Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP - Softcover

Brennan, Mary C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807858641 ISBN 13: 9780807858646

Verlag: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Ideologically divided and disorganized in 1960, the conservative wing of the Republican Party appeared to many to be virtually obsolete. However, over the course of that decade, the Right reinvented itself and gained control of the party. In Turning Right in the Sixties, Mary Brennan describes how conservative Americans from a variety of backgrounds, feeling disfranchised and ignored, joined forces to make their voices heard and by 1968 had gained enough power within the party to play the decisive role in determining the presidential nominee.

Building on Barry Goldwater's short-lived bid for the presidential nomination in 1960, Republican conservatives forged new coalitions, began to organize at the grassroots level, and gained enough support to guarantee Goldwater the nomination in 1964. Brennan argues that Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the general election has obscured the more significant fact that conservatives had wrested control of the Republican Party from the moderates who had dominated it for years. The lessons conservatives learned in that campaign, she says, aided them in 1968 and laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan's presidential victory in 1980.

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Mary C. Brennan is associate professor of history at Southwest Texas State University.

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In Turning Right in the Sixties, Mary Brennan describes how conservative Americans from a variety of backgrounds, feeling disfranchised and ignored, joined forces to make their voices heard and by 1968 had gained enough power within the party to play the decisive role in determining who would be chosen as the presidential nominee. Building on Barry Goldwater's shortlived bid for the presidential nomination in 1960, Republican conservatives forged new coalitions, aided by an increasingly vocal conservative press, and began to organize at the grassroots level. Their goal was to nominate a conservative in the next election, and eventually they gained enough support to guarantee Goldwater the nomination in 1964. Liberal Republicans, as Brennan demonstrates, failed to stop this swing to the right. Brennan argues that Goldwater's loss to Lyndon Johnson in the general election has obscured the more significant fact that conservatives had wrestled control of the Republican Party from the moderates who had dominated it for years. The lessons conservatives learned in that campaign aided them in 1968 when they were able to force Richard Nixon to cast himself as a conservative candidate, says Brennan, and also laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan's presidential victory in 1980.

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Turning Right in the Sixties

The Conservative Capture of the GOPBy Mary C. Brennan

University of North Carolina Press

Copyright © 2007 Mary C. Brennan
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780807858646

Chapter One

AN UNEASY ALLIANCE

The Republican Party, plagued by philosophical, geographical,and socioeconomic differences among its members, struggled through anidentity crisis in the late 1950s and early 1960s hat eventually shiftedpower internally from liberals to conservatives. The battle could not havebeen won, however, without the assistance of right-wingers outside theparty structure. Uniting to form a more effective force, numerous conservativeintellectuals, local groups, and journalists worked together to promoteconservatives within the political system. Realizing that they neededeach other to achieve power, right-wing politicians and ideologues formedan uneasy alliance based on political expediency.

This alliance created the potential for a vibrant conservative movement,but the new unity of the various strains of conservatism was tenuous atbest. Traditionalists, libertarians, anticommunists, and right-wing politiciansworked together when it suited their purposes but remained firmlycommitted to their individual agendas. In the 1950s and early 1960s, conservativesrecognized the benefits of cooperation and joined forces to createa stronger conservative movement, but their lack of practical experience impeded their efforts. This explains, in part, why they did not gainpower until well into the 1960s.

Ideological disputes had bitterly divided the Republican Party since thestock market crash Of 1929. The Great Depression exposed the weaknessesof Republican "trickle-down" economics and the inflexibility ofHerbert Hoover's philosophy and policies. It also cost the GOP its reputationand the presidency. More importanly, the 1932 election of FranklinD Roosevelt placed in office a man who embodied aH that conservativesdespised. Using the Constitution as a guidebook rather than a bible,FDR revolutionized the presidency, laid the foundations of the welfarestate, and introduced Keynesianism to the economy. Although many ofhis policies expanded programs developed by Republicans during theProgressive Era, appalled right-wingers tried desperately to block his initiatives.just as conservatives of both parties had begun to form a solidbulwark against the New Deal, World War II broke out, halting furtherexpansion of the Rooseveltian policies but ensuring the continuation ofthe Democratic administration.1

Republicans achieved more success in the postwar years. In 1946 theygained control of Congress and prevented FDR'S successor, Harry Truman,from expanding the New Deal. Tbey also discovered that anticommunismcould unite their party and inspire voters. Crusaders against the"Red Menace" at home and abroad undermined the Democratic Party bycharging that both the party and its platform were "soft on commununism,"thereby playing a role in the Republican capture of White House in1952. Seen by much of the public as a conservative victory, the election ofDwight Eisenhower appeared to quiet the disputes within the party and toherald a new era of bipartisanship.

