Konservatismus in den Vereinigten Staaten

Conservatism in the United States is an umbrella term for an array of related positions on political and economic policy, generally favoring free-market capitalism, Christian morality, and anti-communism. Since the 1890s it has been chiefly associated with the Republican Party, although in the era of segregation there were numerous conservative Democrats in the South, known as Dixicrats.

While the popular media often highlight the differences between conservatives and liberals, there are many issues on which that difference is artifical, and other issues where conservatives disagree among themselves. Core issues, with most conservatives on one side and most liberals on the other, include a woman's right to abortion, teacher led Christian prayer in the public schools, and laws limiting immigration and the enforcement of those laws. The issue of law and order is a major divide, with conservatives emphasizing strict prosecution and punishment of the guilty, and liberals emphasizing legal representation for the poor and equal treatment for minorities. Conservatives and liberals find common ground in patriotism, captialism, anti-communism, and a strong national defense (although both sides tend to disparage the commitment of the opposition to these issues). Issues on which conservatives disagree among themselves include censorship of the media, government regulation of sexuality, criminalization of recreational drugs, and the scientific evidence for evolution and global warming, with religous conservatives on one side and libertarian conservatives on the other. In the 21st century, conservatives began to call for dramatically reduced taxes and for a major reduction in the power of the federal government.

American conservatives have little in common with European conservatism.

The modern conservative movement is often identified with the ideas in Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind, published in 1953. In 1955, William F. Buckley, Jr. founded National Review, a conservative magazine that included traditionalists, such as Kirk, along with Roman Catholics, libertarians, and anti-communists. In the 1970s moral issues—especially regarding abortion, sexuality and the family—became politically prominent and conservatives staked out distinctive positions, often with grassroots support from religious organizations such as the Moral Majority. 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 and ideas, which has sometimes contributed to its electoral success and other times been a source of internal conflict. Modern conservatism became a major political force in 1964, when Barry Goldwater, a U.S. Senator from Arizona and author of The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), won the Republican presidential nomination after a fierce contest. He lost badly in the national election but permanently shifted the party to the right. Goldwater attracted white Southern Democrats, alienated by Democratic support of Federal Civil Rights legislation.

In the 1980s Ronald Reagan solidified conservative Republican strength by appealing to fundamentalist Christians who were concerned about social trends which they considered hostile to their beliefs. The Reagan model became the conservative standard for social, economic and foreign policy issues. The political transformation was such that historians and textbooks now routinely refer to "The Age of Reagan" or the "Reagan Era."

According to a June 2009 Gallup poll, 40% of Americans identify themselves as conservative, compared to 35% moderate and 21% liberal. According to the same survey, few Americans consider themselves either "very" liberal or "very" conservative.

History

According to historian Patrick Allitt, "...before the 1950s there was no such thing as a conservative movement in the United States." There was some use of the word in the South during the Reconstruction Era, when "conservative" meant opponent of the Radical Republicans. America has never had a national party called the Conservative Party; New York State has had a "Conservative Party" since 1962. During Reconstruction, the Democratic party was more conservative, today the Republican party is more conservative.

Prior to the American Revolution, some colonial institutions had conservative aspects. These included political power held by small elites, established churches in half the colonies, entailed property rights in Virginia, large landholdings operated by riotous tenants in New York, and slavery in every colony. Although the colonists lived under the freest government in the European world, they were fiercely determined to protect and preserve their historic rights. By the 1750s most Americans owned property and could vote in elections that controlled local government.

Loyalists

By the 1770s there was a large element tied to the British Empire, including wealthy merchants involved in international trade, and royal officials and patronage holders. Most of these conservative elites and their followers who remained loyal to the Crown are called Loyalists or "Tories". During the Revolution, approximately 20% of the loyalists fled the United States, although the great majority remained in America.

