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The Conservative Revolution: A Half-Century Journey to Political Triumph
In 1994, when Republicans captured the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years, it marked the culmination of a conservative revolution fifty years in the making. This revolution was both conservative in offering orderly transition and revolutionary in representing radical change from America's liberal past. Few political movements have faced as many near-death experiences yet emerged triumphant. Even more remarkable, this revolution succeeded by uniting three seemingly incompatible strains of conservatism-traditionalists, libertarians, and neoconservatives-while liberal influence steadily declined. The story begins in post-World War II America, when Harry Truman occupied the White House and a young senator named Robert Taft began challenging the liberal orthodoxy that had dominated American politics since the New Deal.
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The Eightieth Congress: Conservatives' First Stand
World War II transformed America completely. By 1946, twelve million veterans had returned home seeking the American dream, college enrollments doubled under the GI Bill, and new suburbs sprouted across the landscape. America emerged as the world's unchallenged economic power, with a 1945 GNP equal to the rest of the world combined. However, labor unrest exploded with nearly 5,000 work stoppages involving 4.6 million workers, creating an opening for Republicans in the 1946 elections.
Robert A. Taft emerged as the most powerful Republican in the Senate through his formidable intellect, work ethic, and political courage. Self-described as a "liberal conservative," Taft was open to change but demanded proof that changes would improve existing conditions. His guiding principle was whether policies increased or decreased liberty. Throughout his career, Taft defended the Constitution, self-government, private rights, and the rule of law against concentrated power.
The 1946 election campaign saw Republicans adopt the slogan "Had Enough? Vote Republican!" with Taft leading the charge. He campaigned vigorously, accusing Democrats of "appeasing Russia" and claiming the party was "so divided between Communism and Americanism that its foreign policy can only be futile and contradictory." Republicans won a decisive victory, capturing both houses of Congress.
With Republicans controlling Congress, Taft immediately challenged Truman's economic policies, arguing for substantial budget cuts and tax reductions. His legislative masterpiece was the Taft-Hartley Labor Act, which created "substantially equal bargaining power" between employers and employees by forbidding closed shops, restricting union shops, outlawing jurisdictional strikes, and allowing states to pass right-to-work laws.
On foreign policy, Taft deferred to Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Though initially skeptical of aid to Greece and Turkey, Taft ultimately supported what became the Truman Doctrine while qualifying: "I do not regard this as a commitment to any similar policy in any other section of the world." He later helped secure passage of the Marshall Plan, insisting Congress meet its "moral commitment" despite his personal reservations about the program's scope.
In the 1948 election, President Truman campaigned ferociously against the "do-nothing" Republican Congress, presenting what the author calls "a deliberately false and mean distortion." Truman's narrow victory came during economic expansion with high employment and low inflation, with organized labor providing his winning margin. Many Republicans believed Taft would have been the stronger candidate against Truman, as he would have fought harder against the president's attacks.
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The Rise of McCarthy and Eisenhower
By 1950, Truman's popularity had plummeted amid scandals involving close associates. Senator Joseph McCarthy delivered his famous Wheeling, West Virginia speech alleging communist infiltration of the State Department. Though McCarthy's numbers and methods were controversial, his accusations led to security reviews resulting in dismissals of State Department employees. The communist threat gained new credibility when North Korean forces invaded South Korea in June 1950.
Senator Taft faced a challenging reelection campaign in Ohio against fierce opposition from organized labor. Unlike Dewey's failed presidential campaign, Taft went on the offensive, warning that Truman's policies would "wreck the United States." His overwhelming victory positioned him for another presidential run in 1952.
The 1952 Republican convention became a pivotal moment for conservatives. The Eisenhower forces aggressively challenged Taft's delegates from southern states, portraying themselves as champions of "fair play." Though convention delegates personally preferred Taft, polls showing Eisenhower defeating any Democrat by wide margins proved decisive. Despite his bitter defeat, Taft immediately offered generous public support to Eisenhower, securing important concessions including promises of spending cuts, tax reductions, and defense of Taft-Hartley.
