Encyclopedia
American conservatism is a constellation of political ideologies within the
United States under the blanket heading of
conservative. Included are fiscal conservatives, free market or economic liberals, social conservatives, and religious conservatives, as well as supporters of a strong American
military, opponents of internationalism , and proponents of state's rights.
Modern American conservatism coalesced in the latter half of the
20th century, responding over time to the political and social change associated with events such as the
Great Depression, the
Cold War, the American Civil Rights Movement, and the
counterculture of the 1960s. Its prominence has been aided, in part, by the emergence of vocal and influential
economists,
politicians,
writers, and
media personalities. While conservatives were once significant minorities in both major parties, the conservative wing of the Democratic party has all but died out and most conservatives today identify themselves as Republicans. In 2000 and 2004, about 80% of self-described conservatives voted Republican.
History
Founding Fathers
The Loyalists of the
American Revolution were mostly political conservatives, some of whom produced political discourse of a high order, including lawyer Joseph Galloway and governor-historian
Thomas Hutchinson. After the war, the great majority remained in the U.S. and became citizens, but some leaders emigrated to other places in the British Empire.
Samuel Seabury was Loyalist who returned and played a major role in shaping the
Episcopal religion.
The Founding Fathers created the single most important set of political ideas in American history, known as Republicanism, that all groups have drawn from. The Federalist Party, followers of
Alexander Hamilton, developed an important variation of republicanism that can be considered conservative. Rejecting monarchy and aristocracy, they emphasized civic virtue as the core American value. The Federalists spoke for the propertied interests and the upper classes of the main cities. They envisioned a modernizing land of banks and factories, with a strong army and navy.
On many issues American conservatism also derives from the republicanism of
Thomas Jefferson and his followers, especially
John Randolph of Roanoke and his "Old Republican" followers. They idealized the yeoman farmer as the epitome of civic virtue, warned that banking and industry led to corruption--that is the illegitimate use of government power for private ends. Jefferson himself was a vehement opponent of what today is called "judicial activism". The Jeffersonians stressed States' Rights and small government. In the 1830-54 period the Whig Party attracted conservatives such as
Daniel Webster of New England.
Ante-Bellum: Calhoun and Webster
Daniel Webster and other leaders of the Whig Party, called it the conservative party in the late 1830s.
John C. Calhoun, a Democrat, articulated a sophisticated conservatism in his writings. Richard Hofstadter called him "The Marx of the Master Class." Calhoun argued that a conservative minority should be able to limit the power of a "majority dictatorship" because tradition represents the wisdom of past generations. . Calhoun is considered the father of the idea of minority rights, a position adopted by liberals in the 1960s in dealing with Civil Rights.
The conservatism of the ante-bellum period is contested territory; conservatives of the 21st century disagree over what comprises their heritage. Thus William J. Bennett a prominent conservative leader, tells conservatives to NOT honor Calhoun, Know-Nothings, Copperheads and 20th century isolationists.
Lincoln to Cleveland
Since 1865 the
Republican party has identified itself with President
Abraham Lincoln, who was the ideological heir of the Whigs and of both Jefferson and Hamilton. As the
Gettysburg Address shows, Lincoln cast himself as a second Jefferson bringing a second birth of freedom to the nation that had been born 86 years before in Jefferson's Declaration. The Copperheads of the Civil War reflected a reactionary opposition to modernity of the sort repudiated by modern conservatives. A few libertarians have adopted a neo-Copperhead position, arguing Lincoln was a dictator who created an all-powerful government.
In the late 19th century the Bourbon Democrats, led by President
Grover Cleveland, preached against
corruption, high taxes , and imperialism, and supported the
gold standard and business interests. They were overthrown by
William Jennings Bryan in 1896, who moved the mainstream of the Democratic Party more-or-less permanently to the left.
The 1896 presidential election was the first with a conservative versus liberal theme approaching the way in which these terms are now understood in the U.S. Republican
William McKinley won using the pro-business slogan "sound money and protection," while the anti-bank, anti-modernity populism of the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan, had a lasting effect on his party.
