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Conservatism In American Politics

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The rejection of liberal assertions in the 1970s in relation to socio-religious issues, to economics, and to America’s position in the world made possible the emergence of conservatism as the dominant ideological force in American politics in the late 20th century. This decline was accompanied by a growing political mood that first and foremost expressed a distrust of government. Proponents of conservatism were able to effectively direct this mood and coalesce for electoral ends through a process of ideologically based group formation and mobilisation. These relatively stable and interlinked groups heightened the salience of themes identified as conservative in political discourse. The political climate was pointed in the direction of a conservative …show more content…
The subsequent fragmentation of liberalism facilitated the process of ideologically based group formation and mobilisation that assured the dominance of conservatism. The rise of these groups heightened the salience of themes identified as conservative in political discourse. These groups, while not necessarily ideologically monolithic, rallied around certain “hot-button” issues for electoral ends. The Warren Court’s 1954 “Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka” decision declaring school segregation unconstitutional transformed the nature of American government. The Court’s decision to define moral issues as beyond the boundaries of popular decision-making undermined the democratic process in the eyes of many conservatives. The consequent anxieties of conservative groups often took the form of concern over sexual promiscuity and encompassed a distinct racial element, coming out later in Reagan’s depiction of the “African-American Cadillac driving queen.” Opposition to the 1973 Supreme Court “Roe versus Wade” decision, which upheld a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy in its early months brought together a wide array of organisations and individuals. Since the 1970s, this tradition has been revived in the Christian Right’s crusade against abortion. Their opposition to …show more content…
Bush in the 21st century and it became apparent that while its ideology was well suited for political growth, it was incapable of governing. Conservatives react to the debacle that is the Bush administration with denial and disavowal. Conservatives distance themselves from George W. Bush in the aftermath of his presidency, blaming him for straying from principles of conservatism, and invoking, by contrast, Ronald Reagan as an exemplar of conservative ideology. Yet this doesn’t seem entirely fair. As Robert Borosage writes, ‘each of the signature Bush failures; Iraq, Katrina, Enron, the privatisation of Social Security, the Terri Schiavo case, trickle down economics that don’t trickle down [culminating in the GFC], can be traced directly to conservative ideas and the conservative think tanks and ideologues that championed them. In each case, conservatism failed because Reagan’s model of limited government does not translate to contemporary issues. By restricting the size of the government, the government is in turn restricted in its capacity to address problems facing the country. But, as Borosage argues, ‘invoking Reagan offers not salvation but confirmation of that failure, for Reagan championed many of the same ideas and inflicted similar debacles on the nation.’ The problem wasn’t incompetence or deviation from conservative doctrine. The problem was that the problems facing the Bush administration had no military

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