- Sep 13, 2002
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Essay on the book from the (self-described liberal publication) The New Republic below about longtime conservative Matthew Continetti's new book "The Right: The 100 Year War for American Conservatism." It sounds like an interesting read. The premise of the book is that the past century has seen an internecine battle between "Conservatives" and "The Right" for the soul of the GOP - with the conservatives being mainstream institutionalists and "The Right" being populist radicals. Obviously, the populist radicals have won.
I have included a few of what were to me interesting excerpts and there is a link to the full article below that:
Conservatives are the Continettis of yesteryear, institutionalists quoting Edmund Burke to explain why staying credible with the mainstream is essential to moving the cause forward. The Right stands in for activists at the grassroots, latter-day Jacksonians willing to burn the whole system to the ground. Picture George Will on one side, Steve Bannon on the other.
On the day Continetti proclaimed the onset of the Ryan Revolution, Donald Trump was the clear leader in Republican primary polls, pulling in a higher total than Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush combined. Continetti greeted Trump’s candidacy with equanimity at first. Of course, a reality TV star with a penchant for ludicrous conspiracy theorizing and crude racial demagoguery could never win. But a leader from the statesman’s wing of the GOP (maybe even—swoon—Paul Ryan) could translate Trumpian grievance mongering into a populist platform that would clobber Hillary Clinton in the fall.
By the time Harry Truman left the White House in 1953, Democrats had transformed the country, including the elite, which now had a decidedly liberal (though far from radical) orientation. But after decades of political dominance, FDR’s majority was coming apart. McCarthyism had given conservatives a populist makeover by linking anti-communism to the campaign against big government. Civil rights activists were pushing debates over racial justice to the foreground, providing Republicans with an opportunity to break open the solidly Democratic South that had been the base of Roosevelt’s coalition. The establishment was becoming more liberal, discontent with the status quo was bubbling, and the GOP was poised to attack a New Deal order that was already cracking under the weight of its contradictions.
In the 1970s, grassroots activists calling themselves “the New Right”—ERA-slayer Phyllis Schlafly, Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie—brought activists to the polls. But it was neoconservative intellectuals who shaped the conversation in the Capitol and scored the sweetest think tank sinecures. Under Reagan, the conservative movement grew into a proper conservative establishment located in Washington and dominated by Ivy Leaguers speaking on behalf of the heartland. A dissident intellectual wing of paleoconservatives bemoaning the rise of “Conservatism Inc.” later rallied behind Pat Buchanan. By the time George W. Bush was sworn into the presidency, however, Buchanan had been driven out of the Republican Party, and Buckley’s heirs had matured into what Continetti describes as a “self-confident conservative ruling class.”
Continetti has a more favorable opinion these days of the man he once called “a misogynist and bigot, an ignoramus and doofus.” With Trump’s presidency safely in the rearview mirror, for now, Continetti describes the doofus of 2016 as “a disruptive but consequential populist leader,” who was only forced into “the ranks of American villains” by his crusade to overturn the 2020 election. (He notes, too, that most of Trump’s signature achievements could have been the handiwork of a President Rubio: tax cuts, deregulation, and a litany of judges stamped with the Federalist Society’s seal of approval.) But he cannot resist casting a mournful look at the institution that Trump did the most to disrupt. Even if the White House borrowed much of its agenda from GOP orthodoxy, Trump’s rise “disestablished the postwar conservatism of Buckley and Goldwater, of Irving Kristol and Ronald Reagan, of William Kristol and George W. Bush”—and, he could have added, of Matthew Continetti and Paul Ryan.
Historians will already be familiar with most of Continetti’s examples of collaboration between elite conservatives and the grassroots Right, but seeing them parade one after another through the decades makes its own kind of argument. Conservatives and the Right weren’t fighting a war. They were partners in a joint venture kept alive by strategic silences, willful blindness, and mutual self-interest. Together, they cleared a path that led directly to Donald Trump. And Continetti is a good enough historian to mark the key points in this itinerary, even if he isn’t willing to reckon with the implications of his own findings.
I have included a few of what were to me interesting excerpts and there is a link to the full article below that:
Conservatives are the Continettis of yesteryear, institutionalists quoting Edmund Burke to explain why staying credible with the mainstream is essential to moving the cause forward. The Right stands in for activists at the grassroots, latter-day Jacksonians willing to burn the whole system to the ground. Picture George Will on one side, Steve Bannon on the other.
On the day Continetti proclaimed the onset of the Ryan Revolution, Donald Trump was the clear leader in Republican primary polls, pulling in a higher total than Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush combined. Continetti greeted Trump’s candidacy with equanimity at first. Of course, a reality TV star with a penchant for ludicrous conspiracy theorizing and crude racial demagoguery could never win. But a leader from the statesman’s wing of the GOP (maybe even—swoon—Paul Ryan) could translate Trumpian grievance mongering into a populist platform that would clobber Hillary Clinton in the fall.
By the time Harry Truman left the White House in 1953, Democrats had transformed the country, including the elite, which now had a decidedly liberal (though far from radical) orientation. But after decades of political dominance, FDR’s majority was coming apart. McCarthyism had given conservatives a populist makeover by linking anti-communism to the campaign against big government. Civil rights activists were pushing debates over racial justice to the foreground, providing Republicans with an opportunity to break open the solidly Democratic South that had been the base of Roosevelt’s coalition. The establishment was becoming more liberal, discontent with the status quo was bubbling, and the GOP was poised to attack a New Deal order that was already cracking under the weight of its contradictions.
In the 1970s, grassroots activists calling themselves “the New Right”—ERA-slayer Phyllis Schlafly, Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie—brought activists to the polls. But it was neoconservative intellectuals who shaped the conversation in the Capitol and scored the sweetest think tank sinecures. Under Reagan, the conservative movement grew into a proper conservative establishment located in Washington and dominated by Ivy Leaguers speaking on behalf of the heartland. A dissident intellectual wing of paleoconservatives bemoaning the rise of “Conservatism Inc.” later rallied behind Pat Buchanan. By the time George W. Bush was sworn into the presidency, however, Buchanan had been driven out of the Republican Party, and Buckley’s heirs had matured into what Continetti describes as a “self-confident conservative ruling class.”
Continetti has a more favorable opinion these days of the man he once called “a misogynist and bigot, an ignoramus and doofus.” With Trump’s presidency safely in the rearview mirror, for now, Continetti describes the doofus of 2016 as “a disruptive but consequential populist leader,” who was only forced into “the ranks of American villains” by his crusade to overturn the 2020 election. (He notes, too, that most of Trump’s signature achievements could have been the handiwork of a President Rubio: tax cuts, deregulation, and a litany of judges stamped with the Federalist Society’s seal of approval.) But he cannot resist casting a mournful look at the institution that Trump did the most to disrupt. Even if the White House borrowed much of its agenda from GOP orthodoxy, Trump’s rise “disestablished the postwar conservatism of Buckley and Goldwater, of Irving Kristol and Ronald Reagan, of William Kristol and George W. Bush”—and, he could have added, of Matthew Continetti and Paul Ryan.
Historians will already be familiar with most of Continetti’s examples of collaboration between elite conservatives and the grassroots Right, but seeing them parade one after another through the decades makes its own kind of argument. Conservatives and the Right weren’t fighting a war. They were partners in a joint venture kept alive by strategic silences, willful blindness, and mutual self-interest. Together, they cleared a path that led directly to Donald Trump. And Continetti is a good enough historian to mark the key points in this itinerary, even if he isn’t willing to reckon with the implications of his own findings.
The Struggle for the Soul of the GOP
Is the Republican Party compatible with democracy?
newrepublic.com