were called "scalawags". Southern Negroes were denied the right to vote, by violence and threats of violence, for a century, from the time of the Reconstruction until the 1960s.
Conservatism as an intellectual movement in the South was briefly revived in the early 20th Century with the rise of the Southern Agrarians. Today, after Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy, cultural and political conservatism has gained a foothold in the American South based not on racism, but on religion, with the Republican and Democratic parties swapping places, and the "solid south" switching from Democrat to Republican.
Late 19th Century
Following the American Civil War, the United States entered the Gilded Age (1868-1900) during which there was massive economic expansion, but also growing divisions of wealth, with John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and others creating huge corporations dominating entire industries, while 12 hour work days, child labor, unethical business dealings and discrimination were common.
During this period, both the Republican and Democratic Parties pursued laissez-faire economic policies. The best known president of this era was Grover Cleveland, a Bourbon Democrat, who fought corruption and high taxes, and vigorously defended big business. William Graham Sumner, a popular philosopher of this period, exemplified the belief in free markets, anti-imperialism and the gold standard. Opposition to conservatism came mostly from outside the two political parties, from trade unions and farm groups, often forming third parties such as the Greenback-Labor Party and the Populist Party.
As the century drew to a close, the United States had become a major commercial power and had acquired overseas territories in Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam. 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, and the Democrats, led by populist William Jennings Bryan, becoming the party of labour and farmers, a inflationary monetary policy of bimetalism, anti-imperialism, and a tariff strictly for revenue as opposed to protection.
Early 20th Century
In the early years of the twentieth century, Republican presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft governed more as Progressives than as Conservatives (Roosevelt more so) including regulation of railroad rates, federal inspection of food and drugs, and anti-trust legislation and prosecutions. Nelson Aldrich, the Republican Senate Majority leader, introduced legislation to establish the Federal Reserve System, which was set up in 1913.
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 alarmed both Democrats and Republicans, leading both parties to take strong anti-communist positions. In 1918, American troops were sent to join European, Asian, Canadian and Australian forces in an allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, while at home the government passed laws against anarchists and other radicals, and conducted numerous raids (see Palmer Raids), arresting 10,000 people, and even fabricated evidence against suspects. Eugene Debs, the leader of the Socialist Party was convicted under the Espionage Act 1917 for opposing American entry into the First World War, and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and many elected Socialist office-holders were expelled from office. At the height of the "Red Scare", the Attorney-General, Alexander Palmer predicted that there would be a Communist Revolution in America on May 1st, 1920.
Conservative Republicans returned to dominance in 1920 with the election of President Warren G. Harding. The presidency of Calvin Coolidge (1923-29) was a high water mark for conservatism, both politically and intellectually. Coolidge himself spoke and wrote extensively in defence of American enterprise. Classic writing of the period includes Democracy and Leadership (1924) by Irving Babbitt and H.L. Mencken's magazine American Mercury (1924-33). The Efficiency Movement attracted Progressive Republicans like Herbert Hoover with its pro-business, quasi-engineering approach to solving social and economic problems.
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. The voters grew impatient with Republican President Herbert Hoover's claim that prosperity was just around the corner and that government was powerless to improve the economy and elected Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president in 1932. Roosevelt assembled experts and introduced a set of policies called the New Deal, which was greatly influenced by the economic theories of the Liberal economist John Maynard Keynes. These included devaluing the dollar, which would lead to permanent inflation, running a budget deficit, and increasing spending on government works and social welfare programs, as well as establishing regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Former Democratic presidential candidates John W. Davis (1924) and Al Smith (1928) along with other anti-New Deal Democrats and wealthy industrialists, formed the American Liberty League in order to organize against the new administration.
Opposition to the New Deal also came from the Old Right, a group of libertarian, free-market anti-interventionists, originally associated with Midwestern Republicans and Southern Democrats. The Old Right were also later united in opposing American entry into the Second World War, and were called "isolationists", although opposition to the war came from across the political spectrum (see America First. However, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war against the United States united them behind the war effort.
Vice President John Nance Garner worked with congressional allies to prevent Roosevelt from appointing sympathetic Supreme Court judges who would not over-rule New Deal legislation as unconstitutional. U.S. Senator Josiah Bailey (D-NC) released what later became known as the "Conservative Manifesto" in December 1937 which marked the beginning of what later became known as the "Conservative Coalition" between Republican and Southern Democrats. Although Roosevelt tried to purge the conservative Democrats in the 1938 election, the Coalition controlled Congress until 1961, aside from a brief period in 1949-50. 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 participation in the Korean War.
