Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

SIXTIES AMERICA AND ITS AFTERMATH > The Rise of the New Right > Flashcards

The Rise of the New Right Flashcards

1
Q

White, working class pro-war riots as evidence of the ‘silent majority’

A

-

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Economic conservatism

A
  • libertarianism
  • Minimal federal intervention
  • Free market

EVIDENCE

  • Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: ‘Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest. It is the control of the means of all our ends.
  • Milton Friedman
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Social conservatism

A
  • Rejected interventionist gvt. - so rejected civil rights
  • Wanted minimal welfare state
  • Would not accept concessions to Communists, seemed a show of weakness of American values

EVIDENCE:
- Russell Kirk, 1953 ‘Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems…Custom, convention, and old prescription are checks…upon man’s anarchic impulse.’

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE: Barry Goldwater, ‘The Conscience of a Conservative’ (1960)

Conservative ‘revival?’ - evidence of conservatism early in the 60s

A
  • ‘I find that America is a fundamentally conservative nation. The preponderant judgment of the American people, especially of the young people, is that the radical, or Liberal approach has not worked and is not working. They yearn for a return to Conservative principles.’

‘The laws of god…have no dateline.
- Barry Goldwater

—> sold 3 million copies by 1964

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

I+K on the New Left

A

‘Blessed with hindsight, we can better appreciate the significance of the ’60s Right. Conservatives began building a mass movement earlier than did the New Left. And they sustained morale and kept expanding their numbers for years after young radicals had splintered in various directions.’

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What did the political landscape of America look like in 1945?

A
  • liberal
  • Expanded federal bureacracy after the war - implications: economic planning and welfare?
  • ## Military reduction after the war
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Were conservative ideals at odds with one-another?

Why did consiervatives avoid division?

A
  • Libertarianism says that there needs to be constant innovation (in the market) but social conservatism says innovation can damage society
  • Orange County, California: ‘culturally conservative’ but lived well due to military and aerospace industry federal funding in the area.

—> overcame these divisions, united by a fear of communism, religious decline, and by hatred of “creeping socialism”

C.f Frank Mayer

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

What was ‘creeping socialism’?

A
  • ‘State regulatory agencies, strong labour unions, progressive income taxes, and civil rights laws all wrested control from employers, property owners, and local authorities.
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Religious decline in the United States as a factor in the conservative revival

A
  • 50% of Americans regular church goers

BUT

  • declining religious participation in schools
  • new stress on cultural tolerance meant dilution of conservative Christian values?
  • fear of ‘Godless Communism’

EVIDENCE
- Engel vs. Vitale (1962) rules that no school could make children pray

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

George Wallace in response to Engel vs Vitale ruling (1962)

A

‘I don’t care what they say in Washington, we are going to keep right on praying and reading the Bible in the schools of Alabama’

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Examples of conservative publications (3)

A
  • The Freeman
  • Human Events
  • National Review
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

The National Review

A
  • Founded in 1955 by William F. Buckley, Jr.
  • anti communist
  • Christian conservative
  • Defence of free market

Aimed, according to I+K, to form a ‘fusionist’ right

Anti-left

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Primary Source: Extract from the National Review on the Civil Rights Movement

A
  • ‘the white community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.’
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE: Extract from the National Review on libertarianism and non-interventionist government

A
  • ‘We are…depriving private citizens of the protection of their property; of enjoining, under threat of federal armed power, the police power from preserving order in our communities.’ - Frank Meyer, 1963
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

John Birch Society (JBS)

A
  • Founded by Robert Welch in 1958
  • Feared ‘gigantic conspiracy to enslave mankind’ (Welch)

Activism

  • Letter writing
  • Billboards
  • Alarmist literature

100 000 members by 1963
5% of public had sympathy for their radical stance

Wide appeal
EVIDENCE:
- Though many rejected JBS’s wilder ideas, Orange County, California, 38 chapters: professionals like doctors and dentists, congressman, housewives - not just crackpots

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

How did the New Right establish itself at universities?

ISI/YAF

A

Intercollegiate Society of Individualists

  • In 1950s, ‘experimented with tactics the New Left would later make commonplace’
  • Demonstrations, published in newspapers

EVIDENCE
- Protests in favour of House of Un-American Ideals Committee (that Left refused to like)

Young Americans for Freedom

  • Established 1961, quickly gained 25 000 members
  • ‘Sharon Statement’ written by young conservative M. Stanton Evans
  • Journal, The New Guard
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

How did conservative student activism differ from the New Left?

