Conservatism in U.S. Political Culture: Essay

Q. Throughout the period from the 1930's through the early 1960's conservative sought to build an infrastructure of organizations and publications. Describe the major institutional innovations for conservatives during this period and indicate the effectiveness of these institutions in challenging liberalism and advancing the conservative agenda.

A. Although since the inauguration of FDR New Deal Coalition had dominated almost every political arena in the U.S., conservatives had started to make foundations of their movement that was activated in the following decades. But in the 30's and 40's, conservative movements were limited to propagation. Some conservative intellectuals showed their philosophy to the public but did not begin to build an infrastructure of organizations and publications yet. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which supported the idea of free enterprise, tried to weaken the impact of New Deal policies on big business. NAM also disseminated its political message by using radio programs. Some other conservative organizations such as the American Liberty League (ALL), the Committee for Constitutional Government (CCG) were established in the 30's. Moreover, some business elites like J. Howard Pew invested in the formation of conservative organizations such as Spiritual Mobilization and the Christian Freedom Foundation. Such conservative movements, however, didn’t get momentum politically until after the World War Ⅱ. In the late 50's, Robert Welch, vice president of NAM, and other NAM members founded the John Birch Society (JBS) which was the first private organization on the far right that could gather grassroots support. What was different from previous conservative organizations was JBS's agressive attempt to join party politics. That caused a serious divide between moderate Republicans and far-right groups like JBS within GOP, which culminated with the nomination of Barry Goldwater as a presidential candidate in 1964. JBS tactfully gained grassroots support from those who had been disenchanted with politics including women. One of the institutional innovations for conservatives during this period, therefore, was that conservatives could widen the range of their support base and caused the shift of the GOP's character from a party led by “Eastern Establishment” to a party reflecting values of grassroots citizens all across the country. They did this by capitalizing on the technical innovations of mass media. For example, JBS achieved communication between people who lived in distant places from one another by publishing Members’ Monthly Messages (MMMs) and distributed them to all the members. TV and radio programs were also epoch-making tools to spread conservative ideas. Also, prominent conservative figures published influential books such as J. Edgar Hoover's Masters of Deceit, and Robert Welch's May God Forgive Us. Conservative movements could gain momentum due to support from grassroots citizens who would have otherwise not participated in political movements. The novel support from these constituents was made possible thanks to technological innovations of publication.

Another innovation is the use of direct mail to gather political contributions to the party. GOP collected huge amount of political contributions from a huge number of people with small amount of contributions through direct mail, instead of relying upon a small number of the rich who had previously been major contributors to the party.

Third big innovation of these organizations or other institutions was that they were effective in integrating secular conservatives and religious rights. Both sides could find a common foothold in newly established institutions to promote their values such as family values, morals, faith in God and so forth. Conservatives could achieve ideological single-mindedness which liberals could not. Without new conservative institutions of organizations and publications, secular conservatives and religious rights would have separately pursued their goals and resulted in less influential right-leaning movements and continued liberal dominance in the U.S. political arena.