Although the United States emerged as the world's undisputed leading power following the Second World War, the Soviet Union was able to build substantial military power, and had influence with many independence groups in European colonies. While the government addressed this perceived threat by maintaining a permanent military presence throughout the world, conservatives used their power in Congress to investigate a perceived threat from domestic Communists. Senator Joe McCarthy and Congressman Richard Nixon were leading congressional anti-communist investigators, while FBI Director J Edgar Hoover led police investigations and informed the public of the perceived threat, and Screen Actor's Guild President Ronald Reagan looked for Communists working in the film industry.
Modern conservatism
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. It is generally referred to simply as "conservatism".
Origins of Modern Conservatism
Although the Republicans returned to power with the election of General Dwight D. Eisenhower as president in 1952, the economic and social policies of the New Deal had become generally accepted and its opponents were marginalized. Isolationism had discredited the Old Right and their opposition to Civil Rights had discredited the Southern Democrats. The most critical opposition to these policies 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. This target group is similar to the core constituency of the British Conservative Party. Freidrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, and Milton Friedman advocated a return to classical liberal or libertarian policies and together provided a vigorous criticism of the welfare state and Keynsian economics. 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. He was joined by anti-communist Robert W. Welch Jr., who would found the John Birch Society in 1958, as a shareholder and contributor.
The main disagreement between Kirk, who would become described as a "traditional 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.
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. Substantial organization for the campaign came from the John Birch Society and the newly-formed Young Americans for Freedom. 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 sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and 1976, before finally being elected president in 1980.
The growth of conservatism within the Republican Party attracted conservative Southern Democrats as new members, and the Republicans became the dominant power in the Southern states. In 1964, the segregationist Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond joined the Republicans, and in 1973 former Texas Democratic Governor John Connally followed. Meanwhile, Southern African American voters began supporting the Democrats overwhelmingly. (See Southern Strategy).
Nixon, Reagan, and Bush
See also: 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.
Reagan and the conservative ascent
It was not until the election of 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 created 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, uniting a coalition of economic conservatives who supported his economic policies, known as "Reaganomics," foreign policy conservatives who favored his staunch opposition to Communism and the Soviet Union over the détente of his predecessors through the Reagan Doctrine and support for defense strengthening measures, and social conservatives who identified with Reagan's conservative religious and social ideals. Reagan's labeling the former Soviet Union an "evil empire," while criticized by many American liberals and other world leaders, is now viewed by historians as a turning point in the Cold War, justifying more assertive measures to defeat, as opposed to merely contain, the Soviet Union as a world power.
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."
Types of conservatism
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 core ideals of historical conservatism, the way they are popularly understood today, were preserving the power of the land-owning class and preserving strong ties between church and state. As the industrial revolution led to a new manufacturing and professional elite, the ideals of conservatism changed to embrace laissez-faire economics and an opposition to socialism. In the United States, from the mid-20th century on, these two forms of conservatism have largely combined, but still are at odds with those who believe in both limited government and free market economics. Barry Goldwater is one example of a "free enterprise" conservative, one of the last Republican proponents of classical liberalism and small government. Jerry Falwell is an example of a Christian conservative, and indicative of the new alliance between large government conservatives, like George W. Bush, and the religiously-informed proponents of conservative social policy. Many conservatives cite Ronald Reagan as a self-declared conservative who incorporated all of these conservative themes in his political ideology.
In the 21st century U.S., some of the groups calling themselves "conservative" include:
1. Classical or institutional conservatism — Opposition to rapid change in governmental and societal institutions. This kind of conservatism is anti-ideological insofar as it emphasizes process (slow change) over product (any particular form of government). To the classical conservative, whether one arrives at a government controlled by a particular political party is less important than whether change is affected through rule of law rather than through revolution and sudden innovation. The classical conservative emphasizes historical continuity, to ensure that a reform does not cause chaos within both the populace and historical institutions of a given society. Classical conservatives also favor tradition over experimentation, and have an inherent distrust in utopian schemes.
2. Ideological conservatism or right-wing conservatism — In contrast to the anti-ideological classical conservatism, right-wing conservatism is, as its name implies, ideological. It favors business and established religion, and opposes socialism and communism.