Early 20th century
In the Progressive Era , regulation of industry expanded as conservatives led by Senator
Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island were put on the defensive. However Aldrich's proposal for a strong national banking system was enacted as the
Federal Reserve System in 1913.
Theodore Roosevelt, the dominant personality of the era, was both liberal and conservative by turns. As a conservative he led the fight to make the country a major naval power, and demanded entry into
World War I to stop what he saw as the
German attacks on
civilization.
William Howard Taft promoted a strong federal judiciary that would overrule excessive legislation. Taft defeated Roosevelt on that issue in 1912, forcing Roosevelt out of the GOP and turning it to the right for decades. As president, Taft remade the
Supreme Court with five appointments; he himself presided as chief justice in 1921-32, the only former president ever to do so.
Pro-business Republicans returned to dominance in 1920 with the election of President
Warren G. Harding. The presidency of
Calvin Coolidge was a high water mark for conservatism, both politically and intellectually. Classic writing of the period includes
Democracy and Leadership by Irving Babbitt and H.L. Mencken's magazine
American Mercury . The Efficiency Movement attracted many conservatives such as
Herbert Hoover with its pro-business, pro-engineer approach to solving social and economic problems.
During the
Great Depression, other conservatives participated in the taxpayers' revolt at the local level. From 1930 to 1933, Americans formed as many as 3,000 taxpayers' leagues to protest high property taxes. These groups endorsed measures to limit and rollback taxes, lowered penalties on tax delinquents, and cuts in government spending. A few also called for illegal resistance . Probably the best known of these was led by the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers in
Chicago which, at its height, had 30,000 dues-paying members.
An important intellectual movement, calling itself Southern Agrarians and based in
Nashville, brought together like-minded novelists, poets and historians who argued that modern values undermined the traditions of American republicanism and civic virtue.
The Depression brought liberals to power under President
Franklin D. Roosevelt . Indeed the term "liberal" now came to mean a supporter of the
New Deal. In 1934
Al Smith and pro-business Democrats formed the American Liberty League to fight the new liberalism, but failed. In
1936 the Republicans rejected Hoover and tried the more liberal
Alf Landon, who carried only Maine and Vermont. When Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937 the conservatives finally cooperated across party lines and defeated it with help from Vice President
John Nance Garner. Roosevelt unsuccessfully tried to purge the conservative Democrats in the 1938 election. The conservatives in Congress then formed a bipartisan informal Conservative Coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats. It largely controlled Congress from 1937 to 1964. Its most prominent leaders were Senator
Robert Taft, a Republican of Ohio, and Senator
Walter George, Democrat of Georgia.
In the United States, the Old Right, also called the Old Guard, was a group of
libertarian, free-market anti-interventionists, originally associated with Midwestern Republicans and Southern Democrats. The Republicans were isolationists in 1939-41, , and later opposed
NATO and U.S. military intervention in
Korea. According to historian
Murray Rothbard, "the libertarian intellectuals were in the minority...[and] theirs was the only thought-out contrasting ideology to the New Deal."
Later 20th century: Goldwater, Buckley, the Dixiecrats
By 1950, American liberalism was so dominant intellectually that author Lionel Trilling could dismiss contemporary conservatism as "irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas." [Lapham 2004]
In the 1950s, principles for a conservative political movement were hashed out in books like Russell Kirk's
The Conservative Mind and in the pages of the magazine
National Review, founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955.
Whereas Taft's Old Right had been isolationist the new conservatism favored American intervention overseas to oppose communism. It looked to the Founding Fathers for historical inspiration as opposed to Calhoun and the antebellum South.
Ironically, as the Democratic Party became identified with the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s through 1970s, many former southern Democrats joined the Republican Party, even in the face of greater proportional support for civil rights legislation among Republicans, thereby increasingly cementing the Republicans' alignment as a conservative party. Senator Barry Goldwater, sometimes known as "Mr. Conservative," argued in his 1960
Conscience of a Conservative is a book written by Arizona [i] Senator [i] ...
that conservatives split on the issue of civil rights due to some conservatives advocating ends and some advocating means . Republicans joined northern Democrats to override a filibuster of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, an event that marked the end of the Conservative Coalition. Later that year, Goldwater was resoundingly defeated by President
Lyndon B. Johnson.