With Taft's backing, Eisenhower campaigned on the conservative Republican platform and crushed Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. The election results were decisive: Eisenhower captured 33.9 million votes (55.4%) to Stevenson's 27.3 million, sweeping the electoral college 442 to 89 and cracking the "Solid South" by carrying Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
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The Eisenhower-Taft Partnership and Conservative Growth
The Eisenhower-Taft partnership, unique in modern politics, faced its greatest test when Ike revealed he couldn't balance the budget as promised. A red-faced Taft exploded, pounding the table and shouting, "The one primary thing we promised the American people was reduction of expenditures!" Instead of responding with equal anger, Eisenhower calmly explained his strategy, and Taft accepted the president's assurance of future reductions.
Tragically, this effective partnership lasted only five months before Taft died of cancer in July 1953. Without Taft, the Republican party shifted dramatically, losing its effective counterweight to Eisenhower's "modern Republicanism." His absence meant no one could challenge McCarthy as Taft had done with the Bohlen nomination.
With Taft's death, conservatives lost their champion and turned to the mercurial Joe McCarthy. Despite Goldwater's efforts to save McCarthy from censure by convincing him to write mild apology letters, McCarthy rejected this lifeline. The Senate voted to condemn McCarthy by more than two-to-one in December 1954. McCarthy disappeared from public view until his death three years later, though conservatives remembered him as someone who recognized "the central truth of his age" - that America was at war with communism.
Many conservatives saw in Barry Goldwater the same pugnacious, antiestablishment qualities they had admired in McCarthy. Goldwater embodied plain tastes and old-fashioned virtues - patriotism, hard work, faith in God. The Arizona senator delighted in challenging conventional wisdom while using the Constitution as his guide. In January 1953, he cosponsored the controversial Bricker amendment, which sought to prevent presidential abuse of power in treaties and international agreements.
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The Birth of Modern Conservatism
The mid-1950s showed promising signs of conservative revival despite the movement's lack of focus. William F. Buckley Jr. launched National Review in November 1955 to challenge liberal intellectuals who dominated American ideas. Despite financial struggles, the magazine successfully united traditionalists like Russell Kirk, libertarians like John Chamberlain, and anticommunists like James Burnham. Though circulation remained modest, the magazine became the intellectual voice of American conservatism, inspiring a generation of young activists.
On April 8, 1957, Barry Goldwater crossed his political Rubicon by publicly criticizing President Eisenhower's fiscal policies on the Senate floor. Though he had been a loyal Republican for four years, Goldwater felt compelled to speak out against Eisenhower's $71.8 billion budget for fiscal 1957-the largest peacetime budget ever submitted-and the administration's failure to deliver on promises to reduce spending and eliminate deficits.
Conservative frustration with Eisenhower's "modern Republicanism" manifested in various forms, including the 1958 formation of the John Birch Society by Robert Welch. Though Goldwater and Buckley eventually distanced themselves from Welch's extremism, the organization reflected growing grassroots conservative activism.
Despite Washington analysts' predictions of defeat, Goldwater won decisive reelection to the Senate in 1958 with 56 percent of the vote. His victory stood out in a difficult year for Republicans, establishing him as America's leading conservative politician before his fiftieth birthday.
What began as a proposed pamphlet evolved into the most widely read political manifesto of modern American politics. In December 1959, Brent Bozell flew to Phoenix with the completed manuscript of "The Conscience of a Conservative," which Goldwater casually approved. Published in April 1960, it advocated ending farm subsidies, enacting right-to-work laws, implementing a flat tax, reducing federal spending, and pursuing victory rather than containment in the Cold War. The book created a political sensation, establishing Goldwater as the new spokesman for conservatism and successor to Robert Taft.
By 1960, a national conservative political movement was forming with all the necessary ingredients: Barry Goldwater as its charismatic leader, popularizers like Bill Buckley, intellectual heavyweights including Hayek, Kirk, and Milton Friedman, and influential journals like National Review and Human Events.