3. Christian conservatism — Conservative Christians are primarily interested in what they describe as family values. They believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, believe that abortion is wrong, favor teacher-led Christian prayer in state schools, define marriage as between one man and one woman (rejecting same-sex marriage), and desire regulation of the public media to reduce profanity and sexual references. They strongly oppose the normalization of homosexuality.
4. Neoconservatism — A modern form of conservatism that supports a more assertive foreign policy, aimed at promoting democracy abroad. 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.
5. Small government conservatism — Small government conservatives look for a decreased role of the federal government. They follow the Founding Fathers in their suspicion of a powerful federal government.
6. Paleoconservatism — Arising in the 1980s in reaction to neoconservatism, stresses tradition, especially Christian tradition and the importance to society of the traditional family. Paleoconservatives strongly oppose government intervention into people's lives. Some, Samuel P. Huntington for example, argue that multiracial, multiethnic, and egalitarian states are inherently unstable. Paleoconservatives are generally isolationist, and suspicious of foreign influence.
7. Libertarian conservatism — Emphasizes a strict interpretation of the United States Constitution, particularly with regard to federal power. Libertarian conservatism is constituted by a broad, even conflicted, coalition including pro-business social moderates, those favoring classic states' rights, individual liberty activists, and people concerned over single issues. This mode of thinking tends to espouse laissez-faire economics and a disdain for and distrust of the federal government. Libertarian conservatives' emphasis on personal freedom often leads them to adopt 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 makes libertarian conservatives in frequent opposition to international government.
Conservatism as ideology and political philosophy
Classical conservatives tend to be anti-ideological, and some would even say anti-philosophical, 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 the most efficient way to promote economic growth: they support it not based on some moral principle, but pragmatically, because it "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. For example, in the 1980s, the United States government spent billions of dollars arming and supporting Islamic terrorists, because these terrorists were fighting communists.
Social conservatism and tradition
Social conservatism or "cultural 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. To the Protestant or Catholic, 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.
Conservative protestants 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. They often object when the schools teach a secular version of history, making the claim, for example, that all of America's Founding Fathers were Christian, and that America is thus founded on a Christian tradition.
From this same respect for local traditions comes the correlation between conservatism and patriotism. Conservatives, out of their respect for traditional, established institutions, tend to strongly identify with nationalist movements, existing governments, and its defenders: police, the military, and national poets, authors, and artists. 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. The willingness to use federal power to intervene in state affairs is the negation of the old state's rights position.
Anti-intellectualism has sometimes been a component of social conservatism, especially when intellectuals were seen in opposition to religion or as proponents of "progress". In the 1920s, William Jennings Bryan led the battle against Darwinism and evolution, a battle which still goes on in some conservative circles today.
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.
Economic liberalism
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, a bigger role of the government in the economy will make people feel less responsible for the society. The responsibilities must then 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 the UK and the Ronald Reagan government in the U.S. -- both held the unfettered operation of the market to be the cornerstone of contemporary modern conservatism (this philosophy is sometimes called neoliberalism). To that end, Thatcher privatized industries and Reagan cut the maximum capital gains tax from 98% to 20%, though in his second term he raised it back up to 28%. Contrary to the neoliberal ideal, Reagan increased government spending from about 700 billion in his first year in office to about 900 billion in his last year.
The interests of capitalism, fiscal and economic liberalism, and free-market economy do not necessarily coincide with those of social conservatism. At times, aspects of capitalism and free markets have been profoundly subversive of the existing social order, as in economic modernization, or of traditional attitudes toward the proper position of sex in society, as in the now near-universal availability of pornography. To that end, on issues at the intersection of economic and social policy, conservatives of one school or another are often at odds.
Conservatism in the United States electoral politics
See also: Dixiecrats, Southern strategy, Solid South, Contract with America
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.
In addition, many 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 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.
Conservative geography, "Red States"
Today in the U.S., geographically the South, the non-coastal West, and Alaska are conservative strongholds. However, the division of the United States into conservative red states and liberal blue states is artificial and does not reflect the actual distribution of voters of either stripe. Most college towns are generally liberal and vote Democratic. The majority of people who live in rural areas and a smaller majority of those living in the "exurbs" or suburbs of a metropolitan area, tend to be conservative (socially, culturally, and/or fiscally) and vote Republican. People who live in the urban cores of large metropolitan areas tend to be liberal and vote Democratic. Thus, within each state, there is a division between city and county, between town and gown.
Other topics
Contemporary Burkean conservativism
In western Europe conservatism is generally associated with the following views, as noted by the conservative author Russell Kirk in his 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, and (during the lat 18th century) by the British political philosopher Edmund Burke:
- "Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience."
