What is “Conservatism” Conserving: The Modern American Conservative Movement
An Important Question
I recently asked myself a simple question: What does political “Conservatism” actually conserve? Now, this question may appear to be simple.
Until about a few months ago, I would have replied to that question with the usual conservative talking points:
“Conservatism is about preserving eternal truths!”
“We–conservatives–use facts and logic to support never-changing ideas and values!”
Okay, we’re done here, right? Well, no. Let’s dig a bit deeper here.
However, some members of what I call the “American Political Conservative Movement” have raised some objections.
For instance, how does “American conservatism” stand for family values when a vast majority of “conservative” pundits, politicians, and journalists support gay marriage? Only 27% of Americans supported gay marriage in 1997. In 2021, over 70% of Americans support gay marriage–mind you only 6 years after gay marriage was legalized in 2015.
Similarly, you can now even find “conservatives” who are unabashedly pro-choice, pro-transgenderism, and pro-feminism (i.e. Tomi Lahren).
The list goes on and on. It’s hard to believe that “American political conservatism” is preserving anything when the positions of mainstream conservative polticians and poltical commentators are constantly changing.
In short, I have recently began to reconsider my position on question: What does conservatism conserve?
Several months ago, I started to notice a change in my mindset regarding that question. More specifically, an early episode of the Masculinist podcast is changed my whole perspective about what “American political conservatism” is all about.
On this podcast, show host Aaron Renn talked about how modern American conservatism is only about opposing whatever the modern political left (“liberals/progressives”) support.
The world started to make more sense when I heard Mr. Renn’s podcast. That idea explained how conservatives could change from being solidly against gay marriage to celeberating it in 25 years.
Moving to, we’re going to dive into a recent book that discusses the origin of the “Modern American Conservative Movement”.
The Origins of the Modern American Conservative Movement
The best book I have found about the rise of the “Modern American Conservative Movement” is called Conservatism in America. For reference, the book’s author–Paul Gottfried–writes from the perspective of a non-establishment conservative. Nevertheless, he still provides an accurate depiction of the origins of the “American political conservative movement”,
For starters, “American political conservatism” only started after World War II (Gottfried, pp. 8). It does not have ties to the older European conservative thinkers–even though many American conservatives try to make this claim. For instance, European political conservatives typically defended the European aristocracy (Gottfried, pp. 1). That position flies completely in the face of American conservatism’s emphasis on democratic/republican governance.
Instead, American conservatism was an alliance among Anti-New Dealers, Anti-Communists, and Catholic Traditionalists to oppose Communism in the post-1945 era (Gottfried, pp. 9). In effect, the modern American conservative movement began as an opposition to political leftism–namely Marxist-Leninist Communism.
This point is crucial. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed thirty years ago, we still see the current iteration of American conservative influencers and pundits still heavily emphasizing anti-Communist and anti-socialist messaging. That’s because American conservatism was a reaction to rising political leftism in the form of the Soviet Union and other Communist countries.
American conservatism was and is not based in conserving permanent things–such as tradition, hierarchy, the family structure, and the nation-state.
This lack of a foundational mooring is why many American conservative politicians and pundits now support the LGBT movement, abortion, feminism, etc.
Heck, the Federalist has even allowed adult film actress Brandi Love to write articles on the publication’s website. Apparently, protecting the right to addict our children to hardcore pornography is now a “conservative” position.
Something Has to Change
It’s time to completely remake the “American political conservative movement”.
We can’t keep saying “this isn’t the hill to die” and expect to conserve anything at the end of the day.
The American right needs to figure out what it is actually conserving and stick to it.
Personally, I believe that American conservatism should focus on primarily preserving three things: the traditional American family (i.e. a husband, wife, and kids), orthodox Christian Churches, and America’s economic sovereignty.
America is a nation, not an “idea”
Bibliography:
Gottfried, Paul. The Conservative Movement. Twayne, 1993.