The movement gained further momentum with the founding of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) in the fall of 1960, when eighty young conservatives met at Bill Buckley's Sharon, Connecticut estate. YAF adopted the Sharon Statement, which affirmed that individual rights derive from God-given free will, political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom, government must be strictly limited, the market economy is essential to freedom, and communism must be defeated rather than contained.
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The Goldwater Campaign and Conservative Ascendance
For conservatives, the 1960s belonged not to John F. Kennedy but to Barry Goldwater, a true son of the West who embodied the values of freedom and independence. The Draft Goldwater effort began formally in October 1961 when twenty well-connected conservative Republicans met in Chicago to translate Goldwater's political appeal into convention delegates.
While politicians built the nomination machine, intellectual leaders worked to remove counterproductive elements from conservatism. National Review had taken up arms against Ayn Rand in 1957, with Whittaker Chambers declaring her work dictatorial despite its anti-statist claims. More difficult but necessary was the expulsion of Robert Welch and the John Birch Society's extremism.
Frank Meyer developed "fusionism" to synthesize traditionalist and libertarian elements of conservatism, with freedom as the primary political end and virtue as man's ultimate end. This fusion of limited government, constitutional originalism, and opposition to communism prevailed until the Soviet collapse in 1991.
By late 1962, Goldwater's chances for the GOP nomination were rising. The Draft Goldwater movement secured $250,000 in pledges, but when Clif White reported to Goldwater in January 1963, the senator firmly stated, "I'm not a candidate and I'm not going to be." After much deliberation, the core group decided to draft Goldwater anyway. Goldwater hesitated to run for valid political reasons but ultimately decided that achieving 45 percent as an unabashed conservative would constitute "a victory for conservatism."
On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Barry Goldwater was devastated and initially told his campaign director to "pass the word" that he would not run. After meeting with close advisers who urged him not to abandon the conservative movement, Goldwater reluctantly agreed to run, saying "All right, damn it, I'll do it." It was unprecedented in American politics - a presidential candidate running while knowing he could not win the general election.
Goldwater launched his campaign on January 3, 1964, promising to "offer a choice, not an echo." The California primary between Goldwater and Rockefeller became the most consequential battle in the history of American conservatism. Despite Goldwater's gaffes, his campaign prevailed with 51.6% of the vote, securing all 86 California delegates and making his nomination inevitable.
Despite his strong personal record on civil rights, Goldwater reluctantly voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He supported most provisions but found Titles II and VII constitutionally problematic, fearing government overreach. Goldwater prophetically warned that if government could forbid discrimination, it might someday require discrimination based on race.
At the convention, Goldwater delivered his famous acceptance speech, declaring "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." The speech signaled conservatives' historic break with the past and their new control of the Republican Party, even as polls showed Johnson leading by nearly three-to-one.
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Defeat and Rebirth
President Johnson approached the 1964 election determined to win by "the largest landslide in history." His campaign unleashed devastating attack ads against Goldwater, including the infamous "Daisy" commercial implying Goldwater would start nuclear war. Despite Goldwater's attempts to counter these accusations, the damage was done.
Ronald Reagan's televised address for Goldwater, "A Time for Choosing," almost didn't air when campaign advisers worried about its social security references. Reagan argued America faced a choice between free enterprise and big government, concluding with his famous "rendezvous with destiny" line. Political analysts called it "the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan."
Johnson achieved his landslide on November 3, 1964, receiving over 43 million votes (61 percent) to Goldwater's 27 million. Liberal commentators declared conservatism dead, with Walter Lippmann claiming voters were "in the center" and James Reston concluding Goldwater had lost "the conservative cause as well." Conservatives strongly disagreed.
The Goldwater campaign transformed American politics by broadening the Republican financial base from 50,000 contributors in 1960 to 650,000 in 1964. It mobilized an army of 4 million volunteers who contacted over 12 million households. Thousands of young conservatives entered politics because of Goldwater, later becoming senators, congressmen, Supreme Court justices, and presidential candidates. The campaign built the electoral foundation for future Republican victories by breaking Democrats' hold on the South and shifting Northern ethnic Catholics toward conservatism.