- "Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems;"
- "Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and the Leviathan becomes master of all."
- "Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs."
- "Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress."
Conservatism and the Courts
One stream of conservatism exemplified by William Howard Taft extols independent judges as experts in fairness and the final arbiters of the Constitution. However, another more critical variant of conservatism condemns "judicial activism" -- that is, judges rejecting laws passed by Congress or interpreting the Constitution in new ways. This position goes back to Jefferson's vehement attacks on federal judges and to Abraham Lincoln's attacks on the Dred Scott decision of 1857. In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt broke with most of his lawyer friends and called for popular votes that could overturn unwelcome decisions by state courts. President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not attack the Supreme Court directly in 1937, but ignited a firestorm of protest by a proposal to add seven new justices. The Warren Court of the 1960s came under conservative attack for decisions regarding redistricting, desegregation, and the rights of those accused of crimes.
A more recent variant that emerged in the 1970s is "originalism", the assertion that the United States Constitution should be interpreted to the maximum extent possible in the light of what it meant when it was adopted. Originalism should not be confused with a similar conservative ideology, strict constructionism, which deals with the interpretation of the Constitution as written, but not necessarily within the context of the time when it was adopted. In modern times, originalism has been advocated by U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, former U.S. federal judge Robert Bork and other conservative jurists.
Semantics, language, and media
Language
In the late 20th century conservatives found new ways to use language and the media to support their goals and to shape the vocabulary of political discourse. Thus the use of "Democrat" as an adjective, as in "Democrat Party" was used first in the 1930s by Republicans to criticize large urban Democratic machines. Republican leader Harold Stassen stated in 1940, "I emphasized that the party controlled in large measure at that time by Hague in New Jersey, Pendergast in Missouri and Kelly Nash in Chicago should not be called a 'Democratic Party.' It should be called the 'Democrat party.'" [Safire 1994] In 1947 Senator Robert A. Taft said, "Nor can we expect any other policy from any Democrat Party or any Democrat President under present day conditions. They cannot possibly win an election solely through the support of the solid South, and yet their political strategists believe the Southern Democrat Party will not break away no matter how radical the allies imposed upon it." [Taft Papers 3:313]. The use of "Democrat" as an adjective is standard practice in Republican national platforms (since 1948), and has been standard practice in the White House since 2001, for press releases and speeches.
Television
Pew further reported that conservatives and liberals were increasingly polarized in their TV news preferences. The cable news audience was slightly more Republican and more strongly conservative than the public at large or the network news audience. Among regular cable news viewers, 43% described their political views as conservative, compared with 33% of regular network news viewers; 37% of cable viewers are moderate, compared to 41% of network viewers; and 14% are self-described liberals versus 18% of network viewers.
The audience for the Fox News Channel has grown since 1998, attracting more conservative and Republican viewers. In 1998, the Fox News audience mirrored the public in terms of both partisanship and ideology. However, the percentage of Fox News Channel viewers who identify as Republicans has increased steadily from 24% in 1998, to 29% in 2000, 34% in 2002, and 41% in 2004. Over the same time period, the percentage of Fox viewers who describe themselves as conservative has increased from 40% to 52%.
Radio
Conservatives gained a major new communications medium with the advent of talk radio in the 1990s. Rush Limbaugh proved there was a huge nationwide audience for specific and heated discussions of current events from a conservative viewpoint. Major hosts who describe themselves as either conservative or libertarian include: Michael Peroutka, Jim Quinn, Dennis Miller, Ben Ferguson, Lars Larson, Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Ingraham, Mike Church, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Larry Elder, Kim Peterson, Neal Boortz, Michael Reagan, Jason Lewis and Ken Hamblin. The Salem Radio Network syndicates a group of religiously-oriented Republican activists, including Evangelical Christian Hugh Hewitt, and Jewish conservatives Dennis Prager and Michael Medved. One popular Jewish conservative, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, offers parental and personal advice, but is an outspoken critic of social and political issues. Libertarians such as Neal Boortz (based in Atlanta), and Mark Davis (based in Ft. Worth and Dallas, Texas) reach large local audiences. Art Bell held some Libertarian views before his talk show adapted a new paranormal format. Many of these hosts also publish books, write newspaper columns, appear on television, and give public lectures (Limbaugh was a pioneer of this model of multi-media punditry). At a rarer level, University of Chicago psychology professor Milt Rosenberg has been hosting a talk show "Extension 720" on WGN radio in Chicago since the 1970s. Talk radio provided an immediacy and a high degree of emotionalism that seldom is reached on television or in magazines. Pew researchers found in 2004 that 17% of the public regularly listens to talk radio. This audience is mostly male, middle-aged, well-educated and conservative. Among those who regularly listen to talk radio, 41% are Republicans and 28% are Democrats. Moreover, 45% describe themselves as conservatives, compared with 18% who say they are liberal.
