No. 1120 Delivered April 1, 2009 April 27, 2009 The End of Conservatism? Lee Edwards, Ph.D. The modern conservative movement began as a Remnant with Albert Jay Nock and Frank Chodorov; grew into an intellectual movement with Friedrich Talking Points Hayek, Richard Weaver, and Russell Kirk; blossomed • Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., wrote in 1947 that into a political movement with William F. Buckley Jr. “there seems no inherent obstacle to the and Barry Goldwater; burst into full bloom as a gradual advance of socialism in the United governing movement with Ronald Reagan and The States through a series of New Deals.” Five- Heritage Foundation and other organizations; suc- and-a-half decades later, George Will wrote cumbed to hubris with Newt Gingrich and Tom that we had experienced “the intellectual col- DeLay; imploded under George W. Bush and the neo- lapse of socialism” around the world. conservatives; and is now wondering whether it is • Through the power of its ideas—linked by headed for the ash heap of history. the priceless principle of ordered liberty—and Let us begin our examination of the state of Amer- the successful political application of those ican conservatism with a little history. ideas, the conservative movement became a major and often dominant player in the Forty-five years ago, Lyndon Baines Johnson won political and economic realms of our nation. the presidency in a landslide, receiving 61 percent of • With the right leadership, much of the frus- the popular vote and carrying 44 states for a total of tration and uncertainty that characterize 486 electoral votes. Johnson’s coattails were long and the conservative movement at present will wide: Democrats wound up with a two-to-one major- fade away as they did when Robert Taft, ity in the Senate and the House of Representatives— Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Newt the largest Democratic majority in the House since the Gingrich were the acknowledged leaders of high point of the New Deal. conservatism. The political historian Theodore White concluded that “the elections of 1964 had left the Republican party in desperate condition.”1 Because Barry Gold- water had run a defiantly conservative campaign from beginning to end, most political experts were quick to This paper, in its entirety, can be found at: www.heritage.org/Research/Thought/hl1120.cfm second White’s bleak assessment of Republicanism Produced by the B. Kenneth Simon and go him one better with regard to the state of Center for American Studies American conservatism. Published by The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002–4999 (202) 546-4400 • heritage.org Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflect- ing the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before Congress. No. 1120 Delivered April 1, 2009 Walter Lippmann, the preeminent pundit of the Fifteen years after the so-called Goldwater deba- day, wrote that the returns disproved “there is a great cle, Ronald Reagan announced that he would again latent majority of ‘conservative’ Republicans.” seek the Republican nomination for President. The Author-journalist Robert J. Donovan said that if immediate reaction of the punditocracy was that Republicans are seen to be “the voice of right-wing Reagan was too old—he was nearly 69—too con- radicalism,” they “will remain a minority party indef- servative, and too dumb to be President. How could initely.” The New York Times’s James Reston summed anyone who had hosted a TV program called “Death up that “Barry Goldwater not only lost the presiden- Valley Days” cope with the multifaceted responsibil- tial election…but the conservative cause as well.”212 ities of the leader of the free world? Conservatives dismissed this doomsday analysis. The New Republic characterized Reagan as an “ex- Ronald Reagan, fresh from his widely hailed national movie actor, darling of the rabid right…an interna- television address on behalf of Goldwater, wrote that tional innocent, and an economic extremist.” Soci- the landslide majority did not vote against conserva- ologist Robert Coles called the prospect of Reagan tism but against “a false image” of conservatism that winning the GOP nomination “preposterous,” while “our liberal opponents successfully mounted.” James Conaway wrote in the Atlantic Monthly that among the news media, the idea of Reagan as Presi- Frank Meyer, the politically astute senior editor 4 of National Review, pointed out that despite the car- dent “was more than [they] could bear.” icature of the conservative cause as “extremist, rad- Yet, a decade later, when Ronald Reagan left the ical, nihilist, anarchic,” two-fifths of the voters voted White House, historians and politicians poured for the conservative alternative to liberalism.3 Mey- forth a stream of encomiums about his presidency, er’s implication was clear: You can build a powerful citing the restoration of Americans’ confidence in political movement on a foundation of 27 million themselves, the impressive economic recovery, and true believers. the end of the Cold War at the bargaining table and So who was proved more correct in their not on the battlefield. assessment of the returns—Walter Lippmann or Summing up his presidency after his death, the Ronald Reagan? Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edmund Morris said, “We know his greatness as a president by what From Goldwater to Reagan we don’t see today…. Where is the Soviet Union? Reviled and rejected in 1964 as no other presi- Where is the double-digit inflation? Where is the dential candidate in the 20th century—one maga- national malaise?” “On foreign policy,” remarked zine cover screamed that he was “psychologically Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy, “[Reagan] unfit” to be President—Barry Goldwater was easily will be honored as the president who won the reelected to the U.S. Senate in 1968 while the Pres- Cold War.” ident who buried him in an historic landslide dared Still, not everyone sang Reagan’s praises. The not seek reelection. Reagan legacy, said Nobel Prize economist James Looking back, we can see that the 1964 election Tobin, was “a crippled federal government.” “I don’t results and the 1965 passage of the Great Society think history has any reason to be kind to him,” said into law marked the apogee of modern liberalism. CBS’s Morley Safer. In 1966, the Republican Party, led by Goldwater So who was more correct in their assessment, conservatives, gained 47 seats in the House of Rep- Morley Safer or Edward Kennedy? resentatives and three seats in the Senate. 1. Theodore White, The Making of the President—1964 (New York: Signet Books, 1965), p. 453. 2. Lee Edwards, Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1995), p. 344. 3. Ibid., p. 345. 4. Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order 1964–1980 (Rosehill, Cal.: Prima Publishing, 2001), p. 620. page 2 No. 1120 Delivered April 1, 2009 American conservatism has undoubtedly suf- heroes: William Lloyd Garrison, William Jennings fered steep ups and downs in the post–World War II Bryan, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Paul period. Indeed, it seemed on the edge of extinction II—a quartet that has yet to make an appear- after the crushing defeat of Goldwater in 1964, after ance at the annual CPAC or the Southern Bap- Reagan’s failure to capture the Republican presiden- tist Convention. tial nomination in 1976, and after Bill Clinton’s • Commentator Patrick J. Buchanan lambastes “Third Way” victory in 1992, but each time conser- arrogant neoconservatives and greedy Wall vatism rose from the ashes like the fabled phoenix. Streeters for leading us astray and sets forth an A New Era for Conservatives? America First platform. Today, liberal pundits and historians are at it • Cato’s David Boaz invokes a plague on both Big again. Amnesic as ever, they are saying that in the Government conservatives and liberals and says wake of last November’s elections, American con- that choice is the key—whether you’re choos- servatism is headed for the ash heap of history. ing a church, a school, or a lifestyle. • The country is no longer “America the conser- Let us be clear about one thing: Republicans lost vative,” asserted senior editor John Judis of The in 2008 and 2006 not because they ran on conser- New Republic, but “America the liberal.” vative ideas but because they ran away from conser- vative ideas. • Barely able to contain herself, the editor of The Nation trumpeted that the election of Barack Needed: An Inclusive Obama marked “the collapse of conservatism.” Constitutional Conservatism • Barack Obama’s victory signaled more than “the So what is to be done? I suggest that what is now end of an era of Republican presidential domi- needed is a politics of inclusion, not exclusion—no nance and conservative ideology,” stated one- casting out of social conservatives or neoconserva- time conservative Michael Lind; “it may mark tives or any other kind of conservative, but a the beginning of a Fourth Republic of the renewed fusionism that will unite all the branches United States.”5 of the now-divided conservative mainstream. I Lind’s conclusion that the era of conservatism believe that a rejuvenated fusionism can do this by was ended and America was at the beginning of an blending the concepts of liberty and order, individ- era of “Hamiltonian centralization and reform” was ual freedom and responsibility, limited government seconded not only by euphoric liberals, but by anx- and a strong national defense just as the Founding ious conservatives ready to chart a new course even Fathers did with the checks and balances of the if they were uncertain about the destination.