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

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

Thus the American Revolution disrupted the old networks of conservative elites. The departure of so many royal officials, rich merchants and landed gentry destroyed the hierarchical networks that had dominated most of the colonies. In New York, for example, the departure of key members of the DeLancy, DePester Walton, and Cruger families undercut the interlocking families that largely owned and controlled the Hudson Valley. Likewise in Pennsylvania, the departure of powerful families—Penn, Allen, Chew, Shippen—destroyed the cohesion of the old upper class there. New men became rich merchants but they shared a spirit of republican equality that replaced the elitism and the Americans never recreated such a powerful upper class. One rich patriot in Boston noted in 1779 that "fellows who would have cleaned my shoes five years ago, have amassed fortunes and are riding in chariots."

Republicanism

Since all major American parties descended from the American Revolution and have always held firmly to republicanism, the political divisions inside the United States have seemed minor or trivial to Europeans.

The Revolution created the first modern republic based on the liberal principles of freedom and equality set forth by John Locke and other Enlightenment philsophers. Modern conservatives embrace these founding principles—there are no spokesmen in America today for royalty or hereditary aristocracy. Conservatives, like liberals, claim to represent the ideas of the Founding Fathers. Russell Kirk, in The Conservative Mind, wrote that the American Revolution was "a conservative reaction, in the English political tradition, against royal innovation". In fact, the Founding Fathers were often on opposites sides of issues important to modern conservatives. For example, John Adams called for a strong federal government. Thomas Jefferson was the leading exponent of small government..

Political parties

The new Federalist Party, founded by Alexander Hamilton in the 1790s, attracted businessmen and supporters of a strong national government, and friendly relations with Britain. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison founded the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose Hamilton's policies. It strongly opposed Britain and attracted conservative southern planters who distrusted cities, industry, and banking and who wanted to protect slavery. The Jeffersonians were more democratic and defeated the aristocratic Federalists in 1800.

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", a word coined by French politician Chateaubriand in 1819,. In Whig usage, it emphasized modernization, preservation of the union, and constitutionalism. The Whig Party was a grass-roots party, successfully running the famous generals William Henry Harrison in 1840 and Zachary Taylor in 1848. It never could elect its great leaders Henry Clay or Daniel Webster. The Whigs were modernizers who appealed to businessmen and were opposed by poor farmers and the Irish Catholics who formed the Jacksonian Democracy. After 1850 the slavery issue ripped apart its Northern and Southern wings and the Whigs disappeared after 1852.

Civil War and Reconstruction

The issues of slavery and union dominated the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction (1850–1877). The new Republican Party formed in 1854 to stop the expansion of slavery and promote free labor instead and liberty for the people. It strongly supported economic modernization and denounced the Slave Power, but did not propose immediate emancipation of the slaves until that became a war measure announced by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. Democrats split on the issues, with the Northern wing of the party (led by Stephen Douglas) promoting democracy for all white men, while the Southern wing insisted that "state's rights" meant that slave owners could set up slave-based operations in the territories whether or not the locals approved. The upshot was a small civil war in "Bleeding Kansas" in the 1850s and increasing national attention to the slavery issue. The main Protestant churches split north and south on slavery, and so too did the Democratic party in 1860. By this point white Southerners were moving to the position that the election of a Republican president would signal the end of comity between the sections and might doom the Southern way of life, based on slavery for blacks and freedom for whites. The Southerners greatly exaggerated the role of abolitionism in the North, but correctly saw that Northern opinion was increasingly hostile.

But another force was at work, patriotic nationalism in the North, which refused to allow the breakup of the nation. With the Confederate attack on the U.S. Army at Ft. Sumter in April 1861, and Lincoln's call for volunteers to march South to retake the fort, public opinion North and South rallied to demand a war to defend their nation. Both sides claimed to uphold the true values of republicanism, defined in the South in terms of fighting Yankee usurpations and in the North as rejection of Slave Power arrogance and illegal secession. The border states were profoundly split. Both the United States and the Confederacy in similar fashion suppressed dissent, imprisoned suspected traitors and shut down newspapers that gave aid and comfort to the enemy cause. While the Southern economy collapsed during the war—not to recover for a century—the economy of the North boomed, giving the Republican Party the aura of nationalism, prosperity and modernity. The war years represented a complex mix of conservative and radical ideas, with the Republican demand for freedom for all men finally triumphant.

Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln played a central role in leading the war effort and in defining the issues of the war. Lincoln's views were in line with the conservatism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in terms of his emphasis on liberty, his pro-business programs, his vigorous use of military force, and his strong nationalism, as well as a foreign policy that threatened war with Britain if it intervened. In many ways, Lincoln exemplified the 19th century liberalism that is one basis for modern conservatism. Conservative theorist Richard Weaver, for example, hailed Lincoln as a model conservative, as did Harry Jaffa. Allen C. Guelzo portrays Lincoln as a fatalist who promoted freedom; a classical liberal who couched classical liberalism's greatest deed - emancipation of the slaves - in the Biblical language of divine providence.

On race, Lincoln included both liberal and conservative elements, trying to steer a middle course between the conservatives who were reluctant to abolish slavery and the Radical Republicans who wanted to radically change Southern society overnight. Lincoln vetoed the Radical plan for Reconstruction and was implementing his much more moderate plans when he was assassinated. Historian Norman Graebner in "Abraham Lincoln: Conservative Statesman," argued Lincoln was a conservative because he rejected grandiose social engineering and "he accepted the need of dealing with things as they were, not as he would have wished them to be."

In economic policy Lincoln had long called for pro-business policies including high tariffs, more railroads, a strong national banking system, and homesteads for would-be farmers. His goal was a strong private sector economy that could fulfill the American Dream, with no state ownership and minimal federal regulation. Lincoln was a modernizer with a vision of a strong industrial society--as opposed to the static plantation society of the South. Unlike the Radicals he demanded faithful adherence to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence He issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a war measure, but followed up with the Thirteenth Amendment to make abolition constitutionally sound. In the late 20th century there were libertarians who were aghast at Lincoln's support for high tariffs, traditionalists who disagreed with his belief in equality, and neo-Confederates who echoed the wartime enemies who called Lincoln a tyrant. James McPherson concludes that Lincoln "can best be described as a conservative revolutionary. That is, he wanted to conserve the Union as the revolutionary heritage of the founding fathers. Preserving this heritage was the purpose of the war; all else became a means to achieve this end." As Lincoln told the nation in August 1862, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.... What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union."

Southern conservatism

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

Conservatism as an intellectual movement in the South after 1930 was represented by writers including William Faulkner and the Southern Agrarians. The focus was on traditionalism and hierarchy, and distrust of Yankee ways. Race was seldom mentioned by the writers. After 1980 Fundamentalist religion, especially on the part of Baptists was a powerful force in the Southern conservative politics.

When the Democratic Party made civil rights a core issue after 1964, the white South switched parties, from overwhelmingly Democratic (the "Solid South") to overwhelmingly Republican, first at the presidential level but by the 1990s at the state level as well. At the same time, Blacks switched from strong supporters of the GOP to almost universal support for liberal Democrats.

Late 19th century

Following the Civil War, the United States entered the Gilded Age (1865–1900) during which there was massive economic expansion. A class of super-rich industrialists emerged. Most—following the "Gospel of Wealth" preached by Andrew Carnegie, left their fortunes to philanthropy, as did John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. Indeed there was far more philanthropy than in Europe, where the government funded and controlled what few colleges, hospitals and charities were permitted. From the left opponents of industrialization made accusations about excessively long work days, child labor, poor working conditions, and unethical business dealings. In fact American workers rapidly gained in income and wealth, earning far higher wages than Europe and starting the process of achieving the American Dream through home ownership. Large majorities of factory workers and railroad workers voted Republican in the Third Party System of the Gilded Age, although Irish Catholics were solidly Democratic. Appeals from the left to overthrow the banks and railroads were rejected by the workers, most decisively in the election of 1896, when conservative William McKinley swept to victory by denouncing the anti-business proposals of William Jennings Bryan. Millions of European workers rushed to America, while hardly any Americans headed to European factories.

Bourbon Democrats

During the Gilded Age, 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, vigorously defended big business, and opposed federal payments to railroads, politicians, farmers and veterans. The image and memory of Thomas Jefferson was called up as the Bourbons made him their hero and role model. The libertarian, business-oriented conservatives found Jefferson's statements about a small federal government fitted their views.

