Conservatism in the United States consists of right-leaning and right-wing ideological traditions that have collectively rivaled the liberal and progressive U.S. political traditions. Since the early 20th century, the American conservative tradition has generally been identified with the Republican Party, as opposed to the predominantly modern liberal orientation of its rival, the Democratic Party. Traditional American conservatism is characterized by a belief in individualism, traditionalism, capitalism, republicanism, and limited federal governmental power in relation to U.S. states. However, developments since 2010 have shifted it towards right-wing populist and national-conservative themes, owing in a large part to Trumpism.
Traditionally, American conservatives receive support from the Christian right and its interpretation of Christian values and moral absolutism, while generally opposing abortion, euthanasia, and some LGBT rights. They tend to favor economic liberalism, and are generally pro-business and pro-capitalism, while more strongly opposing communism and labor unions than liberals and social democrats. The shifts since 2020 have moved it towards national conservatism, protectionism, cultural conservatism, and a more realist foreign policy.
Conservatives frequently advocate strong national defense, gun rights, capital punishment, and a defense of Western culture from possible threats posed by communism, Islamism, and moral relativism. American conservatives question epidemiology, anthropogenic climate change, and evolution more frequently than moderates or liberals.
Overview
In the United States, conservatism is often defined differently from how it is viewed and described in Europe and other regions of the world. Following the American Revolution, Americans rejected the core ideals of European conservatism, including landed nobility, hereditary monarchy, established churches, and powerful armies.
Conservatives in the United States historically view individual liberty within the bounds of conservative values as the fundamental trait of democracy.Gregory L. Schneider, The Conservative Century: From Reaction to Revolution "The label (conservatism) is in frequent use and has come to stand for a skepticism, at times an outright hostility, toward government social policies; a muscular foreign policy combined with a patriotic nationalism; a defense of traditional Christian religious values; and support for the free-market economic system.", "Within the conservative disposition in America, there are inherent contradictions between supporters of social order and tradition and supporters of individual freedom." (2009) pp. 4–9, 136Sherwood Thompson, Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice. p. 7: "Historically...social justice became associated with liberalism in which equality is the ideal.", Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, . They typically believe in a balance between federal government and states' rights. Apart from some right-libertarians, American conservatives tend to favor strong action in areas they believe to be within the government's legitimate jurisdiction, particularly national defense and law enforcement, while opposing government intervention in social issues such as healthcare and the environment. Social conservatives, including many religious organizations and leaders, often oppose abortion and same-sex marriage. On education policy, American conservatives often support prayer in public schools and school choice, which enhances parents' choice between public, private, and parochial primary education.
Like most U.S. political ideologies, American conservatism is founded on the principle of republicanism, which rejects aristocratic and monarchical government. American conservatives see the Declaration of Independence, authored during the Revolutionary War largely by Thomas Jefferson and unanimously adopted by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776, as an ideological foundation, especially the Declaration's phrase that, "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Most American conservatives similarly see the U.S. Constitution, which established a federal republic under the rule of law and was ratified by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1789, as a doctrine and guiding principle.
Conservative philosophy also derives in part from the classical liberal tradition of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, which advocated laissez-faire economics and was supportive of economic freedom and deregulation. Louis Hartz, a Harvard University political scientist and historian, has argued that socialism has failed to become established in the United States because of Americans' widespread acceptance of an enduring, underlying Lockean consensus.Beer, Samuel H..
Patrick Allitt, an Emory University history professor, and political theorist Russell Kirk have asserted that conservative principles have played a major role in U.S. politics and culture since 1776 but argue that an organized conservative movement with an identifiable ideology and set of beliefs did not emerge in the U.S. East until at least the 1950s.Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History, "before the 1950s there was no such thing as a conservative movement in the United States.", p. 2, Yale University Press, 2009, Kirk, Russell. The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot (1953) traced a continuous tradition since the 1790s. Movement conservatism has its base in the Republican Party, which has adopted conservative policies since the 1950s. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the mid-1960s, Southern Democrats also were largely conservative.Vesla M. Weaver, "Frontlash: Race and the development of punitive crime policy." Studies in American political development 21.2 (2007): 230–265.Glen Feldman, The Irony of the Solid South, "The worshipful allegiance white southerners gave to that party emanated most fundamentally from the deep-seated, pervasive, almost indelible cultural conservatism of the region...", University Alabama Press, 2013, . In 1937, they formed the conservative coalition in the U.S. Congress, and Southern conservatives have mostly been heavily Republican since the late 20th century.