Newspapers and magazines
While most American conservatives argue that the U.S. print and television media have a liberal bias, they have made inroads in establishing several influential outlets in these media segments. In addition to Fox News in television and several prominent national conservative radio personalities, several print media outlets are identified with conservatism. In newspapers, the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and Boston Herald, and The Washington Times are each considered conservative. In magazines, National Review, Policy Review, The Weekly Standard and Human Events are each influential conservative publications with tens of thousands of readers.
Conservative political movements
Contemporary political conservatism — the actual politics of people and parties professing to be conservative — in most western democratic countries is an amalgam of social and institutional conservatism, generally combined with fiscal conservatism, and usually containing elements of broader economic conservatism as well. As with liberalism, it is a pragmatic and protean politics, opportunistic at times, rooted more in a tradition than in any formal set of principles.
It is certainly possible for one to be a fiscal and economic conservative but not a social conservative; in the United States at present, this is the stance of libertarianism. It is also possible to be a social conservative but not an economic conservative, or to be a fiscal conservative without being either a social conservative or a broader economic conservative, such as the "deficit hawks" of the Democratic Party. In general use, the unqualified term "conservative" is often applied to social conservatives who are not fiscal or economic conservatives. It is rarely applied in the opposite case, except in specific contrast to those who are neither.
It can be argued that classical conservatism tends to represent the interests of the Establishment. Yet, this is not always the case. Considering the conservative's opposition to political abstractions, the "true" conservative ought never support a contrived social state, be that on the left (Communism) or on the right (Fascism). There is an independent justification of the attitude of conservatism, which tends to favor what is organic and has been shaped by history, against the planned and artificial.
Conservative thinkers and leaders in the United States
Some notable figures in the history of conservatism in the United States are:
Primary sources
- 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)
- Mark Gerson, ed., The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader (Perseus Publishing, (1997)) ISBN 0-201-15488-9
- Irving Kristol, Neoconservatism: the Autobiography of an Idea, ISBN 0-02-874021-1
- Gregory L. Schneider, ed. Conservatism in America Since 1930: A Reader (2003)
- Irwin Stelzer ed. The NeoCon Reader (2005) ISBN 0-8021-4193-5
- Wolfe, Gregory. Right Minds: A Sourcebook of American Conservative Thought. Regnery, (1987)
Intellectual history
- Dunn, Charles W. and J. David Woodard; The Conservative Tradition in America Rowman & Littlefield, 1996
- Filler, Louis. Dictionary of American Conservatism Philosophical Library, (1987)
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- Bruce Frohnen et al eds. American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (2006) ISBN 1-932236-44-9, the most detailed reference
- Genovese, Eugene. The Southern Tradition: The Achievement and Limitations of an American Conservatism Harvard University Press, 1994
- Gottfried, Paul. The Conservative Movement Twayne, 1993.
- Guttman, Allan. The Conservative Tradition in America Oxford University Press, 1967.
- Willmoore Kendall, and George W. Carey. "Towards a Definition of 'Conservatism." Journal of Politics 26 (May 1964): 406-22.
- Kirk, Russell. The Conservative Mind. Regnery Publishing; 7th edition (2001): ISBN 0-89526-171-5
- Lora, Ronald. Conservative Minds in America Greenwood, 1976.
- Lowi, Theodore J. The End of the Republican Era (1995)
- Meyer, Frank S. ed. What Is Conservatism? 1964.
- Murphy, Paul V. The Rebuke of History: The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought (2001)
- Nash, George. The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (1978) influential history
- Nisbet, Robert A. Conservatism: Dream and Reality. University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
- Ribuffo, Leo P. 1983. The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War. Temple University Press.
- Rossiter, Clinton. Conservatism in America. 2nd ed. Harvard University Press, 1982.
