• Origins
• Leaders
– Intellectuals
– National Review
– John Birch Society
• Grassroots organisation
– Young Americans for
Freedon (YAF)
– Southern California/
Sunbelt activism
– Religious conservatism
• The Goldwater
Campaign (1964)
– Donations of Money and
Time
• Ronald Reagan
• George Wallace
• The 1968 Election
•
“In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant
but even the sole intellectual tradition.... It is the plain fact [that]
there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation"
but only "irritable mental gestures which seem to resemble ideas.“
– Lionel Trilling (1950)
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•
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•
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Red Scare (1919)/ anti-communism/ McCarthyism
Resentment over the New Deal
Modernity vs religion (Catholic/ Protestant)
White backlash to Civil Rights
Consumer culture and the free
market
• Economic conservatism and/ vs moral
conservatism
• Far less discussed than liberal 1960s
• Friedrich Von Hayeck, ‘The Road to Serfdom’ (1944)
– Attack on communist and collectivist economic models free market = freedom
• Milton Friedman, economist, A Monetary history of
the United States, 1867-1960 (1963)
– Advocated for deregulation
• Russell Kirk, The
Conservative Mind (1963)
• Will Herberg and the need
for a moral reawakening
• Liberal ‘immorality’
• William F. Buckley Jr.: Right
wing, catholic intellectual
• God and Man at Yale (1951)
– Attacked liberalism at Yale
• 1955: National Review
– House journal of the right and anti-left liberal
• Buckley and Review outspoken supporters of
white South from 1957; shifts view in mid 1960s
• TV show ‘The Firing Line’ 1966-99
– Respected programme, interviewing intellectuals
• 1958: Founded by Robert Welch, Fred Koch of Koch
industries and 10 others
– 100,000 members in local chapters by early 1960s
• More militant politics than National Review
• Virulent attacks on liberalism,
communism and civil rights
-
Conspiracy theories
• Grass roots lobbying and
campaigning
• Figure of fun
• Mainstream Republican Party
distanced itself from the right wing
• 25,000 members
• Autumn 1960:
– Sharon Statement,
M. Stanton Evans
- “In this time of moral
and political crises, it
is the responsibility of the youth of America to
affirm certain eternal truths”
- Reinforces anti-statism
- Against Eisenhower/ Nixon (VP) Republicanism
and détente
• Conservative stronghold
– Non-union, affluent, traditional gender roles
– Business support for conservative politics; defence jobs
important to local economy
• Critique of moderate Republicans (Eisenhower)
– Orange County
• JBS presence, moral
and political
conservatism, radical
Republicanism
• Religious stronghold
• Militant Anti-Communism
• Disapproval of rights movements/ Counterculture
• Disagreements over Civil Rights
– Racism/ Anti-Integration
– States’ rights activists
• Individualism/ Free Enterprise
• Picked up new voting groups
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–
–
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Blue collar workers
Southern middle class whites
Business interests
‘Old Confederacy’/ extremists
• Envisioned an end to the strict separation of church
and state
• ‘Church and State’ is not the same as ‘Religion and State’
• Morality and the degeneration of society
• Religion paired with ‘decency’ and the mainstream
• The ‘Silent Majority’ before
the term was coined
• Targeted Americans "who
quietly go about the business
of paying and praying,
working and saving”
• ‘Protesting against the 20th
Century
• Allows for extremism (KKK)
“The laws of God, and of nature, have no
dateline. The principles on which the
Conservative political position is based...
are derived from the nature of man, and
from the truths that God has revealed
about His creation. Circumstances do
change. So do the problems that are shaped
by circumstances. But the principles that
govern the solution of the problems do
not”. – Barry Goldwater (1960)
• Remaking the Republican Party
– The Conscience of a Conservative (1960)
– "Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for
individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order."
• Conservative factions united over anti-communism
• Fervor, fund raising and campaigning secures the nomination
• Goldwater outspoken on
campaign trail
– Attack on state projects; civil rights;
pro- the use of nuclear weapons
• Soundly beaten by LBJ
– Success in South
– paved way for grassroots revival
• Small donations – under $50
– Direct mail campaigns; televangelists; local fundraising
efforts
• Door to door campaigning
• Goldwater Girls
– ‘AU-H2O’
– Hillary Clinton – “I was… a
Goldwater girl, right down to my
cowgirl outfit and straw cowboy
hat” – Living History (2003)
• Loss of election is a win
for American Conservatism
• Former B movie actor
– supported the New Deal
• Supports Goldwater
• Attacks big state, inc. welfare,
law and order, ‘values’
• Speaks to ordinary Americans
– Uses popular images and language; moderates some
of the messages
• 1966: Elected Governor of California
– unexpectedly defeats Dem. Pat Brown (Nixon had
failed to do so in 1962)
• Helped by Watts Riot and more student unrest at
Berkeley
• Governor of Alabama,
serving 4 terms, first in
1963
• Presidential run as
Democrat, then
Independent (1968)
• Outspoken defender of
the South, ‘populist’,
maverick
• Appeal to working
class Americans
– economics
– culture (inc. country
music)
• Tension with conservative intellectuals who
disliked his style
• 1964: Polls well in primaries in north; draws
white support
• White southerners and Eastern European origin
key to support in the North
• 1968 Campaign
– Moderate success
• Shot in 1972
– Left paralysed
• Jan: Tet Offensive,
March: LBJ refuses to
seek nomination
• Apr: Assassination of
Martin Luther King Jr.
• June: Assassination of
Robert F. Kennedy
• Aug: Democratic
National Convention
– Protests from all sides
• Nov: Election of Nixon
• Wallace secured 13%
– Polled well in the North
• Turmoil boosted Nixon’s
campaign
– ‘Silent Majority’
– “Schools are for education,
not integration”
• Narrowest election victory since 1916
•
•
Pop Vote: Nixon: 31,770,237; Humphrey: 31,270,533;
Wallace: 9,906,141
Sunbelt voters key to victory
• Shift to new bloc of Republican voters
Next week…