Why the Right Went Wrong: ConservatismFrom Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond (80 page)

“the wingnut sun”
: Rick Perlstein, “The Grand Old Tea Party: Why Today’s Wacko Birds Are Just Like Yesterday’s Wingnuts,”
Nation,
November 25, 2013,
http://www.thenation.com/article/177018/grand-old-tea-party#

“yelling stop”
: William Buckley Jr., “Our Mission Statement,”
National Review
, November 19, 1955,
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/223549/our-mission-statement-william-f-buckley-jr
.

“two main strands of conservatism,”
: Kevin Smant,
Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and The Shaping of the American Conservative Movement
(Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2002), p. 94.

Donald Devine, a conservative
: Donald Devine, quoted in Dionne,
Why Americans Hate Politics
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 161.

“monopoly on sophisticated information”
: Sam Tanenhaus,
The Death of Conservatism
(New York: Random House Paperbacks, 2001), 46.

“We cannot reestablish”:
Dan Smoot Report, YouTube video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NvLsKeOlmY&app=desktop
.

“over a million gave”
: Rick Perlstein,
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
(New York: Nation Books, 2009), p. 475.

bestseller list
:
New York Times
bestseller list, July 27, 2014,
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2014-07-27/hardcover-nonfiction/list.html
.

“maneuvered into nominating”
: Phyllis Schlafly,
A Choice Not an Echo
(Washington, DC: Regnery, 1964), p. 25.

“deprived the American people”
: Ralph de Toledano,
The Winning Side: The Case for Goldwater Republicanism
(New York: Macfadden Books, 1964), p. 196; “The dominant consensus of this country”: p. 11; “the Democratic coalition formed”: pp. 8–9; “In its economic principles” and reference to Calhoun: p. 29; later reference in chapter to Electoral College votes for Rockefeller and Goldwater: pp. 81–83.

CIO unions in particular
: Ira Katznelson,
Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
(New York: Norton, 2013). Southern Democrats defecting and all other references come from Chapter 5, “Jim Crow Congress,” pp. 156–94.

In late 1937
: James T. Patterson,
Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967), p. 205.

“We insist upon”
: Ibid.

“new meanings to old words”
: Charles Wallace Collins,
Whither Solid South
(New Orleans: Pelican, 1947). The story of this book is told well in Joseph E. Lowndes,
From New Deal to the New Right
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 11–45; see also Katznelson,
Fear Itself,
pp. 139–44.

“the strongest party in the country”
: Lowndes,
From New Deal to the New Right
, 25.

“the advanced race”
: “Why the South Must Prevail,” editorial,
National Review
, August 24, 1957,
http://adamgomez.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/whythesouthmustprevail-1957.pdf
.

“In the South”
: William F. Buckley Jr.,
Up from Liberalism
(New York: Hillman Books, 1961), pp. 146–47.

Rusher proudly noted
: William A. Rusher, “Crossroads for the GOP,”
National Review
, February 12, 1963. My thanks to
NR
’s Ramesh Ponnuru for asking the magazine’s library to retrieve this article for me, which its staff kindly did. Rusher discusses the article and its impact in his enlightening history-cum-memoir,
The Rise of the Right
(New York: William Morrow, 1984), pp. 137–38.

yet his map
: de Toledano,
The Winning Side
, pp. 72–85.

“It has been the dominating ambition”
: Buckley Jr.,
Up from Liberalism,
114.

the heart of Goldwaterism
: Barry Goldwater,
The Conscience of a Conservative
(1960; reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 15.

plenty of specifics
: Ibid., pp. 19, 61, 83, and 85–86.

immediately ordered 2,500 copies
: Perlstein,
Before the Storm
, p. 62.

Goldwater salvaged only
: 1964 Presidential General Election Results from the U.S. Election Atlas,
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1964
.

whether the GOP would be best served
: Rusher, “Crossroads for the GOP,”
National Review
, February 12, 1963.

“With your help”
: Charles Mohr, “Goldwater Hits U.S. Moral ‘Rot,’ ”
New York Times,
October 11, 1964,
http://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/11/goldwater-hits-us-moral-rot.html?_r=1
.

They called it:
“Choice,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xniUoMiHm8g
.

The outcry against
: Perlstein,
Before the Storm
, p. 496.

Goldwater’s key moneymen
: Theodore H. White,
The Making of the President 1964
(New York: Atheneum, 1965).

“the trouble with”
: Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech, October 27, 1964.

“No modern precedent exists”
: George F. Gilder and Bruce Kerry Chapman,
The Party That Lost Its Head
(New York: Knopf, 1966), p. 213.

takeover of the party
: Edward Brooke,
The Challenge of Change: Crisis in Our Two-Party System
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1966), p. 14.

The conservative southern
: Ibid., p. 15.

“desperate condition”
: White,
The Making of the President 1964
, p. 385.

“The future of the Birch Society”
: Alan Westin, “The John Birch Society: ‘Radical Right’ and ‘Extreme Left’ in the Political Context of Post World War II,” in
The Radical Right
, ed. Daniel Bell (New York: Anchor Books, 1964), p. 267.

3. FROM RADICALISM TO GOVERNING

During Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency
: See Arthur Larson,
A Republican Looks At His Party
(1956; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974), quotation on p. 10. Larson finally received the historical attention he deserves in David L. Stebenne,
Modern Republican: Arthur Larson and the Eisenhower Years
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006). An excellent look at the losing struggle of moderate and liberal Republicans is Nicol C. Rae,
The Decline and Fall of Liberal Republicans: From 1952 to the Present
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

Chris Matthews’s joint biography
: Chris Matthews,
Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 17.