A
  • ‘…campus conservatives [worked at] the lectern and the party caucus rather than into the streets’
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Religion and the New Right

A
  • New right feared dilution/erosion of Christian principles

- Strong conservative scene at Catholic colleges such as Fordham

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

How did the Goldwater campaign 1964 affect the New Right?

A

‘The first effort that united all continents of the New Right was the campaign to elect Barry Goldwater president in 1964. The Campaign, conducted with crusading fervor, did more than anything else to make American conservatism a mass-phenomenon.

  • March on July 4th drew 9000, including, so remembers one organiser, ‘college rebels looking for a cause’
  • nationwide direct mail campaign for funding saw Goldwater receive more money than any other presidential candidate

‘transformed the New Right from a small, largely intellectual phenomenon into a huge grassroots force.’

5 states who traditionally voted democrat went republican

  • Future leaders like Patrick Buchanan involved: ‘We were there on St. Crispin’s Day’ - Henry V, Act IV, III, 3202
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

Barry Goldwater’s conservative ideas

A
  • ’ Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice’
  • Make social security voluntary
  • sell off federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority
  • Opposed nuclear test ban treaty
  • Opposed civil rights legislation, that might force you to hire ‘incompetent’ workers

‘In your heart, you know he’s right’

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Conservatism on the Sunbelt

A
  • Advances after the 1964 Goldwater campaign
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Reagan

A
  • Had been liberal democrat, but hate for government regulation and communism moved him to right
  • Campaigned for Goldwater in ‘64
  • stress on ‘law and order’ worked well against Watts Riots, California Student’s Movement
  • 1964, California voters overwhelmingly reject Rumford Act that would have made housing discrimination illegal. When supreme court tried to overturn that decision Regan capitalised by arguing individual liberties were being threatened

Distanced himself from radicals: ‘any members of the (John Birch) Society who support me will be buying my philosophy. I won’t be buying theirs.’

—> Reagan won by 1million votes against popular, liberal (though pro war) governor of eight years in California

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

1966 Congressional Elections as evidence of growth of the New Right

A
  • win 47 seats in House of Representatives

- win three seats in Senate

24
Q

How did the New Right appeal to the ‘silent majority’?

Wallace

A
  • George Wallace ‘accomplished something unique’ in his appeal to ordinary Americans and his ability to be one, unlike those on the New Left - I+K
  • Wallace named different types of American when he addressed them eg ‘the policeman’/small businessman/steelworker
25
Q

The New Right and Country Music

A
  • 1960, 100 country radio stations
  • 1970, 650 AM

George Wallace “People that listen to [country] are the people that are going to save this country”

26
Q

How did the increasing popularity of the Right threaten older conservative values?

A
  • Whilst the popular right didn’t like big government and could easily be persuaded to think against intiatives like Civil Rights, they weren’t ‘disenchanted with government largesse’ - I+K
  • In order to win the war, may have to lose some battles (accept initiatives like minimum wage, medicare)

‘If “the people” were suddenly veering rightward, could veterans of the right control them?’

27
Q

How did the New Left aid Nixon’s victory in 1968 (I+K)

A

SDS: ‘vote with your feet, Vote in the streets’

‘If the GOP could wage a united, uncontroversial campaign, Nixon should be able to waltz into the White House.’

28
Q

Wallace in the Campaign of 1968

A
  • stress on law and order

- 80% of Americans in Sep 68 believed law and order had ‘broken down’

29
Q

Nixon in the 68 campaign

A

TV campaign slogan: ‘America is in trouble today’

30
Q

I+K on the significance of 68

A

‘So the 1968 election marked the end of a political era.’

31
Q

Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republic Majority (1969)

A
  • Argues angry working class voters and new conservatism on the Sunbelt threatened the New Deal Coalition

‘By adding the Nixon votes to those cast for George Wallace, one could see a nation “in motion between a Democratic past and Republican future.” - Nixon’s Class Struggle: Romancing the New Right Worker, 1969-1973
Jefferson Cowie

32
Q

Nixon’s Conservative policies as president.

