DM- Conservatives from Taft to

Trump
WHAT DO THE FOLLOWING PRIMARY SOURCES REVEAL ABOUT
THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES?

Camilla Porcella, Erasmus Student | 1 novembre 2022

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S
ince the beginning of our course, we have acknowledged that it is extremely difficult to

comprehend and evaluate the conservative movement in America. While there has never been

a political party in the United States that has stood up for conservative ideas, there is one

called the "Tory" Party in Great Britain. In this situation, the origin and evolution of conservatism may

be understood simply by looking at how this Party has matured. On the contrary, in America, the

development of conservatism has been complicated and oftentimes even contradictory. In Europe,

conservatism is a movement that was born in an optic of opposition to the French Revolution. According

to Burke, the theorist of European conservatism, one should look at disregard the “new society” that

revolutionaries promised to create. With all of this in mind, we can see how it would seem incredibly

incongruous to advocate for conservative ideas in a nation like America that is "artificial" and non-

traditional since it was created through a revolution.

Conservatives in the USA don't have distinct ideologies; we can only identify their tendencies.

However, through extensive research into political history, we were able to define what "conservatism"

is in America and how this term evolved through time. Summarizing all, we might say that this

movement was founded and has grown out of direct opposition to liberal ideologies like the New Deal

and Civil Rights to promote individualism and freedom. Conservators also support a less intrusive

government to safeguard American tradition and the constitution. But over time, segregationists, pro-

lifers, racists, workers, and religious leaders started to position themselves as conservators as well. Due

to the potential for misinterpretation, the essay uses documents and speeches to explain how

conservative priorities evolved.

This essay aims to investigate how a brand-new country, which lacks centuries of history and

tradition, can profess such staunchly conservative principles. In particular, through a careful

examination of 6 documents, I’m going to detect all facets of this baffling movement, which still

nowadays poses a puzzle for both historians and political analysts. Robert Taft’s Speech to the inland

daily press association is the very first statement of conservative ideas, where libertarian values are

strongly opposed to Keynesian, pro-New Deal policies. The Impeach Earl Warren billboard marks a

turning point: private organizations begin to promote the growing conservative movement through mass

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media. Trying to simplify complex geopolitical and social issues, they paved the way to populism. This

populist attitude is even more evident in Reagan's speech “a Time for Choosing”, where he claimed for

a “government of people”, to the detriment of “a little intellectual elite” that is ruling over “the masses”.

He also argued that people just have to choose between up or down, development or recession, without

considering the “left” and “right” label. Nixon, following Wallace’s valuable example, in the Labor Day

Radio Address took it one step further by identifying himself with the WASP. In the 1970s Democrats

proposed busing, affirmative actions, and social aid to help the Northern black community to integrate.

However, the white community strongly opposed these political actions and Nixon collected discontent

through an electoral campaign based on the disqualification of the welfare state. In the speech that I’m

going to analyze Nixon painted a situation where those who live with economic aid are wealthier than

those who work full-time. This contemptuous argument, together with the idea that quotas are not

meritocratic, aims at demonstrating “reverse discrimination”, which is, even nowadays, one of the most

prominent populist assertions. In Reverend Jerry Falwell's excerpt from Listen America, the reader is

introduced to another important shift in the history of conservatism: the mobilization of Christian voters.

Jerry Falwell, the leader of The Moral Majority, a Christian organization, strongly believed in American

exceptionalism, but also suggested that feminism, television, and drug culture are corrupting society.

He also suggested that the peace movement is anti-patriotic because these people are demonstrating

against their compatriots that are fighting against communists and infidels, instead of celebrating them.

The reverend encourages people to return to tradition and Biblical values to “stand against the Equal

Rights Amendment, the feminist revolution, and the homosexual revolution”. Finally, George Gilder’s

passage is a perfect example of fusionism because it resembles together free-market and anti-

government intervention policies, with religious and traditionalist statements. Gilder is a strenuous

defender of the traditional family, and pinpoints the corruption of established institutions, such as

marriage, as the cause of poverty. Furthermore, in this extract, Gilder suggests that the welfare state is

destroying the American economic system, since the poor, that should work harder than the other social

classes, increasingly refuse to work. I will then start analyzing the “earlier” and more elitist conservatism

of Taft, before moving on to the John Birch Society’s more populist and truthier conservatism, which

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will spark a revolution in the Republican Party and finally we’ll conclude with Reagan's strong

integration of politics and religion throughout the 1970s.