History
American Revolution
Conservatism in the United States has never been represented by a national political party called the Conservative Party, as exists in Canada, the United Kingdom, and other nations.Michael Kazin et al. eds. The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History (2011) pp. 117–128. In American politics, however, conservatism has been the predominant guiding ideology of the Republican Party since at least the 1960s, and American conservatism also exists as a force in American politics, media, academia and culture.
Both major U.S. political parties support republicanism and the classical liberal ideals on which the country was founded in 1776, which include an emphasis on liberty, the rule of law, the consent of the governed, and that all men were created equal, principles prominently articulated in the Declaration of Independence. Embrace of these principles by the Thirteen Colonies during the colonial era ultimately led a significant percent of Americans to conclude that these principles could never exist as long as they remained part of British America, governed by the Kingdom of Great Britain. This recognition grew in popularity as the American Revolution developed, leading the Second Continental Congress to ultimately embrace the cause of independence, which was secured after prevailing in the eight-year Revolutionary War against the British.
Political conservatives have emphasized an identification with the Founding Fathers of the United States and the U.S. Constitution. Scholars of conservative political thought "generally label John Adams as the intellectual father of American conservatism".R. B. Ripley, "Adams, Burke, and Eighteenth-Century Conservatism." Political Science Quarterly (1965). 80#2: 216–235. online Russell Kirk points to Adams as the key Founding Father for conservatives, saying that "some writers regard him as America's most important conservative public man".Russell Kirk, "Adams, John" in John Frohnen, ed., American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (2006) p. 11 In 1955, Clinton Rossiter, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College, wrote:
A. Owen Aldridge places Adams "at the head of the conservative ranks in the early years of the Republic and Jefferson as the leader of the contrary liberal current."A. Owen Aldridge, "John Adams: Pioneer American Conservative." Modern Age (2002) 44#3 pp. 217–225. It was a fundamental doctrine for Adams that all men are subject to equal laws of morality. He held that in society, all men have a right to equal laws and treatment from the government. However, he added, "No two men are perfectly equal in person, property, understanding, activity, and virtue."Aldridge, p. 224 Peter Viereck commented: Hamilton, Adams, and their Federalist party sought to establish in the new world what they called a "natural aristocracy". [It was to be] based on property, education, family status, and sense of ethical responsibility... Their motive was liberty itself.
Differences between the American Revolution and the French Revolution
After Americans obtained independence with their victory in the Revolutionary War, political divisions in the U.S. have been depicted as seemingly minor compared to those in Europe, where the divide between the left and the right led to violent polarization, which began with the French Revolution in 1789.Arthur Aughey, Greta Jones, W. T. M. Riches, The Conservative Political Tradition in Britain and the United States (1992), p. 1: "[T]here are those who advance the thesis that American exceptionalism means ... [but] there can be no American conservatism precisely because the American Revolution created a universally liberal society."
20th century In contemporary American politics, no major U.S. political party has embraced ideals historically associated with European conservatism, including monarchy, an established church, or a hereditary aristocracy. In the 20th century, American conservatism emerged largely as a reaction against utopian ideas of progressIain McLean and Alistair McMillan, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, p. 114, "Conservative ideas are, thus, more genuine and profound than many critics suggest, but such unity as they have is purely negative, definable only by its opposition and rejection of abstract, universal, and ideal principles..." and the political philosophy that emerged in Europe prior to the end of World War II in 1945. Russell Kirk, in The Conservative Mind, published in 1950, argued that the American Revolution was "a conservative reaction, in the English political tradition, against royal innovation".Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1950), pp. 6, 63.
21st century In 2009, Emory University history professor Patrick Allitt wrote that attitude, not policy, was at the core of differences between liberals and conservatives, writing: Certain continuities can be traced through American history. The conservative 'attitude' ... was one of trusting to the past, to long-established patterns of thought and conduct, and of assuming that novelties were more likely to be dangerous than advantageous.Patrick Allitt, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History (Yale U.P. 2009), p. 278
In 2022, Matthew Continetti of the American Enterprise Institute wrote that the American conservative movement has been fractured for a century.
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