- Melvin J. Thorne; American Conservative Thought since World War II: The Core Ideas Greenwood: 1990
- Peter Viereck; Conservatism: from John Adams to Churchill 1956, 1978
Political activity
- Hart, Jeffrey. The Making of the American Conservative Mind: The National Review and Its Times (2005)
- Lora, Ronald.; The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America Greenwood Press, 1999
- McDonald, Forrest. States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 (2002)
- Malsberger, John W. From Obstruction to Moderation: The Transformation of Senate Conservatism, 1938-1952 2000.
- Patterson, James. Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933-39 (1967)
- Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (2004) on 1964
- Reinhard, David W.; Republican Right since 1945 University Press of Kentucky, 1983
- Shelley II, Mack C. The Permanent Majority: The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress (1983)
- Wilensky, Norman N. Conservatives in the Progressive Era: The Taft Republicans of 1912 (1965).
Biographical
- H. Lee Cheek Jr.;Calhoun and Popular Rule: The Political Theory of the Disquisition and Discourse University of Missouri Press. 2001. Stresses Calhoun's Republicanism
- Crunden, Robert M. The Mind and Art of Albert Jay Nock (1964)
- Dierenfield, Bruce J. Keeper of the Rules: Congressman Howard W. Smith of Virginia (1987), leader of the Conservative coalition in Congress
- Fergurson, Ernest B. Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, 1986
- Fite, Gilbert. Richard B. Russell, Jr, Senator from Georgia (2002) leader of the Conservative coalition in Congress
- Goldberg, Robert Alan. Barry Goldwater (1995)
- Judis, John B. William F. Buckley, Jr.: Patron Saint of the Conservatives (1988)
- Kelly, Daniel. James Burnham and the Struggle for the World: A Life (2002)
- Patterson, James T. Mr. Republican: A Biography of Robert A. Taft (1972)
- Rodgers, Marion Elizabeth. Mencken: The American Iconoclast (2005)
- Federici , Michael P. Eric Voegelin: The Restoration of Order (2002)
- Pemberton, William E. Exit with Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan (1998)
- Smant, Kevin J. Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement (2002) (ISBN 1-882926-72-2)
- Smith, Richard Norton. An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (1994) strongest on 1933-64
- Tanenhaus, Sam. Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (1997) (ISBN 0-394-58559-3)
- Chambers, Whittaker, Witness (1952), a memoir his Communist years
Recent politics
- John B. Bader; Taking the Initiative: Leadership Agendas in Congress and the "Contract with America" Georgetown University Press, (1996)
- Berkowitz, Peter . Varieties Of Conservatism In America (2004)
- Collins, Robert M. Transforming America: Politics and Culture During the Reagan Years, (Columbia University Press; 320 pages; 2007).
- Himmelstein, Jerome and J. A. McRae Jr., "'Social Conservatism, New Republicans and the 1980 Election'", Public Opinion Quarterly, 48 (1984), 595-605.
- Micklethwait, John, and Adrian Wooldridge. The Right Nation (2004)
- Rae; Nicol C. Conservative Reformers: The Republican Freshmen and the Lessons of the 104th Congress M. E. Sharpe, 1998
- Schoenwald; Jonathan . A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (2002)
Neoconservatism
- Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind (1988)
- Fukuyama, Francis. America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (2007)
- Gerson, Mark. The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to Culture Wars (1997)
- Halper, Stefan & Clarke, Jonathan, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge University Press, 2004) ISBN 0-521-83834-7
- Stelzer, Irwin. Neo-conservatism (2004)
Critical views
- Bell, David. ed, The Radical Right. Doubleday 1963.
- Diamond, Sara. Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. (1995)
- Huntington, Samuel P. "Conservatism as an Ideology." American Political Science Review 52 (June 1957): 454-73.
- Koopman; Douglas L. Hostile Takeover: The House Republican Party, 1980-1995 Rowman & Littlefield, 1996
- Lapham, Lewis H. "Tentacles of Rage" in Harper's, September 2004, p. 31-41.
- Coser Lewis A., and Irving Howe, eds. The New Conservatives: A Critique from the Left New American Library, 1976.
- Martin, William. 1996. With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, New York: Broadway Books.
See also
External links
U.S. conservative organizations and publications
- , generally considered world's most influential conservative think tank.
- , promoting traditional Conservative beliefs in politics and faith.
- , neoconservative think tank.
- , influential conservative political magazine.
- , conservative news, information, and commentary.
- . Leading magazine of traditional conservative thought.
- .
- .
- , a training organization for conservative activists.
Articles and essays on U.S. conservatism
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