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lthough historians typically date the birth of modern conservatism to 1955 -when the first

editorial of National Review was published - Robert Taft had already illustrated some of

the fundamental principles of what would later merge into William Buckley's

conservatism and that still remain relevant today. Robert Taft, senator of Ohio and aspiring president of

the United States, is famous for having been the mastermind behind the Taft-Hartley Act. This law

formally weakens the effects of the Wagner Act: Thanks to Taft, American businessmen managed to

limit the growing power of Trade Unions. Like William Buckley, Taft harshly criticized New Deal and

the intrusive government it proposed. What we find in his speech to the Inland Daily Press Association

is a tenacious emphasis on individual freedom (“I want to see a world where men are free to choose

their occupation or profession, develop their ideas, build up new industries and new products”), but

also on fixed principles (People should be “God-fearing, industrious, self-reliant, honorable and

intelligent”). Taft claims that his ideals do not conflict with those of liberals, but he places a different

emphasis on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They also have a distinct idea of what constitutes

material well-being. According to Taft, men are created equal and, as a result, there shouldn’t exist

facilities for “the poorest” and “the weakest”, because they want “better people, people of a strong

character”. In the optic of a new survival of the fittest, Taft advocates a world where hard effort and

sacrifice are necessary for social mobility, and those who choose to benefit from the state welfare will

inevitably be excluded from society and can’t expect to have any rights. As Nixon will say much later

in the Labor Day Radio Address, “new welfare ethic could cause that American character to weaken”.

The idea that Black Americans are experiencing segregation because they weren’t able to work as hard

as the other communities and so they deserve a commensurate place in society - which is just suggested

in this speech - will be explicitly displayed to the audience by William Buckley during the famous

debate “Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?”. Again, the

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comparison between Buckley and Taft is inevitable since they share the same libertarian values, which

are also the principles that would set them apart from liberals. Even though the conservative movement

was still in its infancy, we can already see a trend that would later become the basis of the political

rhetoric of the 1970s and 1980s: the endeavor to establish an American tradition. Taft appears to be

endorsing his "political philosophy" by alluding to the Constitution. On one hand, he is reassuring the

voters since he doesn’t want to transform society, but indeed stop a revolution initiated by Democrats;

on the other hand, he is looking for a model to follow. He displays himself as the rescuer of a society

that has corrupted itself with the New Deal. He knows that his movement cannot be called “conservatism”

if there isn’t a tradition to go back to. Therefore, he identifies the golden age of the Nation, namely the

model to emulate, with the Constitution.

From the “Speech to the Inland Daily Press Association” on, a growing number of people who

were disappointed by the New Deal, disregarded the federal government's meddling in economic and

social issues, believed in American exceptionalism and fought the “war to communism”, started to refer

to themselves as “conservators”. This group of theoreticians and politicians - that will be gathered

together by Buckley in his National Review - knows that they couldn't defeat the liberals in the North,

but they could create a solid electorate in the Deep South. Taft will be the first politician to earn support

among the Bourbon Democrats, pioneering the “Southern Tactic”: This group of poor and racist men of

the South is no longer represented in congress because the Democratic Party, which they had always

supported, began opposing segregation and threatening a federal intervention on the issue. Until that

point, Democrats of the South had refused to vote for Lincoln Party, namely Republicans. However,

conservators would fill the void left by the Democratic Party, and - as a matter of fact - the Sunbelt will

be where Conservatism begins to spread.