A

MINIMAL GVT INTERVENTION

  • On desegregation in Mississippi schools: ‘do only what the law requires, not one thing more’
  • Purge of those who resented the policy of delaying the enforcement of desegregation
  • Attempted to block renewal of voting rights Act

CONSERVATIVE JUDGES ON SUPREME COURT
- Nominate those who won’t be accepted by Senate, then says he shares ‘the bitter feeling of millions of Americans’ when the Senate blocks them

33
Q

Evidence that Nixon WASNT a conservative

A
  • Philadelphia plan orders contractors to hire minority workers in adherence with gvt. quotas. Covered all federally funded hiring by 1970
  • If democrats favoured it they’d anger Unions, if they opposed it they’d anger Civil Rights groups

‘Nixon may have despised liberals as political opponents, but he was by no means a doctrinaire conservative’
- Understood that Civil Rights progress was irreversible

Herbert Stein, economic adviser: ‘more new regulation was imposed on the economy during the Nixon administration than in any other presidency since the New Deal’

Welfare programmes like Aid to Families with Dependent Children (for families w. children w/o income) and Food Stamps

Rapproachment with Chinese AND SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) with Russians

34
Q

Nixon on the sixties

A

‘72 campaign: ‘what we have to realise is that many of the solutions of the sixties were massive failures. They threw money at problems and for the most part they failed.’

‘it was the government’s job every time there was a problem’

35
Q

What does Tuck suggest about the ‘silent majority’

A

Though many by the mid 70s (as many as 94% in some polls) favoured equal opportunity in principle, in practice, hostility was far greater

36
Q

Donald T. Critchlow in Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots conservatism

  • Arguments put across in Introduction
A
  • shift of the electorate away from the ‘liberal label’ to the right was one of ‘historic’ proportions, term ‘liberal’ on defensive
  • ‘Defeated in the presidential election of 1964, purged from leadership positions in its aftermath, and then betrayed by Richard Nixon in the 1970s, conservatives were demoralised and uncertain of their futures in the 1970s - HIGH CONSERVATIVE POLITICS
  • so far, intellectual roots of conservatism have been emphasised ‘but nature knows that a seed dropped on barren soil will not grow’
  • -> This study finds that the postwar Republican Right finds that the foundation of the Republican Right was laid in grassroots anticommunism…
  • -> Stresses importance of women in Daughters of the American Revolution/National Federation of Republican Women
37
Q

Donald T. Critchlow in Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots conservatism

  • On the importance of grassroots anticommunism
A

Politics
‘anticommunism provided the glue that held the conservative wing of the Republican Party together’ and

‘Southern anti-semitism and racism were not integral to conservative thought in the south’

Evidence

Grassroots
Argues Republican right made up of grassroots anticommunists like Phyllis Schlafly

Evidence

38
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE Phyllis Schlafly on grassroots anticommunism, speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1960

A
  • ‘Our Republic can be saved from the fires of Communism which have already destroyed or enslaved many Christian cities, if we can find ten patriotic women in each community.’
39
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE: American Bar Association report, Report on Communist Tactics, Strategy and Objectives (1958)

A
  • ‘IT IS THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF AMERICA’ who must learn this
  • Published by ‘America’s Future’ which was staunchly conservative (published pamhplets on ‘“progressive” deterioration’ in schools) advertised in the back pages
40
Q

What did the American public think about the Communist threat in the early 60s?

A
  • domestic threat was minimal
  • barely 3000 members of communist party by 1960s
  • Krushchev’s de-stalinisation
41
Q

Donald T. Critchlow in Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots conservatism

On the Conservative revival in the 60s

A
  • ‘Liberalism was ascendant in the 60s, but its rise was paralleled by a growing conservative movement that was beginning to take a distinct, although not uniform, shape.’
42
Q

Evidence of the rise of the New Right under Kennedy

Donald T. Critchlow in Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots conservatism

A
  • Kennedy orders monthly report on Anti-Communist groups from August 1961 - shows concern for growing extremism
  • Presidential aide to Kennedy 1963: ‘the radical right-wing constitutes a formidable force in American life today’
43
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE: A Choice Not an Echo

A
  • Best selling book of 1964, sold millions of copies in run up to election
  • Written by Phyllis Schlafly

IDEAS
- American presidential election controlled by select group of ‘kingmakers’
- American foreign policy failing
- ‘The most important national problem is the
survival of American freedom and independence
in the face of the Communist threat.’

44
Q

Evidence of Phyllis Schlafly’s grassroots activism: Her work in the Illinois Federation of Republican Women

A
  • Encouraged chapters to organise sessions where members respond to Democrat/Liberal arguments on current affairs
  • Kept ‘fire burning’ in off-election years with ‘Four Freedoms’: Freedom from Criminal Attack, Obscenity, Communist Conspiracy, and freedom to keep [their] religious heritage
  • “Each member a leader” Motto
45
Q

Donald T. Critchlow in Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots conservatism

  • Did Nixon ‘betray’ the Right ?
A
  • In 1969, hope that the Republicans had elected a respectable conservative
  • However, argues Critchlow, the, presidency ended in scandal and Nixon ended up being a supporter of ‘big government at home and appeasement abroad’
  • Chapter called ‘NIXON BETRAYS THE RIGHT’
46
Q

George Nash (1970) historiography

A
  • Stresses economic libertarianism and religious morals (freedom vs control)
47
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE: National Review Mission Statement

A

The growth of government(the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly

the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to conform with scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order.