Out of this defeat emerged the New Right, a political movement that coalesced through grassroots organizing in the years preceding Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. The American New Right is distinct from and opposed to the more moderate/liberal tradition of the so-called Rockefeller Republicans, and succeeded in building a policy approach and electoral apparatus that propelled
Ronald Reagan into the
White House in the
1980 presidential election.
Nixon, Reagan, and Bush
See also: Nixon and the liberal consensusThe 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.
Thus, it was not until the election of
1980 and the subsequent eight years of
Ronald Reagan's presidency that the American conservative movement truly achieved ascendancy. In that election, Republicans took control of the
U.S. 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.
An icon of the American conservative movement, Reagan is credited by his supporters with transforming the politics of
1980s America, 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, and social conservatives who identified with Reagan's conservative religious and social ideals.
It is hotly debated whether the successive Republican Administrations of Presidents
George H. W. Bush and
George W. Bush are truly conservative. George W. Bush campaigned in
2000 as a "compassionate conservative," but in his second term, conservative critics have negatively cited his expansion of the Medicare program and his increases in Federal spending and the Federal deficits; in contrast, he is often lauded by some conservatives for his commitment to conservative social and religious values, tax-cut initiatives, and a strong national defense.
Types of conservatism
Defining "American conservatism" requires a definition of conservatism in general, and the term is applied to a number of ideas and ideologies, some more closely related to core conservative beliefs than others.
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 over product . To the classical conservative, whether one arrives at a right- or left-leaning government is less important than whether change is effected through rule of law rather than through revolution and sudden innovation.
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 is typified by three distinct subideologies:
social conservatism,
fiscal conservatism, and
economic liberalism. Together, these subideologies comprise the conservative ideology of people in some English-speaking countries: separately, these subideologies are incorporated into other political positions.
3.
Neoconservatism, in its
United States usage, has come to refer to the views of a subclass of conservatives who support a more assertive foreign policy coupled with one or more other facets of
social conservatism, in contrast to the typically isolationist views of early- and mid-20th Century conservatives. 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 , through the influence of figures like
Dick Cheney, Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, Ken Adelman and
William Kristol, it has become more famous for its association with the foreign policy of the George W. Bush Administration.
4.
Small government conservatism -- In contrast to cultural conservatism, which in recent years has greatly increased the power of the federal government over the states, and more than doubled federal spending, small government conservatives look for a decreased role of the federal government, a return to the states of the power to set educational standards, to legalize or prohibit drugs, abortion, welfare, gun ownership, pornography, marriage, and religion. Small government conservatives agree with cultural conservatives on the strict interpretation of the constitution, but rather than focusing of the strict interpretation of the bill of rights, they focus on the strict interpretation of the clause that reserves to the states all powers not specifically granted to the federal government. The framers of the constitution were suspicious of a centralized, unitary state like the
United Kingdom, from which they had just won their freedom.
Conservatism as "ideology", or 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 are strongly supporting of social codes of conduct they feel are threatened --as in new gender roles, such as women in combat for example. Traditional conservatives have opposed radical social change, such as some of the social changes of the 1960s. Religious conservatives are usually evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants. They often favor the inclusion of religious concepts into American life, such as allowing school-sponsored prayer in the public schools, or city government displays of Christian symbols. Along with Catholic leaders, social conservatives typically oppose
abortion and gay rights.
Fiscal conservatives support limited government, limited taxation, an income tax, a consumption tax, and reductions in "double taxation" such as the capital gains and the inheritance tax. Economic conservatives often argue that competition in the free market is more effective that 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".
The current application of fiscal conservatism is not absolute as advocates have advanced 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 an opposition to
communism, which was seen not only as an enemy of the traditional order, but also of western freedom and democracy.
Social conservatism and tradition
- Main article: Social conservatism
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 and laws placing restrictions on
abortion.
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. In its degenerative form, such respect may become typified by
jingoism, populism, and perhaps even bigotry or isolationism.
Support for socially conservative policies may not indicate political conservatism. For example, many
Communist parties and most
Communist regimes have been very puritanical with respect to sexuality, arguing, for instance, that
homosexuality was a bourgeois vice, although
abortions were very prevelent throughout the old
Soviet Union. Examples include 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, and increased power for the federal government to search and
detain citizens.
Conversely, while classical conservatives may embrace traditional values in their personal lives, they are generally wary of government intervention into the private lives of citizens, even when that intervention is in support of traditional values. Many classical conservatives have strongly criticized scientific theories like
evolution and
global warming, as much they scoffed at
permissiveness and political correctness they feel are fringe ideologies and detrimental to individual freedom.
Fiscal conservatism
Fiscal conservatism is the economic and political policy that advocates restraint of governmental taxation and expenditures. Fiscal conservative argue that government must "live within its means" and therefore they oppose excessive government debt. 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.
Burke, in his
Reflections on the Revolution in France, articulated the principles of fiscal conservatism:
...[I]t is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied...[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.
In other words, a government doesn't have the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer; the taxpayers' right not to be taxed oppressively takes precedence even over paying back debts a government may have imprudently undertaken.
Fiscal conservatives tend to be conservative in their entire outlook but they confront high-spending conservatives, such as
Ronald Reagan,
George H. W. Bush, and
George W. Bush, especially regarding military spending.
Economic liberalism
The economic philosophy of conservatives in America tends to be
liberalism.
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 . To that end, Thatcher privatized
British Airways, with remarkable success, and British Rail, with rather more negative results. Thatcher cut taxes and slowed governmental growth. Reagan raised taxes and increased government growth. In constant dollars, US government spending increased from about 700 billion in his first year in office to about 900 billion in his last year, according to the World Almanac.
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; also, in varying degrees at various times over the second half of the twentieth century, numerous conservative white southerners left the Democratic Party and became Republicans.
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. It should be noted that although
libertarians have had closer ties with conservatives, they do not typically believe themselves to be conservative.
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 of 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 less industrial parts of the
Midwest, and the non-coastal
West plus
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. College towns are generally liberal and Democratic. People who live in rural areas and the suburbs tend to be conservative and vote Republican. People who live in the urban cores of large metropolitan areas tend to be liberal and vote Democrat. The medium cities are split. Thus, within each state, there is a division between city and country, between
town and gown.
Other topics
Conservatism and change
"Conservatism" is not opposed to all change. For example, the Reagan administration in the U.S. and that of
Margaret Thatcher in the UK both professed conservatism, but during Reagan's term of office, the United States radically revised its tax code, while Thatcher dismantled several previously nationalized industries and made major reforms in taxation and housing; furthermore, both took, or attempted, significant measures to reduce the power of
labor unions. These changes were justified on the grounds that they were changing back to the conditions of a better time.
Various "Conservative" parties have presided over periods of economic expansion which have been disruptive of previous social and political arrangements, for example the Republican Party in
1920s America, and the
BJP in late
1990s India.
Political memory can be of various durations, and the traditions conservatives embrace can be of relatively recent invention. The prevalence of the nuclear family is, at most, a few centuries old. Western democracy itself is a late
18th century invention. Corporate capitalism is even newer. The reference to
God in the
Pledge of Allegiance only goes back to the
1950s. The race-blind meritocracy now embraced by many U.S. conservatives as an alternative to affirmative action would have seemed quite radical to most U.S. conservatives in the
1950s.
Contemporary conservative platform
In the
United States and western
Europe, conservatism is generally associated with the following views, as noted by
Russell Kirk in his book,
The Conservative Mind:
- "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."
There is currently debate over whether the policies of the
George W. Bush Administration accurately reflect American conservative values:
Peggy Noonan, writing for the
Wall Street Journal, recently said, "For this we fought the Reagan revolution? A year into his second term, President Bush is redefining what it means to be a Republican and a conservative.
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 populist stream of conservatism condemns "judicial activism" -- that is, judges rejecting laws passed by Congress or interpreting old laws 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.
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 can not 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 , and has been standard practice in the White House since 2001, for press releases and speeches. It seems to be quite common on conservative talk radio.
Radio
Conservatives gained a major new communications medium with the advent of talk radio in the 1990s