T
he Sunbelt is also the stronghold of the first conservative organizations. These institutions

aimed at promoting ideas and supporting candidates at a local level before, and for the

presidential elections after. They began to expand throughout the country along with the

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rising popularity of conservatism to the point that they had an essential role during Berry Goldwater’s

electoral campaign. Among others, the most successful, and yet controversial, organization is the John

Birch Society, whose founder is called Robert Welch. This institution took its name from a soldier killed

in a confrontation with the Chinese Communist army: from that moment on John Birch would become

a reminder of how dangerous it could be to enable communism to enter society. This extreme fear of

communism found its peak during McCarthyism from the late 1940s through the 1950s but remained

latent in American society and exploded again in the 1970s-1980s when the Civil Rights Movement and

feminism became prominent. The John Birch Society swore at fighting communism, and they started to

label every anti-racial and pro-welfare state statement as “a dangerous communist idea”. However,

because of their firm belief in American exceptionalism, they also oppose all forms of internationalism,

including ONU. The members of this organization are racists and strenuously defend segregation in the

South, to the point that once schools were desegregated with the Brown vs Board of Education case

(1954) they would advocate impeachment for Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the time. The John Birch

Society released posters with their slogans and placed them on large billboards throughout the major

Southern cities, as evidenced by document number 2. These organizations, especially the John Birch

Society, frequently use alarmist language in their advertisements to frighten people away from the

potential threat that the new liberal ideals pose to democracy. Maybe the most striking “awareness

campaign” was made during the Goldwater primaries and the presidential race, when the organization,

during their gatherings, distributed 3 propaganda books: Haley’s Texan look at Lydon, Schlafly’s a

choice, not an echo, and Stormer’s None dare call it treason. Buckley and the more intellectual wave

never showed great interest in spreading these simplistic conspiracy theories, but neither could they

reject them. The great merit of conservators is to have understood that people vote for what they fear,

and by creating a tradition, an established order that will be reversed if Democrats won’t be stopped,

they attracted millions of voters. Although the National Review’s conception of conservatism seems to

contrast with the new populist movement, they share a trait: the willingness to give America a tradition,

whose ideals go back to the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. In None dare call it treason,

Stormer evokes the betrayal of American values accomplished by Democrats with New Deal and

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welfare state policies. What they are deceiving indeed is the Smithian free market economic system

intrinsic in the Declaration of Independence. Even though its tones are less alarmistic, also Buckley in

the first editorial suggests that the social feature of this century is the growth of government at the

expense of life, liberty, and property. In Ronald Reagan’s A time for choosing, the simple allusion is

finally made explicit when he says: “the full power of centralized government”—this was the very thing

the Founding Fathers sought to minimize”. The endeavor to establish a cultural foundation and a golden

age for the "newly-created America" is eventually Chrystal-clear. The constitution, which embodies the

nation's established order, is in danger of being overturned. Democrats are replacing liberalism with

Keynesianism by claiming that the "Constitution is outdated.". They are departing from the conventional

view of the American economic system, which has roots in the Declaration of Independence: If the

Great Society is accepted, what the Founding Fathers had long struggled for will be destroyed. Reagan

contends that Johnson's proposed welfare state initiatives are proof positive that the state is attempting

to impose more intrusive economic controls on citizens. This speech combines social reform with a

change in the constitutional system's orientation. His rhetorical tactic relies on the fact that people would

establish a mental link between the welfare state and the full power of government, that, according to

the Founding Fathers has to be limited at all costs. Reagan didn't say it directly, but his argument will

lead the listeners to infer that the Democratic Party is opposed to the Constitution, as John Birch Society

summarizes in his billboard: Save our Republic, Impeach Earl Warren.

After the 1968 presidential election, thanks to Wallace’s contribution, the wave of populism

will be ridden by the new Republican president: Richard Nixon. Wallace, despite all expectations, as an

independent candidate obtained 13,5% of the votes. Even though he didn’t win, he gave a lesson in

political strategy to conservators: to win the majority they should seduce the working class with their

anti-welfare state, racist propaganda. Nixon, advised by Kevin Philips, understood that to win the

Northern-working-class votes, he had to sympathize with them and prove that social programs only

helped those who didn’t work. The traditional Americans, those who still believe in work ethic, as Nixon

said in the “Labor Day Radio Address”, are abandoned by the government. They don’t have the right

to spend money as they prefer, because they have to pay taxes to finance the welfare programs. This

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biased announcement aimed at creating resentment between the WASP and the ethnical minorities:

Nixon is suggesting that the American workers, those who follow the work ethic, “built this Nation’s

character”, while the others live at the expense of government welfare programs and are “weak people”.