William Graham Sumner, a leading public intellectual of the era, articulated support for free markets, anti-imperialism, and the gold standard, while vigorously opposing threats to the middle class from the rich plutocrats above or the ignorant masses below. Opposition to conservatism came mostly from radical elements outside the two major political parties, especially trade unions and farm groups, who often formed third parties, most notably the Greenback-Labor Party and the Populist Party. The opposition lost nearly all major elections--Bryan, for example, was defeated for president in 1896, 1900 and 1908.

Empire

As the 19th century drew to a close, the United States became a major commercial power and had acquired overseas territories in Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. The two parties re-aligned in the election of 1896, with the Republicans, led by William McKinley, becoming the conservative party of business, sound money, and assertive foreign policy, and promising a home market to American products. In opposition, the Democrats, led by Bryan, rejected the pro-business conservatism of Cleveland, and turned the Democrats into the party of urban workers, poor farmers, and the White South, demanding an inflationary monetary policy (especially "Free Silver"), Jim Crow, anti-imperialism, and opposing railroads and "trusts" (big corporations).

Imperialism won out, as the election of 1900 ratified McKinley's policies and the U.S. took over Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and (temporarily) Cuba. The supposed business, religious and military advantages of having an empire proved illusory; by 1908 or so the most ardent conservative imperialists (including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Elihu Root) turned their attention to building up an army and navy at home (and the Panama Canal), dropped the notion of additional expansion, and agreed by 1920 that the Philippines should become independent. The conservative approach became one of building a strong military and downplaying nation building.

1900-1945

Robert A. Taft

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 pro-business Republican Senate Majority leader, introduced a constitutional amendment to allow an income tax, and also set in motion the process of setting up the Federal Reserve System, which began in 1913.

The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 alarmed both Democrats and Republicans, leading both parties to take strong anti-communist positions. The Wilson Administration would no longer tolerate subversion of American values; the Palmer Raids deporting thousands of alien radicals back to Europe, most famously Emma Goldman, who discovered Russia was hell for anarchists.

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, as the economy boomed and the society stabilized by moving to Americanize the immigrants already here, and not allowing many more in.

Classic conservative writing of the period includes Democracy and Leadership (1924) by Irving Babbitt and H.L. Mencken's magazine The 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.

Great Depression

The Great Depression which followed the 1929 stock market collapse led to price deflation, massive unemployment, falling farm incomes, investment losses, bank failures, business bankruptcies and reduced government revenues. The voters grew impatient with Republican President Herbert Hoover's claim that prosperity was just around the corner and that his energetic measures would turn the economy around. They failed to do so and Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected as president in 1932. Roosevelt assembled experts and introduced a set of policies called the New Deal. These included devaluing the dollar to end deflation and increasing government spending on public works programs, as well as establishing regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Opposition to New Deal

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 and conservative 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 Committee). 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 packing the Supreme Court with six new 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 the "conservative coalition" between Republicans 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.

Jefferson's image

In the New Deal era of the 1930s, Jefferson's memory became contested ground. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the leader of the big-state New Deal orientation that was now called "liberalism" greatly admired Jefferson, and made sure the Jefferson Memorial was built to honor his hero. Even more dramatic, however, was the reaction of the conservatives, as typified by the American Liberty League (comprising mostly conservative Democrats who resembled the Bourbon Democrats of the 1870-1900 era), and the Republican Party. The Republican conservatives dropped Hamiltonianism because it led to enlarged national government. Their opposition to Roosevelt's New Deal was cast in explicitly Jeffersonian small-government terms, and Jefferson became the hero on the right.

Post 1945

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 strength, 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 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 warned against the dangers of communism 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.

1950s

William F. Buckley, Jr.

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 weakened the Old Right.

Russell Kirk

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.

William F. Buckley

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

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

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

Libertarians

Economists Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and George J. Stigleradvocated a return to classical liberal or libertarian policies and together provided a vigorous criticism of the welfare state and Keynesian 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.

