March 2008
As the 2008 election cycle moves into high gear, the fractures and exhaustion of conservatism and the conservative movement are frequent themes of public discourse. Three recent acclaimed books examine the nature and history of the American Right from different perspectives. Speakers at the panel discussion debated the strengths and weaknesses of the Right and how conservative ideas will play out in the next election cycles.
Donald T. Critchlow, a history professor at Saint Louis University and author of The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History (Harvard University Press, 2007); Jacob Heilbrunn, a senior editor of The National Interest and author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons (Doubleday, 2008); and Mark A. Smith, a political science and communications professor at the University of Washington and author of The Right Talk: How Conservatives Transformed the Great Society into the Economic Society (Princeton University Press, 2007) spoke about their new books. John Samples, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Representative Government commented, and Steven F. Hayward, the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at AEI, moderated.
Donald Critchlow
Saint Louis University
In the last fifty years, there has been a major political transformation in the United States in which conservatives have become a prominent voice in American politics. The rise of the Right was not linear but occurred in a series of fits and starts. Conservative Ascendancy argues that there are three factors that explain this rise: new ideas, the capacity to create new organizations, and the emergence of political leaders.
Many of the new ideas were brought by European intellectuals fleeing to America in the post-World War II period. These ideas gained ground among Americans, laying the foundations for the GOP Right. They were able to confront the conservative dilemma and challenge the modern liberal state, and to do this meant that they had to gain power to dismantle power. There was an acerbic debate between intellectuals that intensified with the Cold War. The Right was never a monolithic force; it was always divided by personal debates and tensions. It was the nature of these debates that attracted a young generation.
In the 1970s, conservatives began to expand existing institutions and found new ones. These institutions, especially think tanks, reflected different ideological positions in the Right. The leaders who articulated these conservative positions to the larger electorate are of particular importance. People like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Newt Gingrich have greatly contributed to the ascendancy of the Right. Leftist ideology has been changed by many political miscalculations. Originally drawing on European socialist ideas, the Left wants to control the means of consumption through taxes and health care. The ideology has changed, but it is still seeking a collectivist order.
Mark A. Smith
University of Washington
Republicans have been accused of campaigning on culture and then governing on economics. Since Ronald Reagan, however, the unifying element of the Republican Party has been a focus on the economy. When comparing the formal rhetoric from the speeches and ads of Goldwater and Reagan, they essentially had the same platform. However, Goldwater framed his in terms of freedom, while Reagan framed his in economic terms. Reagan's message continued afterward because it resonated with the American public. The Democrats have struggled to find a clear, economic message.
It is important to recognize this shift of emphasis to framing, discussing, and debating issues in economic terms. The economic policy of the Right generally addresses lowering taxes and reducing government regulation of business. The Right was better positioned to take advantage of this economically related discourse because its political arm has been able to tap into the intellectual factions of the Right and then craft those ideas into a systematic policy agenda.
Over the past few decades, the conservative magazine National Review has been shifting towards an emphasis of the economic dimensions of taxation and a similar pattern on governmental regulation of business. This relationship between intellectuals and politicians has become increasingly important.
Jacob Heilbrunn
The National Interest
There are two distinct generations of neoconservatives. The first generation clustered around The Public Interest and Commentary. This generation was more academic and grounded in social science and methodology. As the Democratic Party moved to the left, the neocons did not follow. Instead, they attempted to revive the Cold War liberalism that had faltered during the Vietnam War. This proved to be a hopeless task, and the neocons continued to move right. The Reagan era fostered a fusion between neocons and the mainstream conservative movement, but Reagan became less of a neocon as his tenure proceeded. He was greatly shaped by the memory of Vietnam as a president and was intent on winding down the Cold War. Much of the neoconservative thinking at the time was organized around the Cold War, and neocons became disenchanted with Reagan.
The first generation was weary of intervention abroad. The ideology changed with September 11, 2001, and the emergence of the second generation of neocons. Neoconservatives became concerned with the United States going on the offensive and, if necessary, launching preemptive attacks. Therefore, the second generation neocons bear some blame for the Iraq War, but the total amount of blame being placed on neocons is somewhat excessive. Neoconservative ideas, however, will linger and remain a potent source of debate in this election and in the future.
John Samples
Cato Institute
1980 was a pivotal year for the conservative movement: Ronald Reagan became president, the neocons came into political power, and the New Deal regime ended. While the United States had always been individualistic and constitutional, it needed a government that created a national community and national political institutions under the benevolent expertise of intellectuals, and this began in the 1980s.
The Right Talk takes rhetoric seriously and helps in the understanding of the last twenty to twenty-five years. The major criticisms of Franklin Roosevelt by the Liberty League and later by Goldwater are framed in terms of the loss of liberty. Reagan ran on the same terms but framed them as restoring economic growth. Both the Liberty League and Goldwater lost, however, while Reagan did not. Progressivism and power itself set the context for Reagan's victory. By the end of the 1970s, the economy was in a crisis, but it set the terms for the debate.
Conservative Ascendancy makes important use of social history. It places significant emphasis on the 1976 primary race between Reagan and Ford, in which Reagan proposed a Federalism platform and lost. Reagan returned, however, with the same platform in 1980 and won. With regards to reducing the size of the government, Reagan failed. Limited government and conservatism came up short. In the analysis of the two George W. Bush terms, Donald Critchlow sees Bush as a continuation, with some adaptations, of conservatism. At the same time, Bush may have been a fundamental change in conservatism.
They Knew They Were Right effectively evaluates neoconservatism, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. The book provides an understanding of the background and motivations of early neocons. Many of the first-generation neocons were Jewish, and this book provides the first serious treatment of the relationship between the cultural understanding and the role that discrimination played in postwar America. It also addresses the effect this had on creating an outsider mentality. It is important to realize that neocons were intellectuals, but they were also politicians. The end of the Cold War induced a crisis within neoconservatism because so much had been organized around the Cold War. In the transition to the younger generation, there is a desire for a national ideal and dissatisfaction with liberalism. Young neocons are searching for politically successful ideals and international democracy.
AEI intern Lauren Jones prepared this summary.