The traditionalist rhetoric, coming back to Taft's statements, is now suggesting that there are citizens of

the first rank and of the second rank, namely those who work and those who live with the government’s

support. The first-rank ones, who embody the American principle of self-reliance and hard work are

now abandoned by a government that is corrupting these fundamentals. The Democratic government is

breaking with the American Puritan traditions of the Founding Fathers, the incentive of reward will not

be an issue anymore, and the US will lose its status as the country with “a higher standard of living and

more freedom than any worker in the world today”. Not only does the Democratic party control its

citizen's life abandoning the free market, but it also corrupts the solid work ethic. The whole core of

American fixed principles is collapsing: this is what the conservative propaganda of impending danger

is suggesting.

W
Hen, in the 1970s, the “sleeping giant” of the Christian vote is awakened, the

religious background is used to support the new rhetoric of American moral values.

Jerry Falwell with his Moral Majority began to spread the idea that true Americans

are being corrupted by a libertine government, that uses the public school system and television to

broadcast feminist and communist ideas all over the Country. As the Reverend said in the except Listen

America! “They have been taught that the Bible is just another book of literature”. Abortion,

emancipation, and gay rights are anti-biblical according to religious organizations because they

underestimate human life and God’s message. To put an end to communist and feminist revendications,

Jerry Falwell advocates a return to a biblical basis. What stunned me is that religious voters not only

seem completely in agreement with Conservative values, but Reverends and Religious theoreticians are

even trying to give this movement a legitimate religious root. Evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics,

and Mormons are engaging in politics and through an apology for hard work and moral values echo

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conservative positions on welfare and socialism. Although it is Reagan who would tie indissolubly

Republican Party and Christian organizations, in this extract work ethic is praised at the expense of the

welfare state, as much as in Nixon’s Labor Day Radio Address. The only difference is that In Listen

America! Work is not a way to prevail over others in an optic of survival of the fittest, but it has a

puritan meaning: it is a dignifying activity. Falwell established a tight connection between religious

values and the Constitution; indeed, patriotism is directly proportional to morality and the new

generations seem to have embraced new systems of beliefs at the expense of the tradition of their own

Country. Those who have no faith in God are considered opposers to the American Constitution, since,

as the Reverend said: “God led in the development of that document”. By identifying the Constitution

as a “new Gospel”, Falwell is taking the traditionalistic rhetoric to the ultimate level: he is providing a

religious basis to a Nation that has always been conceived as fundamentally rootless. He even states that

the only reason the Founding Fathers separated Church and State was to keep their functions distinct,

but they never intended to “establish a government void of God”. Now that powerful rhetoric on true

American traditions on the cultural, moral, and religious levels is built, finally, the label “conservatism”

is legitimated because there is a “Golden Era” to return to. As Falwell summarizes in his slogan: “I

believe that Americans want to see this country come back to basics, back to values, back to biblical

morality, back to sensibility, and back to patriotism”. The racial issue in Listen America! is completely

ignored, since, after Goldwater and Wallace’s failure, Conservative-Republicans understood that by

strenuously supporting segregation, they will lose Norther’s voters.

In the 1980s the complete fusion between libertarians' and traditionalists' ideals in the

conservative movement is finalized. The rising conservative movement of the 1930s-1940s has now

reached maturity and it is time for the reformed Republican Party to “Build the Future” as Reagan said.

