Donald Critchlow, professor of history at Saint Louis University, recently addressed a John Locke Foundation Headliner luncheon. He also discussed his book, The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History, with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Kokai: Conservatives can be excused for approaching the 2008 elections with some degree of pessimism. After all, Democrats whipped Republicans in many of the 2006 electoral battles. But our next guest will offer us some historical evidence that might help change the pessimists’ minds. First, let’s set the timeline for your study. We are talking about post-World War II. In America Democrats had held the White House since the 1932 election. The New Deal coalition was trying to put together a lot of different elements in a voting bloc for Roosevelt and his party. Where did the Republicans and conservatives stand at that point?
Critchlow: Well, in the post-war period Republicans were embattled although there had begun to be a backlash against the New Deal policies during the Second World War with wage and price controls. So they were able to win Congress in ’46. But basically, the Republican party was an embattled party. And, moreover, conservatism as a movement, a political movement, didn’t even exist.
Kokai: You mentioned though in this quote from your publisher’s blurb about the book: “Time and again the GOP right appeared defeated only to rebound with explosive force.” How did this happen?
Critchlow: Well, as the conservative movement began to gain strength and influence the Republican party, they were able to achieve a number of successes. The first most notable success, you may recall, Mitch, was in 1964 when Barry Goldwater won the nomination only to go down to extraordinary defeat. The Republican Party was on the canvas, looked like it was out for the count. And the Left rebounded at that point. And it looked like within the Republican Party the moderate and liberal wing would take control. But Johnson’s policies plus social discord — riots, campus protests — allowed the Right to rebound. Another example, if you will, was after Watergate when Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office. The Right was down. The Republican Party was down. Only about 20 percent of the electorate declared themselves Republican. And so the conservatives stood as a minority within a very minority party. But thanks to Jimmy Carter, once again the Right rebounded. And so maybe the optimistic … There is a good deal of optimism in this book for both the Left and the Right that there was a good deal of fortune in the rise of the Right, but the Left has been fortunate, too, in often defeating the conservative Republicans.
Kokai: So conservatives are down, and they rebound time and again as your books spells it out. How did this happen? Why are conservatives able to bounce back and succeed?
Critchlow: Well, I think as I explain in the book, a good deal of their success has to do with ideas. They have ideas. And the Left is basically spent intellectually. Their ideas come from a progressive period in the New Deal period, and in post-war America these ideas just seemed antiquated and often doddering.
Kokai: What are some of the most successful of the conservatives’ ideas from your vantage point?
Critchlow: Well, extraordinary events took place during the Second World War and the end of World War II, and it was just good fortune. But many intellectuals, writers, and thinkers came from Europe fleeing Fascism and Communism. And so we had in coming to America writers such as Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, Eric Voegelin, and others who infused conservatism with deep philosophical and principled thought. And that is a good, very interesting story in itself and worth reading, although much of the book has to do with the political events and how the GOP rose to power — the GOP Right, let me be clear on this.
Kokai: Given what you have seen in your study of the history, recent American history, what would you see as the possible course that the GOP Right would need to take now to help rebound from 2006?
Critchlow: Well, it’s not a book of prescriptions, but one thing I do make clear in the book is the continued tension within the conservative movement between abstract principle and practical politics and governing politics. Sometimes right now I think many conservatives both in think tanks and leaders in the movement as well as grassroots conservatives are very discouraged that they feel that the Republicans haven’t lived up to the conservative ideals. There have been compromises that have been made. But this, I think, reflects the power of the conservative movement, that conservatives were able to win government and win elective office. And I have no doubt that whatever happens in the 2008 election, that conservatives and the conservative movement is going to remain a very powerful force in this country and a very powerful force within the Republican Party.
Kokai: What do you think it is about the conservative wing of the Republican Party that has such a strong appeal and that gives it such resilience?
Critchlow: Well, I think it reflects the instincts of the American people. I mean, there is a sense of distrust in centralized government, having politicians in Washington run their lives and telling them what their kids should be doing and how they should live their own lives. So I think that is what the GOP Right reflects. And the GOP Right needs to get back to those principles of small government and listening to the will of the average American. And I think Republicans after 2006 have learned this, and they are turning back to what they stood for.