The Second Spring of American Conservatism

To read such analyses today is to be reminded that the New Right is not really new at all, but represents a strain of nativist populism whose roots are deep in American history and which has already played a highly important role in American politics, especially in the South and Southwest. As such it is no more likely to disappear from the contemporary political scene than it is to become the center of a new majority party. It will fail in its current version because of its hostility to another deeply rooted aspect of contemporary politics—the welfare state, whose benefits no majority in any democratic society has yet forsworn. Nevertheless, in one form or another, it will remain with us for a very long time to come.

And if the tone and some of the content of Miss Kirkpatrick’s article lead us to suspect the soundness of her final judgment, we have only to glance at the election returns from the Western world. They reveal a profound unease with social-democratic and liberal explanations and solutions. On questions such as crime, education, and the intrusiveness of big government, the new political climate is deeply conservative—even though during this hesitant interregnum the people continue to vote for conservative fellow-travelers who call themselves “progressives.” (Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s economic policies, for example, are somewhat to the right of those advocated by Paul McCracken when he was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.) The fuzzy Center is dissolving, and both conservatives and Communists are registering marked gains.

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Stephen J. Tonsor

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To read such analyses today is to be reminded that the New Right is not really new at all, but represents a strain of nativist populism whose roots are deep in American history and which has already played a highly important role in American politics, especially in the South and Southwest. As such it is no more likely to disappear from the contemporary political scene than it is to become the center of a new majority party. It will fail in its current version because of its hostility to another deeply rooted aspect of contemporary politics—the welfare state, whose benefits no majority in any democratic society has yet forsworn. Nevertheless, in one form or another, it will remain with us for a very long time to come.

And if the tone and some of the content of Miss Kirkpatrick’s article lead us to suspect the soundness of her final judgment, we have only to glance at the election returns from the Western world. They reveal a profound unease with social-democratic and liberal explanations and solutions. On questions such as crime, education, and the intrusiveness of big government, the new political climate is deeply conservative—even though during this hesitant interregnum the people continue to vote for conservative fellow-travelers who call themselves “progressives.” (Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s economic policies, for example, are somewhat to the right of those advocated by Paul McCracken when he was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors.) The fuzzy Center is dissolving, and both conservatives and Communists are registering marked gains.