Yet, this is exactly the spirit with which the economist George Gilder wrote his Wealth and Poverty, a

book intended to serve as a guide to capitalism. In the extract I’m considering, the author aims to show

the key factors in American Society that can lead to poverty and those that seem related to economic

growth. The author identifies three driving forces of progress: hard work, family, and faith. Gilder

identified a fixed pattern of development, where the richest have to invest and risk their capital, while

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poor people must “work harder than the classes above them”. The Welfare State and the sneaky tactic

of Democrats to create “false theories of discrimination” has caused an imbalance in this Manichean

vision. According to the economist, poor people, especially black Americans, are now trapped in this

social aid system and can’t fulfill their duty, causing the recession. However, the considerable

innovation of Gilder’s essay is to have given sociological substance to conservatism: through an in-

depth analysis of several studies on marriages and work effort, he established a correlation between

monogamous marriage and mobility upwards. The Wisconsin study reported that married men tend to

work harder as they have a family, while women’s productivity seems to decrease with the age and birth

of children. As a result, men can maintain a family, while single mothers, even if educated and trained,

seem bound to fail. Not only do the established institutions, such as marriage, are intrinsic values of the

Constitution, but they also contribute to the wealth of the United States. Gilder is suggesting that it is

important to stick to traditional ideals for the National interest’s sake. Once the conservative movement

had justified its roots, with the construction of an American tradition, it had to find a way to validate

and credit its theories: this is exactly what Wealth and Poverty aimed at. Gilder contends that moral

principles, such as a strong work ethic and a belief in God, must be upheld since they not only trace

back to the American Revolution but also make it possible for the world's most powerful economic

system to function. Furthermore, this anti-feminist and highly traditionalist vision legitimize the recent

battle of conservatism against the Equal Rights Amendment. This piece of legislation, if it had been

rectified, would have eliminated gender discrimination, but due to the smear campaign led by

conservatives, it was never approved.

A
fter having retraced the whole development of conservatism, from Taft to Gilder, I can

finally assert that the conservative movement mobilized the ideals of the American

Revolution to create a cultural tradition in the United States. As soon as Buckley founded

his National Review, he immediately understood that he couldn’t call his new movement “conservative”

in European terms. In Great Britain, it was born as a response to the French Revolution, while America

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was a Country founded on a Revolution. Moreover, Tories advocate a return to National roots and ideals,

but the US is a recent country, that cannot boast of a thousand-year tradition. The conservative

movement however soon found a solution to the issue: they had to create a set of traditions that opposed

the Democrats’ social policies. Through a literal interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, they

detected several tendencies: a pronounced urge for individual freedom, that could also be declined to

the economic system, other than a marked moralistic and religious aptitude. It is no coincidence that

these are the core ideas of conservatism and the principles that emerge since Taft’s Speech to the Inland

Daily Press Association”. These grounds will be popularized and adapted to time and situation along

with the latest social development. In the Impeach Earl Warren’s billboard, the John Birch Society

insists on the impending danger of the republic being destroyed after the desegregation of schools.

Reagan's A Time for Choosing insists on the meaning of individual freedom in relation to Lyndon

Johnson’s Great Society. However, in both documents, the fact that the fundamental rights of liberty

and the pursuit of happiness are threatened is accentuated, if not exaggerated. In Labor Day Radio

Address, Nixon blames Welfare States and “the quota system” for having weakened people’s character:

sacrifice and work ethic are puritan ideals which, again, are part of the Founding Father’s set of

principles. Starting from the 1970s Faith in God, which was just suggested in the earlier stage of

conservatism, became a core element of the traditionalist rhetoric. Reverend Jerry Falwell was strongly

engaged in politics, and yet, in his book Listen America! Repeatedly related the Bible and the

Constitution, God’s teaching, and the Founding Father’s words. Finally, George Gilder provided a

socioeconomic justification for conservatism in Wealth and Poverty: America's widespread economic

expansion is contingent on hard work, traditional family values, and faith in the future, progress, and

God.

In conclusion, since the movement's inception, conservatism has evolved along with its rhetoric

in the same general direction: finding the appropriate definition of the term "conservative" in America

and defending its tenets. On the ideological front, little has changed recently; Trump's campaign slogan,

"Make America Great Again," might be seen as a synthesis of conservative values. The word "again"

connotes a return to a "golden age," when individuals enjoyed true freedom on an economic as well as

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a social level. On the other hand, it also implies that someone—specifically, the Democratic Party and

its Welfare State policies—had destroyed this "Garden of Eden.". Even though the heyday of Ronald

Reagan seems remote in modern times, conservative basic concepts seem to have adapted to the hottest

issues, guaranteeing that they would never "go bankrupt of ideas."

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