Why the Right Went Wrong: ConservatismFrom Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond (79 page)

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INTRODUCTION

“The Republican Party created Donald Trump”
: Erick Erickson quoted in Molly Ball, “Donald Trump and the Search for the Republican Soul,”
Atlantic
(August 13, 2015).

The numbers tell the story
: NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey, January 2015.

“unity of purpose over conflict and discord”
: President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, January 21, 2009.

On the roots of contemporary conservatism in the reaction of conservative business groups to the New Deal, the definitive account is Kim Phillips-Fein,
Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan
(New York: Norton, 2009). An earlier look at the role of the anti–New Deal backlash in creating contemporary American conservatism is Michael W. Miles,
The Odyssey of the American Right
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). There is a rich scholarship on the rise of the conservative movement. A good brief overview is Mary C. Brennan,
Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). An excellent look at the rise of the right from the bottom up in California’s Orange County is Lisa McGirr’s
Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right
(Princeton: Princeton university Press, 2001). A fine recent account that sees the 1964 contest between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater as seminal for much that came later is Jonathan Darman’s
Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America
(New York: Random House, 2014). Matthew Dallek broke important ground in his account of Ronald Reagan’s 1966 election as governor of California in
The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan’s First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics
(New York: Free Press, 2000). An affecting and very personal look at Goldwater’s rise is William F. Buckley Jr.’s
Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater
(New York: Basic books, 2008). Dan T. Carter,
The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), is essential to understanding the role of race—and George Wallace in particular—in the rise of the new conservative coalition. Also see Patrick Allitt,
The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

when the right was at its turning point
: Clinton Rossiter,
Conservatism in America
, 2nd ed., revised (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 180.

“as a bland moderate”
: Joe Scarborough,
The Right Path: From Ike to Reagan, How Conservatives Once Mastered Politics—and Can Again
(New York: Random House, 2013), p. 18.

“radical rich”
: David Frum, “Crashing the Party,”
Foreign Affairs
, September/October 2014.

“the insurgent outlier in American politics”
: Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein,
It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism
(New York: Basic Books, 2012), p. 185.

But radicalization
: One Republican strategist acutely aware of this problem is Whit Ayers, who detailed his party’s challenges in his book
2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America
(Alexandria, VA: Resurgent Republic Press, 2015). Ayers writes: “Demographic groups that form the core of Republican support—older whites, blue-collar whites, married people and rural residents—are declining as a proportion of the electorate. Demographic groups where the party is weak—minorities, young people, single women—are growing” (p. 7). My thanks to Ayers for a series of enlightening conversations. As a loyal Republican and conservative, he will no doubt disagree with many of my conclusions in this book, although we agree on the GOP’s long-term demographic problem.

only 39 percent of conservatives were over fifty
: The Pew Research Center calculated these numbers for me from their surveys. My thanks to Michael Dimmock, Carroll Doherty, and Scott Keeter for their assistance here and for other very helpful polling information. And thanks to Andy Kohut, the founder of the center, for help on polling matters over more than three decades.

revealing term “Establishment Tea”
: Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru, “Establishment Tea,”
National Review,
July 7, 2014.

“the current Republican majority in the Senate”
: Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, “No Cost for Extremism,”
American Prospect,
Spring 2015, pp. 71, 72.

Republicans won in 2010 and 2014
: On the tendency of midterm nonvoters to be in more Democratic groups see Lindsey Cook, “Midterm Turnout Down in 2014,”
U.S. News & World Report
, November 5, 2014.

Richard Nixon’s health care initiatives
: Ben Stein, “RN’s Health Care Plan More Comprehensive than Obama’s,” April 1, 2010, blog posting at
http://www.nixonfoundation.org
.

In 2014, the Pew Research Center
: Andrew Kohut, “Are the Democrats Getting Too Liberal?,”
Washington Post
, February 28, 2014.

Among Democrats, 59 percent
: “Support for Compromise Rises, Except Among Republicans,” Pew Research Center, January 17, 2013,
http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/01-17-13%20Political%20Release.pdf
.

27 percent of Democrats saw Republicans
: Carroll Doherty, “Which Party Is More to Blame for Political Polarization? It Depends on the Measure,” Pew Research Center, June 17, 2014,
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/17/which-party-is-more-to-blame-for-political-polarization-it-depends-on-the-measure/
.

the Republicans have turned much more
: Christopher Ingraham, “This Astonishing Chart Shows How Moderate Republicans Are an Endangered Species,”
Washington Post
Wonkblog, June 2, 2015,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/02/this-astonishing-chart-shows-how-republicans-are-an-endangered-species/
.

traditional Washington habit
: Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem,”
Washington Post
, April 27, 2012.

“Over the past five years”
: David Frum, “Don’t Knock the Reform Conservatives,”
Atlantic,
July 10, 2014.

conservatism . . . is primarily interested
: Corey Robin,
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 7.

conservatism is a “disposition”
: Philip Wallach and Justus Myers, “The Conservative Governing Disposition,”
National Affairs,
Summer 2014, p. 128.

movement bestseller
: Phyllis Schlafly,
A Choice Not an Echo
(Alton, IL: Pere Marquette Press, 1964), quotations from the cover material and p. 6; Taft defeat, pp. 33–68.

metaphors related to the market
: On the power of market metaphors, see Daniel T. Rodgers,
Age of Fracture
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), pp. 41–76. The book is a superb marriage of intellectual and political history.

