This timeline of modern American conservatism lists important events, developments and occurrences that have affected conservatism in the United States. With the decline of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party following 1960, the movement is most closely associated with the Republican Party (GOP). Economic conservatives favor less government regulation, lower taxes and weaker labor unions while social conservatives focus on moral issues and neoconservatives focus on democracy worldwide. Mainstream conservatives generally distrust the United Nations and Europe and, apart from the libertarian wing, favor a strong military.
Although conservatism has much older roots in American history, the modern movement began to solidify in the mid-1930s when intellectuals and politicians collaborated with businessmen to oppose the liberalism of the New Deal led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, newly energized labor unions, and big-city Democratic machines. After World War II, that coalition gained strength from new philosophers and writers who developed an intellectual rationale for conservatism.Patrick Allitt (2009). The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History. Yale University Press. ch 1–6 covers the story down to 1945.
Richard Nixon's victory in the 1968 election is often considered a realigning election in American politics. From 1932 to 1968, the Democratic Party was the majority party as during that time the Democrats had won seven out of nine presidential elections and their agenda gravely affected that undertaken by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, which was altered completely with Nixon's 1968 electoral victory. Democrats were largely split over whether to support or oppose the Vietnam War, and many whites felt the national Democratic Party had deserted them, leading many of them to vote Republican at the presidential level since the 1950s and at the state and local level since the 1990s.
In the 1980 presidential election and in his subsequent presidential administration, Ronald Reagan rejuvenated conservatism in the United States, supporting tax cuts, significantly increasing defense spending, deregulation, and breaking with the post-World War II foreign policy consensus of containing the Soviet Union and instead introducing and advancing the Reagan Doctrine, which sought to rollback global communism and bring an end to the Cold War.
Reagan also supported and advanced the ideals associated with family values and a “Judeo-Christian” morality, leading many historians to call the 1980s the Reagan era.Sean Wilentz The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974–2008. (2009); John Ehrman The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan. (2008) pp. 3–8. In the 21st century, issues such as abortion, gun control, euthanasia, assisted suicide, LGBTQ rights, and foreign policy have grown in importance to many American conservatives. Since 2009, the Tea Party movement has energized conservatives at the local level against the policies made by the presidency of Barack Obama, leading to Republican success in the 2010 and 2014 mid-term elections, and the 2016 election, in which Donald Trump was elected president.
Chronology of events
1930s As the nation plunged into its deepest depression ever, Republicans and conservatives fall into disfavor in 1930, 1932 and 1934, losing more and more of their seats. Liberals (mostly Democrats with a few Republicans and independents) come to power with the landslide 1932 election of liberal Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his first 100 days Roosevelt pushes through a series of dramatic economic programs known as the New Deal.Anthony J. Badger (2009). FDR: the first hundred days. Hilland Wang. pp. 3–22, 74.
Major metropolitan newspapers generally opposed the New Deal, including those owned by William Randolph Hearst and his Hearst chain Robert R. McCormick, who then owned the Chicago Tribune, compared the New Deal to communism and was an America First isolationist who strongly opposed entering World War II. McCormick also railed against the League of Nations, the World Court, and socialism.
1934 Opposition to New Deal policies first takes shape as the American Liberty League. Led by conservative Democrats such as Al Smith, it fades after Roosevelt's 1936 landslide and disbands in 1940.George Wolfskill (1962). The Revolt of the Conservatives: A History of the American Liberty League, 1934–1940. Houghton Mifflin. p. 249. Businessmen begin organizing their opposition especially to labor unions. 1935 Former President Herbert Hoover develops his critique of New Deal liberalism based on the values of liberty, limited government, and constitutionalism.Gordon Lloyd and David Davenport, The New Deal and Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry (2013) excerpt and text search 1936
President Roosevelt calls his opponents "conservatives" as a term of abuse, they reply that they are "true liberals". Most publishers favor Republican moderate Alf Landon for president. In the nation's 15 largest cities the newspapers that editorially endorsed Landon represented 70% of the circulation, while Roosevelt won 69% of the actual voters.Charles W. Smith Jr. (1939). Public Opinion in a Democracy. Prentice-Hall. pp. 85–86. Roosevelt carries 46 of the 48 states and liberals gain in both the House and the Senate, thanks to newly energized labor unions, city machines, and the WPA. Since 1928 the GOP has lost 178 House seats, 40 Senate seats, and 19 governorships; it retains a mere 89 seats in the House and 16 in the Senate. 