Nixon was never
: Richard Nixon’s “The Silent Majority” speech, November 3, 1969.

Samuel Lubell, the public opinion
: Sam Lubell,
The Future of American Politics
(New York: Harper, 1952), p. 200.

“were determined to capitalize on the underlying fragility”
: Julian Zelizer,
The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society
(New York: Penguin Press, 2015), p. 247; “didn’t believe that opposing”: p. 250; Reagan and open housing: 254–255. Zelizer offers an excellent account of the breakdown on the civil rights coalition, the political impact of the period’s riots, and the reaction against fair-housing laws on pp. 228–247. His account of the 1966 midterm campaign is on pp. 247–261.

But Geoffrey Kabaservice
: Geoffrey Kabaservice,
Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 223.

The research-and-writing team
: Patrick J. Buchanan,
The Greatest Comeback
(New York: Crown Forum, 2014), pp. 280–81.

Bell urged Nixon
: Ibid.

Yet Nixon was torn
: Ibid., pp. 281–82.

McGovern was tagged
: Timothy Noah, “Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion: The Unlikely Source of a Legendary Smear,”
New Republic
, October 22, 2012.

It came to light
: Robert Novak,
The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington
(New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007), p. 226.

But the conservative rebels
: Jeffrey Bell, William F. Buckley Jr., William Rusher, et al., “We Suspend Our Support,”
National Review
, August 10, 1971.

Representative John Ashbrook of Ohio
: “Chronology of Political Events: Jan. 1971–Nov. 1972,”
CQ Almanac,
http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal72-1249975#
.

He took to the op-ed pages
: William Rusher, “The Nixon-McGovern Choice Is No Choice for Conservatives,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 28, 1972.

Savoring in retrospect
: Richard Nixon,
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), pp. 761–64.

“The liberal wing of the Republican Party”
: Rick Perlstein,
The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), p. 670.

“Christine Jorgensen of the Republican Party”
: See Carl M. Cannon, “Jenner’s Trail Was Blazed by Christine Jorgensen,”
RealClearPolitics
, June 3, 2015.

He gave conservatives a rallying cry
: James H. Broussard,
Ronald Reagan: Champion of Conservative America
(New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 87.

“Without Reagan’s 1976 campaign”
: Craig Shirley,
Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All
(Nashville: Nelson Current, 2005), p. xxvii.

“When it comes to the Canal”
: Perlstein,
The Invisible Bridge
, p. 633.

He cited David Keene
: Ibid.

“The conservative challenge”
: Kabaservice,
Rule and Ruin,
p. 347.

“We are going to forget the use of the word
détente
”: Gerald Ford,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1976–1977
, p. 185. See also Sean Wilentz,
The Age of Reagan
(New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 64, and Kabaservice,
Rule and Ruin,
p. 347.

Fearing that whatever
: Kabaservice,
Rule and Ruin
, p. 347.

Reagan might have won
: See Kabaservice,
Rule and Ruin
, p. 347; Perlstein,
The Invisible Bridge
, p. 594.

But there was a catch
: Kabaservice,
Rule and Ruin
, p. 347.

Los Angeles County home values
: Robert Kuttner,
Revolt of the Haves: Tax Rebellions and Hard Times
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980), pp. 51–55; “When inflation blended with”: Kuttner, p. 93. A fascinating recent look at tax revolts in American history is Isaac William Martin,
Rich People’s Movements: Grassroots Campaigns to Untax the One Percent
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

In a three-way race:
1980 Presidential General Election Results, U.S. Election Atlas,
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php?year=1980
.

“a community of values”
: Ronald Reagan, speech in acceptance of the Republican nomination for president, July 17, 1980.

“Capitalism begins with giving”
: George Gilder,
Wealth and Poverty
(New York: Bantam Books, 1981), p. 23.

“The highest goal of the political economy”
: Michael Novak,
The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
(New York: AEI/Simon & Schuster, 1982), p. 357.

“I feel like we have sort of an amazing inheritance”
: MSNBC promotional video featuring Rachel Maddow, filmed in 2011.

The historian Joshua Freeman summarizes Reagan’s fiscal legacy
: Joshua Freeman,
American Empire: The Rise of a Global Power, the Democratic Revolution at Home
(New York: Penguin Books, 2012), pp. 374–75.

“weak claims, rather than weak claimants”
: Alice Rivlin and Isabel Sawhill,
Restoring Fiscal Sanity: How to Balance the Budget
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), p. viii.

Reagan failed to make a significant dent
: Freeman,
American Empire
, p. 375.

“the poor and the urban working class”
: Ibid.

The national debt rose:
See table from Treasury Direct website,
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
.

It fell back further:
See the Office of Management and Budget Historical Tables on the budget,
https://m.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
.

But the tax cuts and the military spending
: Freeman,
American Empire
, p. 380.

“People want to believe”
: Rick Perlstein,
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus
(New York, Nation Books, 2009), p. 804.

“he changed course, moved on”
: Perlstein,
The Invisible Bridge,
p. 409.

Perlstein notes that
: Ibid.

“thrived . . . on contradictions”
: Freeman,
American Empire,
p. 381.

“stabbed in the back”
: Sean Wilentz,
The Age of Reagan
(New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 148.

“governing as he had done”
: Ibid.

“If voters see a race as a nice-guy”
: E. J. Dionne Jr.,
Why Americans Hate Politics
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 296.