Bruce J. Schulman & Julian E. Zelizer: The origins of the conservative movement in the 1970s help us understand contradictions in today's Republican Party
[Bruce J. Schulman is a professor of history at Boston University, and Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. They are editors of Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the Seventies, to be published this month by Harvard University Press.]
... The shift to the right ... was anything but inevitable, even if previous accounts suggested that it was. After 1970, the New Right found its secret to success; it constructed its organizational infrastructure — the political-action committees, the volunteer operations, the radio talk shows, the think tanks, and the direct-mail network. The movement developed a post-Vietnam foreign-policy agenda that would define America's position through the end of the cold war and establish the foundation for the war against terrorism. The agenda revolved around increasing the defense budget, using heated rhetoric against the Soviet Union, refraining from arms or territorial negotiation, and embarking on limited military interventions abroad. Ronald Reagan invigorated support for that agenda within the Republican Party when he challenged and almost upset President Gerald Ford, a Republican, for the nomination in 1976. Neoconservatives like Richard Perle and Jeane Kirkpatrick similarly popularized those ideas. Mobilizing previously quiescent evangelical Christians, the conservative movement also framed a new domestic agenda around cultural issues that would attract millions of voters into a reconstructed Republican Party. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson became known for shows that reached millions of Americans, calling on them to challenge the legality of abortion and to pressure broadcasters into refusing sexual material. The conservative movement of the 70s would become the motive force driving American politics for the next three decades.
But the movement did not just run roughshod over existing political and cultural institutions in the 70s. The new historians have begun to realize that accommodations to modern American life reflected undercurrents of the 70s every bit as potent as the rise of the right. Conservatism was layered over the accumulated changes of the 20th century. Liberalism remained embedded in national politics, popular culture retained the impulses of the 60s, and social movements opposing conservative values flourished. The triumphs of the right, at the ballot box and broadly across American society, would take place against a backdrop where the achievements of liberalism still mattered. Social Security remained enormously popular. Civil-rights legislation to prevent segregation and discrimination was accepted by most Americans as normal. Conservatives even accepted federal spending on education. The cultural revolution of the 60s shattered most of the norms that had shaped American homes in the decades before.
The incomplete revolution of the 70s defines contemporary American public life. On the one hand, conservatism has entrenched itself with a vigor that even the most committed New Right activists would not have imagined in the 70s. Looking much different from the famous Age of Aquarius, conservative institutions now crisscross the American landscape. Conservatives have ensconced themselves in the federal judiciary; their policy agenda continues to shape national debate. On foreign policy, stem-cell research, restrictions on greenhouse gases, and gun control, the conservative movement that coalesced in the 70s has left its imprint on American society. Even in American culture, we have seen the vitality of evangelical Christianity.
But there is another America. Abortion remains legal despite decades of attacks, stem-cell research retains public enthusiasm, and the rights of homosexuals remain a desired goal. Yes, voters continue efforts to cut large parts of the federal government, but President Bush's effort to privatize Social Security has failed, while conservatives lost control of Congress in 2006.
The tensions will not go away. The incomplete revolution that conservatives directed in the 70s makes the problems they face today difficult to overcome. Conservatism can't be transformed with a new president. The challenges of conservatism started in the 70s and will continue into the future. America turned right in the 70s, but not as a result of a political sweep. As the conservative movement took shape and expanded its influence, it faced a series of challenges, a persistent struggle between conservative political power and liberal social change. The struggles that shaped the right in the 70s during the rightward turn linger today.
Read entire article at Chronicle of Higher Ed
... The shift to the right ... was anything but inevitable, even if previous accounts suggested that it was. After 1970, the New Right found its secret to success; it constructed its organizational infrastructure — the political-action committees, the volunteer operations, the radio talk shows, the think tanks, and the direct-mail network. The movement developed a post-Vietnam foreign-policy agenda that would define America's position through the end of the cold war and establish the foundation for the war against terrorism. The agenda revolved around increasing the defense budget, using heated rhetoric against the Soviet Union, refraining from arms or territorial negotiation, and embarking on limited military interventions abroad. Ronald Reagan invigorated support for that agenda within the Republican Party when he challenged and almost upset President Gerald Ford, a Republican, for the nomination in 1976. Neoconservatives like Richard Perle and Jeane Kirkpatrick similarly popularized those ideas. Mobilizing previously quiescent evangelical Christians, the conservative movement also framed a new domestic agenda around cultural issues that would attract millions of voters into a reconstructed Republican Party. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson became known for shows that reached millions of Americans, calling on them to challenge the legality of abortion and to pressure broadcasters into refusing sexual material. The conservative movement of the 70s would become the motive force driving American politics for the next three decades.
But the movement did not just run roughshod over existing political and cultural institutions in the 70s. The new historians have begun to realize that accommodations to modern American life reflected undercurrents of the 70s every bit as potent as the rise of the right. Conservatism was layered over the accumulated changes of the 20th century. Liberalism remained embedded in national politics, popular culture retained the impulses of the 60s, and social movements opposing conservative values flourished. The triumphs of the right, at the ballot box and broadly across American society, would take place against a backdrop where the achievements of liberalism still mattered. Social Security remained enormously popular. Civil-rights legislation to prevent segregation and discrimination was accepted by most Americans as normal. Conservatives even accepted federal spending on education. The cultural revolution of the 60s shattered most of the norms that had shaped American homes in the decades before.
The incomplete revolution of the 70s defines contemporary American public life. On the one hand, conservatism has entrenched itself with a vigor that even the most committed New Right activists would not have imagined in the 70s. Looking much different from the famous Age of Aquarius, conservative institutions now crisscross the American landscape. Conservatives have ensconced themselves in the federal judiciary; their policy agenda continues to shape national debate. On foreign policy, stem-cell research, restrictions on greenhouse gases, and gun control, the conservative movement that coalesced in the 70s has left its imprint on American society. Even in American culture, we have seen the vitality of evangelical Christianity.
But there is another America. Abortion remains legal despite decades of attacks, stem-cell research retains public enthusiasm, and the rights of homosexuals remain a desired goal. Yes, voters continue efforts to cut large parts of the federal government, but President Bush's effort to privatize Social Security has failed, while conservatives lost control of Congress in 2006.
The tensions will not go away. The incomplete revolution that conservatives directed in the 70s makes the problems they face today difficult to overcome. Conservatism can't be transformed with a new president. The challenges of conservatism started in the 70s and will continue into the future. America turned right in the 70s, but not as a result of a political sweep. As the conservative movement took shape and expanded its influence, it faced a series of challenges, a persistent struggle between conservative political power and liberal social change. The struggles that shaped the right in the 70s during the rightward turn linger today.