Just as the consensus of the 1950s proved to be an illusion, however, sothe surface tranquility of the Republican Party hid intense factionalism.In part, this factionalism grew out of geographic and socioeconomic differencesthat, although not always openly acknowledged, divided Republicans.Throughtout the postwar period, members of what conservativeslabeled the "Eastern Establishment" dominated the party. Tbese Republicansshared a common background of Ivy League educations, exclusiveclub memberships, and financial success. Operating many of the majorcorporations of the United States, they controlled the purse stirings of theparty and of any candidate who wanted to win on the national level. Althoughsome members were from outside the Northeast, such as ThomasDewey and Wendell Willkie, they had only succeeded after they moved tothe East. Members of the "Establishment," assuming that they knew what was best for the entire country, held sway through their occupation ofpolicy-making positions throughout the executive branch as well as theirmanipulation of the party machinery.(2)

By the 1950s, however, businesspeople and political leaders from theSouth and West increasingly challenged these power brokers within theGOP. Rich Texas oil tycoons and people who had profited from the postwarindustrial boom in the Southwest demanded greater influence at thenational level. They believed that the burgeoning population and economyof their region entitled them to play a more important role in the formulationof policy decisions. Joining with midwesterners who also felt excludedfrom the "Establishment," these southern and western men and womenbegan to coalesce into what Arizona senator Barry Goldwater described asa new populist movement.(3)

The geographic and socioeconomic distinctions between the twogroups contributed to their formation of different ideological and practicalgoals as well. Following in the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt's progressivism, many members of the wealthy "Eastern Establishment" embracedNew Deal-style social and economic programs in the belief that suchpolicies would alleviate class conflicts, lead to economic stability, and keepgovernmental control in their hands. They envisioned what historian RobertGriffith has called a "corporate commonwealth." Believing it necessaryto "come to grips with the problems of twentieth-century life," these people"worked out a program" that was, according to Eisenhower supporterPaul Hoffman, "better than anything the Democrats could offer."(4) As aresult, "liberal" and/or "moderate" Republicans accepted the frameworkof the New Deal, created some new programs, and strove to maintain andexpand American economic involvement around the world.

This program appalled the growing number of conservatives in theSouthwest who stressed individual initiative over welfare programs, preferredfree enterprise rather than government regulation, and desired areturn to local control over matters such as schools, taxes, and race relations.Fearing communism at home, they advocated all means of exposingand eliminating real or potential traitors. In their eagerness to uncover left-wingagents, some right-wingers shocked other party members with theirwillingness to violate civil rights and liberties.

Although most on the right supported this domestic agenda, conservativestended to disagree on foreign policy. Some right-wingers advocated akind of isolationist, "Fortress America" style of diplomacy, although theyopposed the taxes and bureaucracy necessary to maintain such a defense.Others wanted the United States to move aggressively to destroy communismwherever it appeared. Many of these were "Asia-Firsters," who hadtraditional business or missionary ties to Asia and thus focused their attentionon the Far East.(5) Despite such disagreements, conservative politicalleaders united whenever necessary to fight against liberal domination ofthe GOP.

The Right had attempted previously to gain control of the party. Inboth 1948 and 1952, Ohio senator Robert A. Taft, leader of the conservativefaction in the GOP, had sought the presidential nomination. Poor planning,a "loser" image, and powerful opponents prevented him from gainingthe prize, however, and left a lingering bitterness in the mouths ofmany conservatives. Taft's sudden death in 1953 further weakened theRight and left them temporarily leaderless and dispirited.(6)

As the right...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: The University of North Carolina Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0807858641
• ISBN 13: 9780807858646
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar