SAQ
EXCERPTS
Daniel Bell, ed., The Radical Right (1963).
"Anti-elitism oriented toward groups that cannot be regarded as oppressed minorities or victims of bigotry, or anti-Communism directed against the agents or dupes of an evil foreign power, can serve as palatable outlets for those who require a scapegoat…. Intolerant movements, while often powerful, have never been able seriously to endanger the normal processes of American democracy…. But if such movements cannot come to power, they can damage the democratic process for short periods of time, and they can and have injured innocent people."
Kevin Phillips, Post-Conservative America (1982).
"I submit that the New Right combines three powerful trend patterns that recur in American history and politics. First, to some measure it is an extension of the Wallace movement, and as such represents a current expression of the ongoing populism of the white lower middle classes, principally in the South and West....Second, the New Right is closely allied with the sometimes potent right-to-life or antiabortion movement, the current version, perhaps, of the great one-issue moral crusades of the American past....And this one-issue element, in turn, folds into the third phenomenon—the possible fourth occurrence of the religious revivals or ‘Great Awakenings’ that have swept across the land since the middle of the eighteenth century. If so, the religious wing of the New Right may be the political wing of a major national awakening."
SUMMARY
Bell-A view of modern conservatism as an extremist and paranoid fringe movement
Phillips-A view of modern conservatism as more deeply rooted in American history
EXCERPTS
Daniel Bell, ed., The Radical Right (1963).
"Anti-elitism oriented toward groups that cannot be regarded as oppressed minorities or victims of bigotry, or anti-Communism directed against the agents or dupes of an evil foreign power, can serve as palatable outlets for those who require a scapegoat…. Intolerant movements, while often powerful, have never been able seriously to endanger the normal processes of American democracy…. But if such movements cannot come to power, they can damage the democratic process for short periods of time, and they can and have injured innocent people."
Kevin Phillips, Post-Conservative America (1982).
"I submit that the New Right combines three powerful trend patterns that recur in American history and politics. First, to some measure it is an extension of the Wallace movement, and as such represents a current expression of the ongoing populism of the white lower middle classes, principally in the South and West....Second, the New Right is closely allied with the sometimes potent right-to-life or antiabortion movement, the current version, perhaps, of the great one-issue moral crusades of the American past....And this one-issue element, in turn, folds into the third phenomenon—the possible fourth occurrence of the religious revivals or ‘Great Awakenings’ that have swept across the land since the middle of the eighteenth century. If so, the religious wing of the New Right may be the political wing of a major national awakening."
SUMMARY
Bell-A view of modern conservatism as an extremist and paranoid fringe movement
Phillips-A view of modern conservatism as more deeply rooted in American history