Our country experienced intense political turmoil in the mid-twentieth century. The fight against certain foundations upon which our country was built shook our society to its core. One of the most pivotal movements of the 20th century was the civil rights protests in response to black oppression in the United States.
This period of change in our country helped to shape our political climate into the modern form we see today. Conservatism first emerged in its current form in response to continued “Black resistance after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision”.
Following the Brown v. Board of Education outcome, the country found itself in a state of intense division. Despite the vote being unanimous, “none of the justices offered prescriptions on how to enforce the ruling.” In light of this uncertainty, many African Americans took it upon themselves to enact the change they had so long been denied.
As the war for civil rights spilled out across America, numerous individuals fought against African American oppression in a variety of contrasting ways.
Martin Luther King Jr. sought out nonviolent strategies to fight against the systematic racism that plagued our country. He believed citizenship to “means simply more than the mere “absence of the negative structures of oppression,” it came to encompass employment, a living wage, decent housing, quality education, health care, and overall nourishment.”
By being the face of nonviolent protest, he minimized resistance against his beliefs and ensured his words were heard by even the most ardent racists in the 1960s/70s.
Whereas King is generally viewed as a nonviolent advocate of peaceful protest, Malcolm X was seen as a political renegade who enforced a mentality of fighting against white supremacy. Malcolm X was perhaps best known for his embrace of Black Separatism, and his fiery preaching to his followers on the subject of Black superiority.
Malcolm X utilized this approach in his goal of a “truly “collective goal” that embraced Black identity, history, and beauty to help organize a revolutionary movement that seized upon Africa’s various decolonial movements and created, affirmed, and strengthened global ties of Blackness.”
Ella Baker viewed peace as the only solution to create long-standing racial equality across America. She believed the non-violent protest was the antithesis of war and the foundation of her movement’s purpose.
In her own words, she believed “love is the central motif of nonviolence”; she asserted that love was the great unifier in the racially charged war that was brewing, and that love was the only force by which African Americans and White Americans could reconcile and create true justice that would be everlasting.
In response to these widespread movements, Lyndon B. Johnson enacted his “Great Society,” a reform program that included an “unprecedented amount of legislation designed to fundamentally transform society through direct government intervention.”
Johnson allied himself with civil rights leaders to create legislation that would “profoundly re-shape American society.” Many Americans were opposed to this legislation, with race riots and the practice of “white flight” spreading across the country. The reaction to the Great Society was volatile and led to more change in American Politics.
As Johnson opted to not seek reelection in 1968, Richard Nixon entered the fray and brought with him the confrontational rhetoric of “law and order”. As protests nationwide became more violent following the murder of MLK, the federal government employed this form of justice to instill peace.
This rhetoric of law and order went on to help form the foundational basis upon which Conservatism in modern America is built. As fear of communism spread like a wildfire throughout our society, many Americans sought a great unifier in light of the intense political turmoil that plagued the country.
Conservatism was sprouted from this desire, as a means to fight against radical change and cling to the foundational values upon which our country was built. In the decades preceding this, supporters of proto-conservatism were fragmented and inconsistent, and there were “clear fissures between the centrists and far-Right supporters of the Conservative movement in the United States.”
In light of the violence across the country, the many offshoots of conservatism put aside their differences and joined together in a unified front that is referenced as the “Right-Wing Popular Front”.
This compromise was “considered vital to defeating liberal and communist movements in the twentieth century.” The Right-Wing popular Front went on to found conservatism as it is found today. Modern Conservatism was originally built with three main components in mind: “Free-Market Economics, Staunch Anti-Communism, and Religious Conservatism.”
Due to Americans’ wish for stability in light of the turmoil the United States endured, Conservatism soon spread and became the dominant political philosophy in our country. Perhaps one of the most important foundational beliefs behind the conservative movement was the philosophy of tradition and order.
As a culmination of “law and order” and adhering to the beliefs upon which our country was built, Americans found a cause behind which they could rally. By standing behind conservatism, Americans also had a war front behind which to fight against the communism so many feared would take over our country.
This mentality influenced United States’ outreach into other countries in the years that would follow, directly leading to the war in Vietnam.
The war in Vietnam, which was “part of a larger effort at “containing” the spread of Soviet Communism throughout the world”, was viewed as a failure and “demonstrated the limitations of the US’s attempts at maintaining “law and order” across the globe.”
The failure in Vietnam led to Nixon implementing a new foreign policy known as détente, and “accelerated the rise of conservatism and subsequent culture wars.” With the election of Ronald Reagan, the conservative movement reached an apex.
Reagan’s administration created a shift in the movement, which resulted in “the creation of a populist Conservatism that castigated liberal elites who dominated academia, the media, and government to the detriment of both working-class and corporate America.”
Reagan was the utmost believer in conservative ideals, going as far as to say that “In this present crisis, the government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” This belief in minimal government interference and a version of “self-rule” won over many Americans and still is present today in modern conservatives.
Reagan’s election also “reignited the call for strongarm law enforcement,” a belief that would become a key stance among modern conservative beliefs. In the 1980s, the conservatives and liberals found themselves in a series of heated battles over fundamental ideas on aspects of our society that would later be called the “Culture Wars.”
These battles over issues such as abortion and homosexuality cemented the divide between the two and led rise to the modern stance of conservatives on issues of gender and sexual politics.
The radical change in many areas of American society in the mid-twentieth century is what gave birth to modern conservatism as it stands today. Americans nationwide formed the conservative stance on the basis of clinging to the foundational truths our country was forged on, as demonstrated by the resistance to change and wish to adhere to tradition.
This is further exemplified by the belief in strict law and order to fight back against threats that could tear down the American ideal we hold so dear. The final pillar of conservatism was cemented in the Reagan era, upon the innate belief in liberty and personal freedom. All outshoots of conservative belief were melded into their current form by the Culture Wars that dominated 1980s America.