John Birch Society

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

Internal disagreements

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

Goldwater

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

Neoconservatives

A major development of the 1970s was the movement of many prominent liberal intellectuals to the right, many of them from New York City Jewish roots and well-established academic reputations. They had become disillusioned with liberalism, especially the foreign policy of detente with the Soviet Union. Some went on to high policy-making or advisory positions in the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Irving Kristol and Leo Strauss were the major founders of the movement. The magazines Commentary and Public Interest were their key outlets, as well as op-ed articles for major newspapers and position papers for think tanks. Activists around Democratic senator Henry Jackson became deeply involved as well. Prominent spokesmen include Gertrude Himmelfarb, Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Richard Pipes, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle, Robert Kagan, Elliott Abrams and Ben Wattenberg. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was highly sympathetic but remained a Democrat.

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

South

The growth of conservatism within the Republican Party attracted white conservative Southern Democrats in presidential elections. The GOP starting winning presidential elections in the South—but not until the 1990s did the GOP become dominant in state and local politics in the South. A few big names switched to the GOP, including South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond in 1964 and Texas Governor John Connally in 1973. Meanwhile, African American voters in the South began to show overwhelming support for the Democratic Party at both the presidential and local levels. (See Southern Strategy).

Think tanks

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

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.

Ronald Reagan.

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 espoused and supported by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which grew dramatically in its influence during the Reagan years as Reagan and his senior aides looked to Heritage for policy guidance.

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

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." Reagan's views on government were influenced by Thomas Jefferson, especially his hostility to strong central governments. "We're still Jefferson's children," he declared in 1987. "Freedom is not created by Government, nor is it a gift from those in political power. It is, in fact, secured, more than anything else, by limitations placed on those in Government.". Likewise he greatly admired and often quoted Abraham Lincoln

Subsequent electoral victories included gaining a Republican congressional majority in 1994 and the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. However, some noted conservatives, including Richard A. Viguerie and William F. Buckley, Jr., have said that Bush was not a conservative, either in foreign policy nor in domestic economic policy.

Types

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ideology and political philosophy

Classical conservatives tend to be anti-ideological, and some would even say anti-philosophical, 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. Thus it was the British Labour government—which embraced socialism—that pushed the Truman administration in 1945-47 to take a strong stand against Soviet Communism. 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

→ Hauptartikel: Social conservatism

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

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

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

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

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

Anti-intellectualism has been common among conservatives. In the 1920s, Fundamentalists like William Bell Riley led the battle against Darwinism and evolution, a battle which still goes on in some conservative circles today. More recently the anti-intellectualism has taken the form of attacks on elites, experts, scientists, public schools and universities.

Fiscal conservatism

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another reason why conservatives support a smaller role for the government in the economy is the belief in the importance of the civil society. As noted by Alexis de Tocqueville, 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 Britain and the Ronald Reagan administration in the U.S. -- both held the unfettered operation of the market to be the cornerstone of contemporary modern conservatism (this philosophy is called neoliberalism by critics on the left). To that end, Thatcher privatized industries and public housing and Reagan cut the maximum capital gains tax from 28% to 20%, though in his second term he agreed to raise it back up to 28%. He wanted to increase defense spending and achieved that; liberal Democrats blocked his efforts to cut domestic spending. Reagan did not control the rapid increase in federal government spending, or reduce the deficit, but his record looks better when expressed as a percent of the gross domestic product. Federal revenues as a percent of the GDP fell from 19.6% in 1981 when Reagan took office to 18.3% in 1989 when he left. Federal spending fell slightly from 22.2% of the GDP to 21.2%. This record is impressive, especially compared to 2004, when government spending was rising more rapidly than it had in decades.

Electoral politics

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

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

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

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

Geography

Geographically the South, the Frontier Strip, the Rocky Mountain states, and Alaska are conservative strongholds. However, this is primarily because of the higher proportion of rural and exurban areas in those states. 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 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 urban, suburban, exurban, and rural areas.

Conservatives do have isolated strongholds in most of the blue states.

Other topics

Kirk's six canons of conservatism

Russell Kirk developed six "canons" of conservatism, which Gerald J. Russello described as follows:

1. A belief in a transcendent order, which Kirk described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;
2. An affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence;
3. A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize "natural" distinctions;
4. A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;
5. A faith in custom, convention, and prescription, and
6. A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.