After 1964, the conservative movement expanded through new organizations including the American Conservative Union, the Free Society Association, the Conservative Book Club, and the Philadelphia Society. Conservative foundations like Relm-Earhart supported influential thinkers including six future Nobel laureates in economics.
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Reagan's Rise and Nixon's Presidency
In February 1965, influential California Republicans urged Reagan to run for governor, believing he could defeat incumbent Pat Brown. Though skeptical, insisting "I'm an actor, not a politician," Reagan agreed to spend six months traveling the state to gauge public interest before deciding. He was an ideal candidate - charming, well-known to 97% of voters, from populous Southern California, backed by wealthy Republicans, with ready-made support from Goldwater conservatives, and a former Democrat who could appeal across party lines.
Reagan formally announced his candidacy on January 4, 1966, using a televised "fireside chat" to prevent media "Goldwaterizing." He weathered campaign challenges and swept to victory by 1 million votes and 15 percentage points, leading Republicans to win nearly every major state office.
Richard Nixon strategically shifted his political alliances based on where power resided. In 1960, he courted eastern liberal Republicans under Rockefeller, but by 1968, recognizing the party's rightward shift, he enlisted conservatives like Goldwater, Thurmond, and Tower. Nixon's strategy was to "nail down" conservatives first, then move center-right, noting "A Republican can't win without the conservatives" while acknowledging "also can't win with the conservatives alone."
Nixon formally announced his presidential candidacy in February 1968, winning ten of eleven primaries. He shrewdly focused on what political scientists later called "The Social Issue" - crime, busing, drugs, welfare and more - positioning himself as champion of "the forgotten Americans" and "silent Americans" against protestors and demonstrators.
Nixon narrowly defeated Hubert Humphrey by just 510,000 votes (43.4% to 42.7%), with George Wallace taking 13.5%. Despite Humphrey's strong support from labor, blacks, Jews, and big-city Catholics, the once-solid Democratic South fractured, with Humphrey receiving only 31% in the region.
Despite his inaugural assertion that "we are approaching the limits of what government alone can do," Nixon moved in a decidedly liberal direction on domestic issues. He approved a five-year extension of the Voting Rights Act, federal funding for a "war on cancer," and greater spending for medical training. He signed Title IX banning sex discrimination in higher education and approved landmark environmental legislation including the creation of the EPA, OSHA, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act.
Nixon shocked conservatives by instituting wage and price controls for nearly three years starting in August 1971. Conservative disappointment erupted into anger when Nixon announced in spring 1971 that he would visit China. Support for Taiwan and opposition to Communist China had been conservative doctrine since Mao seized mainland control in 1949.
If Nixon thought conservatives had no choice but to support him against a liberal Democrat, he was mistaken. Twelve leading conservatives announced in National Review that they were "suspending support of the Administration," citing domestic policy failures like inflation and "inordinate welfarism," but emphasizing foreign policy concerns including "overtures to Red China."
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The New Right and Reagan's Presidency
The birth of the New Right was triggered by two men: Gerald Ford and Nelson Rockefeller. When Ford nominated Rockefeller as his vice president in August 1974, conservative fundraiser Richard Viguerie was dumbfounded. Rockefeller was anathema to conservatives - the liberal who had smeared Goldwater in 1964 and forced Nixon to sign the Fifth Avenue Compact in 1960.
The New Right founders were diverse yet harmonious: one midwesterner, one East Texan, and two New Englanders; three Christians and one Jew; middle-class with blue-collar sensibilities. They were activists rather than intellectuals, committed to putting conservative ideas into action. Their enemies were the "four bigs": Big Government, Big Business, Big Labor, and Big Media.
A series of events in the late 1960s and early 1970s drove a small but influential group of liberals rightward: McGovern's presidential candidacy, Democrats' apparent willingness to abandon Vietnam to communists, the UN's anti-Israel rhetoric, and the sexual revolution. Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz emerged as the intellectual leaders of this neoconservative movement.