Dwight Eisenhower won
: Eisenhower votes from Gallup 1956 poll and Nixon votes from Gallup 1960 poll.

As recently as 2004
: Ibid.

In 2012, Mitt Romney
: “Latino Voters in the 2012 Election,” Pew Research Center, November 7, 2012.

“What has happened to our party?”
: Kasich quoted in Daniel Strauss, “Kasich Lashes Out: ‘What Has Happened to the Conservative Movement?’ ”
Politico,
October 28, 2015.

1. THE AMBIGUOUS HERO

“There is something a bit strange”
: Chris McDaniel’s primary night speech, June 24, 2014,
http://www.c-span.org/video/?320130-3/chris-mcdaniel-primary-night-speech
.

“That’s not an easy vote to cast”
: “Mississippi 2014 Senate Election: Anatomy of a Takedown,”
Politico
, June 2014,
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/mississippi-2014-election-thad-cochran-chris-mcdaniel-103644_Page2.html
.

“The preservation of liberty and freedom”:
Sons of Confederate Veterans website,
http://www.scv.org/
.

$3.07 back from the federal government:
John Kiernan, “2015’s States Most & Least Dependent on the Federal Government,” WalletHub,
http://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/
.

It ranks number one
: Richard Borean, “Monday Map: Federal Aid as a Percentage of State General Revenue,” Tax Foundation, June 18, 2013,
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/monday-map-federal-aid-percentage-state-general-revenue
.

Between the primary and the runoff
: Nate Cohn, “Big Jump in Turnout is Key in Thad Cochran’s Victory,”
New York Times,
June 25, 2014.

On Walker and Cruz and Reagan: K Biswas, “God and Guns and the Grand Old Party,”
New Statesman
(September 4–10, 2015); on Rubio as Reagan’s heir: Paul Kengor, “Marco Rubio Seizes the Reagan Mantle,”
American Spectator
(May, 19, 2015),
http://spectator.org/articles/62763/marco-rubio-seizes-reagan-mantle
.

Reagan . . . raised taxes:
Jon Perr, “Ronald Reagan, the President Who Really Negotiated with Terrorists,” Daily Kos blog, June 1, 2014,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/01/1303690/-Ronald-Reagan-the-President-who-really-negotiated-with-terrorists#
.

“They confuse tactics with principles”
: Craig Shirley, “Reagan, Then and Now: Commentators and Politicians and Underestimating Him—Again,”
National Review,
June 4, 2014,
http://www.craigshirley.com/article/reagan-then-and-now/

totaling $2.8 trillion
: Peter Beinart, “Think Again: Ronald Reagan: The Gipper Wasn’t the Warhound His Conservative Followers Would Have You Think,”
Foreign Policy,
June 7, 2010,
http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/07/think-again-ronald-reagan/
.

“Those sons of bitches”
: Barron Youngsmith, “New Republic: The Romney Doctrine,” NPR, November 28, 2011,
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/28/142843202/new-republic-the-romney-doctrine
.

“in the use of military power”
: Rand Paul, “Buckley’s Realist Foreign Policy,”
National Review,
April 22, 2014,
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376307/buckleys-realist-foreign-policy-sen-rand-paul
.

Grenada gave him
: Beinart, “Think Again.”

grumbled that Reagan
: Duncan Currie, “Whose Reagan Is It, Anyway?,”
National Review,
July 2, 2009,
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/184200/whose-reagan-it-anyway-duncan-currie
.

“like a punctured balloon”
: Beinart, “Think Again.”

Paul argued that Reagan
: Rand Paul, “America Shouldn’t Choose Sides in Iraq War,”
Wall Street Journal,
June 19, 2014,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/sen-rand-paul-america-shouldnt-choose-sides-in-iraqs-civil-war-1403219558
.

And then came the swipe
: Rick Perry, “Isolationist Policies Make the Threat of Terrorism Even Greater,”
Washington Post,
July 11, 2014,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rick-perry-isolationist-policies-make-the-threat-of-terrorism-even-greater/2014/07/11/6dbfba4a-06f0-11e4-bbf1-cc51275e7f8f_story.html
.

Reagan was always
: Rand Paul, “Rick Perry Is Dead Wrong,”
Politico
, July 14, 2014,
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/07/rick-perry-is-dead-wrong-108860.html#.VRmtI_nF8kR
.

“All sides take”
: Jonathan Chait, “Rand Paul, Rick Perry Holding a Reagan-Off,”
New York,
July 14, 2014,
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/rand-paul-rick-perry-holding-a-reagan-off.html
.

“I bet the hard-liners”
: Lou Cannon, “Gorbachev Sincere, Reagan Tells Aides,”
Washington Post
(November 23, 1985),
http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/11/23/gorbachev-sincere-reagan-tells-aides/64b0b373-0343-4373-9f39-d12b17530ec7/
.

“not a contagious disease”
: Reagan 1978 op-ed reprinted in Gerald Magliocca, “Ronald Reagan and Gay Rights,
concurringopinions.com
(October 18, 2010),
http://concurringopinions.com/archives/2010/10/ronald-reagan-and-gay-rights.html
.

2. IN THE SHADOW OF GOLDWATER

“in the reaction against the New Deal”
: Kim Phillips-Fein,
Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan
(New York: Norton, 2009), pp. xii and 10–11.