Kirk said that Christianity and Western Civilization are "unimaginable apart from one another." [1] and that "all culture arises out of religion. When religious faith decays, culture must decline, though often seeming to flourish for a space after the religion which has nourished it has sunk into disbelief." [2]

Courts

→ Hauptartikel: Originalism

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 using their decisions to control policy. 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 was a standard practice in the White House in 2001–2008, for press releases and speeches.

Radio

Conservatives gained a major new communications medium with the resurgence of talk radio in the late-1980s. 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: Glenn Beck, Michael Peroutka, Jim Quinn, Dennis Miller, Ben Ferguson, Lars Larson, Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Ingraham, Mike Church, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, 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.

Academic analysis

Academic discussion of conservatism in the United States has been dominated by American exceptionalism, the theory that British conservatism has little or no relevance to American traditions. This is in contrast to the view that Burkean conservatism has a set of universal principals which can be applied all societies. According to Louis Hartz, because the United States skipped the feudal stage of history, the American community was united by liberal principles, and the conflict between the "Whig" and "democrat" traditions were conflicts within a liberal framework. In this view, what is called conservatism in America is not European conservatism but rather classical liberalism. A differing view is found in Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. Kirk wrote that the American Revolution was "a conservative reaction, in the English political tradition, against royal innovation". Kirk's theories were severely criticized by M. Morton Auerbach in The Conservative Illusion. Theodore Adorno and Richard Hofstader referred to modern American conservatives as "pseudo-conservatives", because of their "dissatisfaction with American life, traditions and institutions" and because they had "little in common with the temperate and compromising spirit of true conservatism".

Thinkers and leaders

Major American conservatives

Clinton Rossiter, a Cornell professor, argued in 1955 that the following American politicians "loom above all other men of their age as models of conservative statesmanship and wellsprings of conservative thought," Vorlage:Col-begin Vorlage:Col-break

• President George Washington (1732–1799)
• President John Adams (1735–1826)
• Chief Justice John Marshall (1755–1835)
• Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804)
• Secretary of State Daniel Webster (1782–1852)
• Senator Elihu Root (1845–1937)

Politicians

• President James Madison (1751–1836)
• President Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)
• President Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
• President Ronald Reagan (1911–2004)
• President George W. Bush (1946–)
• Vice President Dick Cheney (1941–)
• Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (1943–)
• Senator Robert Taft (1889–1953)
• Senator Barry Goldwater (1909–1998)
• Senator Jesse Helms (1921–2008)

Intellectuals and writers

• William Graham Sumner (1840–1910)
• Albert Jay Nock (1873–1945)
• H. L. Mencken (1880–1956)
• Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973)
• William Faulkner (1897–1962)
• F. A. Hayek (1899–1992)
• Leo Strauss (1899–1973)
• Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961)
• Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
• Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963)
• George J. Stigler (1911–1991)
• Milton Friedman (1912–2006)
• Robert A. Nisbet (1913–1996)
• Russell Kirk (1918–1994)
• Irving Kristol (1920–2009)
• William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008)
• Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008)
• Norman Podhoretz (1930–)
• Thomas Sowell (1930–)
• James Q. Wilson (1931–)
• George Will (1941–)

Jurists

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

Think-tanks

• The Acton Institute
• The Cato Institute
• The Discovery Institute
• The Heritage Foundation
• The Hoover Institution
• The Manhattan Institute
• The Project for a New American Century
• The Rockford Institute

Magazines and publications

• Commentary
• National Review
• The American Spectator
• Policy Review
• The Weekly Standard
• The American Conservative
• Humanitas
• Modern Age
• First Things
• Chronicles magazine

See also

• Compassionate conservatism
• Common sense conservative
• Conservative talk
• Constitution Party
• Neoconservatism
• New Right
• Old Right
• Paleoconservatism
• Reactionary
• Reagan Doctrine foreign policy
• Religious right
• Tea Party movement
• Traditionalist conservatism
• United States Republican Party
• Neoconservatism and paleoconservatism

Other ideologies:

• Libertarianism
• Liberalism in the United States
• Progressivism in the United States