Jimmy Carter's presidency brought economic misery domestically and communist gains globally, creating perfect conditions for conservatives to rise. By late 1979, inflation reached 13.3 percent while the economy stagnated. Internationally, the Shah of Iran fell, Marxist regimes established themselves in Africa, and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.
Despite liberal pundits dismissing him as too old at sixty-nine, Reagan refused to "sit in a rocking chair," launching his 1980 campaign with Senator Paul Laxalt announcing the Reagan for President Committee in March 1979. Reagan's team knew they had to win New Hampshire and overcome perceptions he was too old, too conservative, and too unintelligent.
The turning point came during the Nashua debate when Bush refused to include other candidates and the moderator tried cutting Reagan's microphone. Reagan's passionate response-"I'm paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!"-electrified voters while Bush appeared weak. Reagan won New Hampshire by more than two-to-one, and by late May, all opponents had withdrawn except Bush, who conceded the nomination.
By 1980, dozens of conservative organizations had formed a powerful counter-establishment supporting Reagan's candidacy. The American Conservative Union, with a $3 million budget, sponsored the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Conservative public interest law firms emerged as counterweights to liberal legal groups, while think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute placed conservative ideas at the center of policy debates.
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The Reagan Revolution and Conservative Triumph
Ronald Reagan entered the presidency with significant political advantages: a clear mandate from voters who understood his agenda to cut taxes, reduce federal government, and strengthen the military; a Republican Senate and determined Republican minority in the House; and most importantly, a vibrant conservative movement ready to support his administration.
Facing double-digit inflation, high unemployment, and a record 21.5% prime interest rate, Reagan moved quickly to implement his economic agenda. The cornerstone was the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which cut all income tax rates by 25% over three years, reduced the top rate from 70% to 50%, and indexed taxes to offset inflation. The results were remarkable: sixty straight months of economic growth (the longest uninterrupted expansion since 1854), nearly 15 million new jobs during Reagan's tenure, and federal receipts growing from $618 billion in 1982 to over $1 trillion five years later.
Despite his inaugural declaration that "government is the problem," Reagan clarified he didn't want to eliminate government but make it work alongside citizens rather than dominating them. His target was not FDR's New Deal but LBJ's Great Society programs. Progress in reducing government was uneven, with the federal civilian workforce declining about 5%, with significant cuts at Education (24%), HUD (22%), and Labor (15%).
The national debt increased by $1.5 trillion during Reagan's presidency, as he borrowed $1 for every $5 spent. Reagan himself admitted that his failure to cut federal spending absolutely and balance the budget were his "biggest disappointments" as president. However, by the end of his administration, the federal deficit as a percentage of GDP had fallen dramatically from 6% in 1985 to 3% in 1989.
Reagan appointed over 350 federal judges during his presidency - nearly half of all lower-court federal judges. He elevated William Rehnquist to Chief Justice and appointed three associate justices, including the first woman, Sandra Day O'Connor. His most significant appointment was Antonin Scalia, who consistently opposed affirmative action, abortion, and judicial activism.
Reagan implemented his foreign policy strategy despite criticism from both sides: doves criticized his unyielding stance toward Moscow in his first term, while hawks opposed his conciliatory approach with Gorbachev in his second term. Through vision, tenacity and improvisational skill, Reagan achieved what Henry Kissinger called "the greatest diplomatic feat of the modern era."
The Reagan Doctrine, named by columnist Charles Krauthammer in 1985, provided support for anticommunist resistance movements in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, and Cambodia. This cost-effective approach forced the Soviets to spend heavily while achieving significant successes: Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, democratic elections in Nicaragua, removal of Cuban troops from Angola, and partial progress in Cambodia.
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The Gingrich Revolution and Conservative Governance
In 1988, the conservative movement faced a dilemma: for the first time in forty years, it couldn't agree on a standard-bearer. While Reagan had tacitly endorsed Vice President George Bush, conservatives split their support among Jack Kemp, Bob Dole, and Pat Robertson.
Though not a Reaganesque landslide, Bush's victory gave him 53.4% of the popular vote and 40 states. Most conservatives initially accepted Bush as a born-again conservative who had pledged "no new taxes" and emphasized conservative positions throughout his campaign.