1937 Roosevelt's plan to pack the Supreme Court alienates conservative Democrats; most newspapers which supported FDR in 1936 oppose the plan, with many warning it was a prelude to dictatorship. Conservative Republicans (nearly all from the North) and conservative Democrats (most from the South), form the Conservative Coalition and block most new liberal proposals until the 1960s. The Conservative Manifesto (originally titled "An Address to the People of the United States") rallies the opposition to Roosevelt. It is drafted by Senators Josiah Bailey (D-NC) and Arthur H. Vandenberg (R-MI). The liberal American Federation of Labor (AFL) and more leftist Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor federations are both growing and both support FDR. Their bitter feud over jurisdiction, however, produces numerous strikes, angers public opinion and weakens their political power.Walter Galenson (1960). The CIO challenge to the AFL. Harvard University Press. p. 542. 1938 Opponents of conservatism weaken sharply. FDR's allies in the AFL and CIO battle each other; his court-packing plan is rejected; his attempt to purge the conservatives from the Democratic Party fails and strengthens them; the sharp recession of 1937–1938 discredits his argument that New Deal policies would lead to full recovery.William E. Leuchtenburg (1963). Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932–1940. HarperCollins. pp. 231–274. The Republicans make major gains in the House and Senate in the 1938 elections.Milton Plesur, "The Republican Congressional Comeback of 1938," Review of Politics, Oct 1962, Vol. 24 Issue 4, pp. 525–562 in JSTOR Leo Strauss (1899–1973), a refugee from Nazi Germany, teaches political philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York (1938–49) and the University of Chicago (1949–1969). He was not an activist but his ideas have been influential.John P. East, "Leo Strauss and American Conservatism," Modern Age, (1977) 21:1 pp. 2–19 online 1939
As Republican senator from Ohio (1939–53), Robert A. Taft leads the conservative opposition to liberal policies (apart from public housing and aid to education, which he supported). Taft opposed most of the New Deal, entry into World War II, NATO, and sending troops to the Korean War. He was not so much an "isolationist" as a staunch opponent of the ever-expanding powers of the White House. The growth of this power, Taft feared, would lead to dictatorship or at least spoil American democracy, republicanism and civil virtue.Geoffrey Matthews, "Robert A. Taft, the Constitution and American Foreign Policy, 1939–53," Journal of Contemporary History, July 1982, Vol. 17 Issue 3, pp. 507–522
1940s 1943 Medical missionary Walter Judd (1898–1994) enters Congress (1943–63) and defines the conservative position on China as all-out support for the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and opposition to the Communists under Mao. Judd redoubled his support after the Nationalists in 1949 fled to Formosa (Taiwan).Lee Edwards (1990). Missionary for Freedom: The Life and Times of Walter Judd. Paragon House. p. 210. The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is founded in Washington "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate."Murray L. Weidenbaum (2009). The competition of ideas: the world of the Washington think tanks. Transaction Publishers. p. 23. 1944
March: Friedrich Hayek, an Austrian-born British economist, publishes The Road to Serfdom, which is widely read in America and Britain. He warns that well-intentioned government intervention in the economy is a slippery slope that will lead to tight government controls over people's lives, just as medieval serfdom had done.F. A. Hayek (1944; 2nd ed. 2010). The Road to Serfdom. University of Chicago Press. 2nd ed. by Bruce Caldwell with prepublication reports on Hayek's manuscript, and forewords to earlier editions by John Chamberlain, Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself. The weekly magazine Human Events is founded by Frank Hanighen and Felix Morley with a significant contribution from ex-New Dealer Henry Regnery. Ronald Reagan later says that the magazine "helped me stop being a liberal Democrat." 1945 Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), having fled the Nazis, becomes professor of economics at New York University (1945–1969) where he disseminates Austrian School libertarianism.Israel M. Kirzner (2001). Ludwig von Mises: the man and his economics. ISI Books. p. 25. 1946 Milton Friedman (1912–2006) is appointed professor of economics at the University of Chicago.He retired in 1977 and moved to the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Milton and Rose Friedman (1999). Two Lucky People: Memoirs. University of Chicago Press. p. 559. Previously a Keynesian, Friedman moves right under the influence of his close friend George Stigler (1911–1991). He founds the market-oriented Chicago School of Economics which reshapes conservative economic theory. Stigler opposes regulation of industry as counterproductive; Friedman undermines Keynesian macroeconomics.Alan O. Ebenstein (2009). Milton Friedman: A Biography Palgrave Macmillan. p. 259. Friedman wins the Nobel Prize in 1976 and Stigler in 1982. November 5: Republicans score landslide victories in the House and Senate in off-year elections and set about enacting a conservative agenda in the 80th Congress.Susan M. Hartmann (1971). Truman and the 80th Congress. University of Missouri Press. p. 7.
1947 June: Congress passes the Taft-Hartley Act, designed by conservatives to create what they consider a proper balance between the rights of management and the rights of labor. Unions call it a slave labor law; Truman vetoes it and both houses override the veto.James T. Patterson (1972). Mr. Republican: a biography of Robert A. Taft. Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 352–368. 1948