Organizations and publications

• American Enterprise Institute
• The American Spectator magazine, an influential conservative political magazine.
• Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
• Chronicles magazine, a leading paleoconservative publication.
• City Journal, official publication of the Manhattan Institute.
• First Things, a leading theoconservative publication.
• FreedomWorks, a leading conservative activist group.
• Humanitas, a leading traditionalist conservative publication.
• Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a leading traditionalist conservative academic organization.
• Leadership Institute, a training organization for conservative activists.
• Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
• Modern Age, a leading traditionalist conservative intellectual journal.
• National Review magazine, an influential conservative political magazine.
• Policy Review magazine
• Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative think tank.
• The American Conservative, a leading paleoconservative publication.
• The Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank.
• The Weekly Standard magazine, a leading neoconservative publication.
• Townhall.com, conservative news, information, and commentary.

Bibliography

Intellectual history

• Allitt, Patrick. The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (2010) excerpt and text search
• de Forest, Jennifer. "Conservatism Goes to College: The Role of Philanthropic Foundations in the Rise of Conservative Student Networks," History of Higher Education Annual, 26 (2007), 103–27.
• Dunn, Charles W. and J. David Woodard; The Conservative Tradition in America Rowman & Littlefield, 1996
• Filler, Louis. Dictionary of American Conservatism (Philosophical Library, 1987)
• Foner, Eric. "Radical Individualism in America: Revolution to Civil War," Literature of Liberty, vol. 1 no. 3, 1978 pp 1-31 online
• Frohnen, Bruce 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 (1994)
• Gottfried, Paul. The Conservative Movement Twayne, 1993.
• Guttman, Allan. The Conservative Tradition in America Oxford University Press, 1967.
• Kendall, Willmoore, 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) online review
• Lyons, Paul. American Conservatism: Thinking It, Teaching It. (Vanderbilt University Press, 2009). 202 pp. isbn 978-0-8265-1626-8
• Mergel, Sarah Katherine. Conservative Intellectuals and Richard Nixon: Rethinking the Rise of the Right (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); 248 pages; traces Nixon's relations with conservative intellectuals from 1968 to 1974, including those who saw him as a closet liberal.
• 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 (2006; 1st ed. 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.
• Thorne, Melvin J. American Conservative Thought since World War II: The Core Ideas Greenwood: 1990
• Viereck; Peter. Conservatism: from John Adams to Churchill (2nd ed. 1978)

Political activity

• Hart, Jeffrey. The Making of the American Conservative Mind: The National Review and Its Times (2005)
• Hayward, Steven F. The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964-1980 (2009) excerpt and text search
• Hayward, Steven F. The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989 (2009) excerpt and text search
• Lora, Ronald.; The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America Greenwood Press, 1999 online edition
• 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
• Perlstein, Rick. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (2009)
• Reinhard, David W.; Republican Right since 1945 University Press of Kentucky, 1983 online edition
• Scanlon, Sandra, "The Conservative Lobby and Nixon's 'Peace with Honor' in Vietnam," Journal of American Studies 43 (Aug. 2009), 255–76.
• Schweikart, Larry, and Michael Allen. A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror (2004), 930pp; the most thorough textbook from an explicitly conservative viewpoint excerpt and text search
• 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

• 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

• Bader, John B. Taking the Initiative: Leadership Agendas in Congress and the "Contract with America" (1996) online edition
• Berkowitz, Peter . Varieties Of Conservatism In America (2004)
• Collins, Robert M. Transforming America: Politics and Culture During the Reagan Years, (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) excerpt and text search, overview by British journalists
• Geoffrey Nunberg, "Language and Politics"
• Rae; Nicol C. Conservative Reformers: The Republican Freshmen and the Lessons of the 104th Congress (1998) online edition
• Schoenwald; Jonathan . A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (2002) excerpt and text search

Neoconservatism

• List of prominent American neoconservatives, SourceWatch
• Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind (1988) excerpt and text search
• 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.
• Riebling, Mark, "Prospectus for a Critique of Conservative Reason."
• Schulman, Bruce J. and Julian E. Zelizer, eds. Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s (2008)

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)

External links

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