President George H.W. Bush's reversal on his "no new taxes" pledge in 1990 infuriated conservatives. Despite warnings from conservative economists that tax increases would slow economic growth and that the real problem was "runaway government spending," Bush agreed to a deficit-cutting deal with Democrats that included tax increases.
The Contract with America emerged from decades of conservative intellectual and organizational development. Before Gingrich's famous contract, there was his 1990 Heritage Foundation lecture outlining five national goals, an eighteen-day Colorado retreat where he declared the welfare state needed to be "blown up," and numerous earlier speeches and memos dating back to 1981.
The 1994 Republican revolution was built upon a massive conservative infrastructure developed over decades: seminal works by Kirk, Chambers, Weaver, and Hayek; political manifestos by Goldwater and Taft; bestsellers from Buckley, Friedman, and Kristol; policy exposes like Murray's "Losing Ground"; grassroots organizations from YAF to the Christian Coalition; think tanks like Heritage and AEI; creative fundraisers and generous donors; influential publications from National Review to the Wall Street Journal; and a generation of columnists, broadcasters and political operatives.
On November 8, 1994, Republicans gained fifty-two House seats and won a majority for the first time since Eisenhower's presidency. The Republican tide swept over the states too, increasing their governorships to thirty (their first majority since 1970) and gaining 482 state legislative seats.
Despite early success, the year that began with shining promise ended in deep disappointment. The House's approval rating plummeted from 52 percent in December 1994 to the high 20s by January 1996, following two government shutdowns. Gingrich's personal approval fell to just 27 percent. Only five of the twenty-one Contract priorities were enacted due to Clinton's opposition, Republican tactical errors, and the Senate's slower pace.
The 104th Congress achieved several significant policy shifts under conservative leadership. They eliminated Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the first-ever elimination of a major entitlement program. Congress also ended New Deal-era farm subsidies, gave the president line-item veto power, rewrote telecommunications industry rules, and fundamentally transformed welfare by giving states broad authority through block grants.
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The Conservative Legacy
For over two hundred years, Americans have debated how much government we need. The founders, recognizing human nature's darker side, created a complex system of checks and balances to prevent power concentration while preserving both liberty and order. The core beliefs of American conservatism rest on limited government, individual responsibility, equal opportunity, balance between liberty and law, belief in God, and commitment to public virtue - all bounded by the Constitution.
Conservatives have proven they can govern effectively at both federal and state levels. The 80th Congress under Taft passed the Taft-Hartley Act, cut spending and taxes, and supported the foundations of containment policy. Reagan presided over the longest peacetime economic expansion by cutting taxes and limiting government growth. The 104th Congress under Gingrich ended farm subsidies, passed line-item veto legislation, transformed welfare policy, and ended the AFDC entitlement program.
Republican governors have demonstrated impressive governance at the state level, with 70 percent of Americans now represented by GOP governors. Wisconsin's Tommy Thompson pioneered welfare reform with his "Work Not Welfare" program, reducing welfare caseloads by 49.2 percent. These governors send a powerful message to Washington: "Free the states! Unshackle us from overweening federal control."
Modern liberals have proven unable to govern wisely, committed as they are to socialist ideals. FDR's New Deal represented a radical break with American tradition, declaring government has "a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizens." This began a fifty-year experiment in ever-larger government that produced a swarm of agencies, regulations, and 90 percent solutions to everything.
With no undisputed conservative leader like Taft, Goldwater or Reagan for the first time in fifty years, conservatives face uncertainty but remain optimistic. The movement possesses the essential elements for political success: a clearly defined philosophy honoring constitutional limits on government; a broad-based national constituency; a sound financial base with major organizations commanding multi-million dollar budgets; media savvy with conservative columnists and talk show hosts dominating their fields; and emerging leadership from a new generation of conservatives. Most conservatives see their movement as intellectually and politically dominant, proven correct by welfare state failures and communism's collapse. The conservative revolution, built on permanent principles like wisdom, courage, prudence, justice, and liberty, is here to stay.