The century’s most blatant force of satanic utopianism is communism. We consider “coexistence” with communism neither desirable nor possible, nor honorable;

In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than “newness”)

Perhaps the most important and readily demonstrable lesson of history is that freedom goes hand in hand with a state of political decentralization,

48
Q

Nixon wins the election by what margin?

A

0.8% (43.5:42.7)

49
Q

In what ways did Nixon betray the New Right?

A

WELFARE

  • Was not dismantling the Welfare State (things like economic opportunity act)
  • guartanteed national income for all Americans advocated in State of the Union address 1970
  • promised to “clean up the welfare mess” but spent $338.7 billion on welfare

RIGHTS
- Passes Equal Rights Amendment in 1972 to appease liberals in republican party

FOREIGN POLICY

  • Prolonged engagement in South East Asia
  • Negotiations with North Vietnam
  • Removal of restrictions on trade, travel and communication with China in 1971
FOREIGN POLICY (2): DETENTE 
- SALT1 Treaty with Russia in 1972

END TO PRESIDENCY

  • Watergate scandal
  • ‘shattered republican party’
50
Q

McGirr, The Grassroots Goldwater Campaign

Suburban warriors: the origins of the new
American right

A
  • Grassroots action got Conservative revival going, as a response to lack of representation in washington
51
Q

McGirr on the significance of the Goldwater Campaign Suburban warriors: the origins of the new
American right

A
  • The November election was, in many ways, a debacle for con ervatives. Goldwater’s defeat was monumental: a lost by a margin of 15,951,220 votes

BUT
- Nevertheless, not all was lost. Goldwater’ campaign had
other, more positive, implication for the future of American con ervatism. First, conservative had achieved a major victory in winning the 1964 Republican Party nomination,

But while national conservative elites were in disarray, southland conservatives were already gearing up for their next political battle: the gubernatorial election of 1966. And here, prospects looked brighter. …

Ronald Reagan picked up Goldwater’s mantle, sheared it of its more menacing elements, and was catapulted into the governor’ mansion of the most populous tate in the nation.

52
Q

Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida
August 8, 1968

A

after a period of forty years when power has gone from the cities and the states to the government in Washington, D.C., it’s time to have power go back from Washington to the states and to the cities of this country allover America.

It is the voice of the great majority of Americans, the forgotten Americans – the non-shouters; the non-demonstrators…

When the strongest nation in the world can be tied down for four years in a war in Vietnam with no end in sight;

When the richest nation in the world can’t manage its own economy;

When the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness;

I believe we must have peace. I believe that we can have peace, but I do not underestimate the difficulty of this task.

Let us always respect, as I do, our courts and those who serve on them. But let us also recognize that some of our courts in their decisions have gone too far in weakening the peace forces as against the criminal forces in this country and we must act to restore that balance.

For the past five years we have been deluged by government programs for the unemployed; programs for the cities; programs for the poor. And we have reaped from these programs an ugly harvest of frustration, violence and failure across the land.

And now our opponents will be offering more of the same – more billions for government jobs, government housing, government welfare.

I say it is time to quit pouring billions of dollars into programs that have failed in the United States of America.

To put it bluntly, we are on the wrong road – and it’s time to take a new road, to progress.

53
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE: Phyllis Schlafly ‘The Betrayers’ (1968)

A

’ we are so foolish as to built bridges to communism (as johnson urged in his state of the union address’ the soviets will use those bridges to march communism over’

54
Q

PRIMARY SOURCE: Kevin Phillips, The Emerging Republican Majority

A

’- to 1968. Today, the interrelated Negro, suburban and
Sun Belt migrations have all but destroyed the old New
Deal coalition. Chart 142 vividly illustrates the declining
population and power of the big cities. Some Northern
cities are nearly half Negro, and new suburbia is
turning into a bastion of white conservatism;’

saw the coming of a new political age

55
Q

What do the Gallup Polls for 1960, 64, 68, 72 reveal?

A
  • White collar/professional classes voted for Nixon over Kennedy, but overwhelmingly for Johnson over Goldwater
  • Manual workers still went for Humphrey –> reveals silent majority was not just a target at the ‘romanticised’ worker, but a broad voter coalition
  • Does this counter Jefferson Cowie’s thesis?

SIXTIES AMERICA AND ITS AFTERMATH (5 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions