Conservatism in the United States
Conservatism in the United States is based on a belief in limited government, individualism, traditionalism, republicanism, and limited federal governmental power in relation to U.S. states.[1] Conservative and Christian media organizations and American conservative figures are influential, and American conservatism is a large and mainstream ideology in the Republican Party and nation. As of 2021, 36 percent of Americans consider themselves conservative, according to polling by Gallup, Inc.[2][3][4]
"American conservative" redirects here. For the magazine, see The American Conservative.American conservatives tend to support Christian values,[5] moral absolutism,[6] traditional family values,[7] and American exceptionalism,[8] while opposing abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and transgender rights.[9] They tend to favor economic liberalism and neoliberalism,[10][11] and are generally pro-business and pro-capitalism,[12][13] while opposing communism and labor unions.[14][15][16] They often advocate for a strong national defense, gun rights, capital punishment, and a defense of Western culture from perceived threats posed by communism and moral relativism.[17][18] American conservatives tend to question epidemiology, climate change, and evolution more frequently than moderates or liberals.[19][20][21]
whose proponents are primarily Christian fundamentalists focused on the traditional nuclear family rooted in religion. Typical positions include the view that the United States was founded as a Christian nation rather than a secular one and that abortion should be restricted or outlawed. Many attack the profanity and sexuality prevalent in modern media and society and often oppose pornography and LGBT rights while supporting abstinence-only sex education.[42] This faction strongly supported Reagan in the 1980 election. Nevertheless, they intensely opposed the Reagan's 1981 nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court because she supported a woman's right to abortion. She was confirmed unanimously anyway.[43]
Christian conservatism
Related to Christian conservatism is , which focuses on the preservation of traditional moral values, often rooted in the nuclear family and religion, that they see as threatened by secularism and moral relativism. They tend to support prayer in public schools and school vouchers for religious schools, while opposing abortion and LGBT rights.[44][45][46][9][47]
Social conservatism
a form of conservatism bound within the limits provided within the United States Constitution, defending the structures of constitutionalism and enumerated powers, and preserving the principles of the United States Constitution.[48] Chief among those principles is the defense of liberty.[49] This form of conservatism coalesced in the Republican Party in the early 20th century, in opposition to progressivism within the party; it can also be seen being influential to the 21st century Tea Party movement.[50][51] Constitutional conservatism has also been associated with judicial originalism.[52][53][54]
Constitutional conservatism
a form of conservatism that focuses on low taxes and restrained government spending.
Fiscal conservatism
a fusion with libertarianism. This type 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, so-called "deficit hawks", those favoring more rigid enforcement of 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, its surveillance programs and its foreign military interventions. Libertarian conservatives' emphasis on personal freedom often leads them to have social positions contrary to those of social conservatives, especially on such issues as marijuana, abortion and gay marriage. Ron Paul and his son Rand Paul have been influential proponents in the Republican presidential contests, while still maintaining many socially conservative values.[55] Fiscal conservatives and libertarians favor capitalism, individualism, limited government, and laissez-faire economics. They advocate low taxes, free markets, deregulation, privatization, and reduced government spending and government debt.[27][28]
Libertarian conservatism
a modern variant of conservatism and nationalism that concentrates on upholding national and cultural identity.[56] Advocated by supporters of President Donald Trump that breaks with the "conservative consensus, forged by Cold War politics" of "markets and moralism".[57] It seeks to preserve national interests, emphasizes American nationalism, strict law and order policies[58] and social conservatism (revolving around the nuclear family),[57] opposes illegal immigration and laissez-faire or free market economic policy.[59] A 2019 political conference featuring "public figures, journalists, scholars, and students" dubbed this variety of conservatism "National Conservatism".[60] Critics allege its adherents are merely attempting to wrest "a coherent ideology out of the chaos of the Trumpist moment".[61][62]
National conservatism
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 in the Middle East that used aggressive military action to ostensibly promote democracy and protect American interests.[63][64] Neoconservatives want to expand what they see as American ideals throughout the world.[65]
Neoconservatism
in part a rebirth of the Old Right arising in the 1980s in reaction to neoconservatism. Paleoconservatives advocate restrictions on immigration, non-interventionist foreign policy, and opposition to multiculturalism.[66] Most conservative factions nationwide, except some libertarians, support a unilateral foreign policy, and a strong military. Most, especially libertarians, support gun ownership rights, citing the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The conservative movement of the 1950s attempted to bring together these divergent strands, stressing the need for unity to prevent the spread of "godless communism".[67] It stresses tradition, especially Christian tradition and the importance to society of the traditional family. Some such as Samuel P. Huntington argue that multiracial, multi-ethnic, and egalitarian states are inherently unstable.[68] Paleoconservatives are generally isolationist, and suspicious of foreign influence. The magazines Chronicles and The American Conservative are generally considered to be paleoconservative in nature.[69]
Paleoconservatism
a form of conservatism in opposition to rapid change in political and social 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 utopian schemes.[70]
Traditionalist conservatism
ideology, the set of values and policy held by most conservative Democrats and the coalition that represents them.[71][72]
Blue Dog Coalition
Other topics[edit]
Russell Kirk's principles of conservatism[edit]
Russell Kirk developed six "canons" of conservatism, which Gerald J. Russello described as follows:
Aberbach, Joel D. "". in Robert A. Scott and Stephen M. Kosslyn, eds. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource (2015). doi:10.1002/9781118900772.etrds0373
Understanding American Political Conservatism
Aberbach, Joel D., and Gillian Peele, eds. Crisis of Conservatism?: The Republican Party, the Conservative Movement, and American Politics after Bush (Oxford UP, 2011). 403pp
Allitt, Patrick. The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (2010)
excerpt and text search
Bowen, Michael, The Roots of Modern Conservatism: Dewey, Taft, and the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party. (U of North Carolina Press, 2011). xii, 254pp.
Clark, Barry Stewart (1998). Political Economy: A Comparative Approach. Greenwood Publishing Group. 0-275-95869-8.
ISBN
Continetti, Matthew. The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism (2022)
excerpt
Critchlow, Donald T. The Conservative Ascendancy: How the Republican Right Rose to Power in Modern America (2nd ed. 2011)
excerpt
Critchlow, Donald T. and Nancy MacLean. (2009)
Debating the American Conservative Movement: 1945 to the Present
Critchlow, Donald T. Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism (Princeton UP, 2018).
Farber, David. (2012).
The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism: A Short History
Frohnen, Bruce et al. eds. American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (2006); the most detailed reference
Gabler, Neal. Against the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Rise of Conservatism, 1976-2009 (2022) , major scholarly biography of the leading opponent of conservatism in Congress
excerpt
Gross, Neil, Thomas Medvetz, and Rupert Russell. "The Contemporary American Conservative Movement," Annual Review of Sociology (2011) 37 pp. 325–354
Guttman, Allan. The Conservative Tradition in America (Oxford University Press, 1967).
Harp, Gillis J. Protestants and American Conservatism: a short history (Oxford UP, 2019).
Hayward, Steven F. The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order: 1964–1980 (2009) ; The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980–1989 (2009) excerpt and text search v2
excerpt v 1
. Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). xvi, 320 pp.
Hemmer, Nicole
Huntington, John S. Far-Right Vanguard: The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2021).
Kabaservice, Geoffrey. Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (2012) scholarly history favorable to moderates
excerpt and text search
Lauck, Jon K. and Catherine McNicol Stock, eds. The Conservative Heartland: A Political History of the Postwar American Midwest (UP of Kansas, 2020)
online review
Lora, Ronald. The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America Greenwood Press, 1999
Lyons, Paul. American Conservatism: Thinking It, Teaching It. (Vanderbilt University Press, 2009). 202 pp. 978-0-8265-1626-8
ISBN
Nash, George. The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (2006; 1st ed. 1978) influential history
O'Brien, John, and Eman Abdelhadi. "Re-examining restructuring: racialization, religious conservatism, and political leanings in contemporary American life". Social Forces 99.2 (2020): 474–503.
online
Pafford, John M. The Forgotten Conservative: Rediscovering Grover Cleveland (Simon and Schuster, 2013).
excerpt
Phillips-Fein, Kim. Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal (2009) ; same book also published as Invisible hands: the making of the conservative movement from the New Deal to Reagan
excerpt
Postell, Joseph W. and Johnathan O'Neill, eds. Toward an American Conservatism: Constitutional Conservatism during the Progressive Era (2013).
Postell, Joseph W. and Johnathan O'Neill, eds. American Conservatism: 1900–1930 (Lexington Press, 2020)
Reinhard, David W. The Republican right since 1945 (UP of Kentucky, 2014) .
online
Rosen, Eliot A. (2014)
The Republican Party in the Age of Roosevelt: Sources of Anti-Government Conservatism in the United States
Sawyer, Logan. "Originalism from the Soft Southern Strategy to the New Right: The Constitutional Politics of Sam Ervin Jr". Journal of Policy History 33.1 (2021): 32–59.
online
Schneider, Gregory. (2009)
The Conservative Century: From Reaction to Revolution
Sexton, Patricia Cayo. The war on labor and the left: Understanding America's unique conservatism (Routledge, 2018).
Thorne, Melvin J. American Conservative Thought since World War II: The Core Ideas (1990)
21 experts from the U.S. and abroad, ponder the future of conservatism.
"Conservative Predominance in the U.S.: A Moment or an Era?"
.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Conservatism at the University of Virginia
"Comparative Decades: Conservatism in the 1920s and 1980s" Lesson plans
Mark Riebling, "Prospectus for a Critique of Conservative Reason."
Archived August 22, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. Kevin M. Kruse for Politico. April 16, 2015.