Ronal Reagan And The Rise Of The Radical Right In The United States 1960-1988

1960 and it’s subsequent decades proved to be a remarkable time for the world in general, but very specifically for America. The first Roman Catholic president was elected; the birth control pill was introduced, and we confronted the question of nuclear war. We also saw the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement and the Women’s Rights Movement as we learned first-hand and up close and personal about civil disobedience and political assassinations.

During this period, the conservative right was an anti-communist movement that promoted conservatism in government; increased military spending; withdrawal from the United Nations and reducing government funded social programs. They viewed the student demonstrations against the Vietnam War as a communist plot, as were the Civil Rights Movement and the Women’s Rights Movement. Conservative Americans called the changes that we sought, and the questions that we asked, “un-American” and “un-patriotic”.

Eisenhower had disappointed the conservative right. William Buckley charged that he had done nothing for the Republican Party and nothing

At the 1972 Republican Convention in Miami, Conservatives won adoption of new procedures for selecting national convention delegates that was especially beneficial to small southern and western states. The reallocation formula adopted would expand the 1976 convention to more than 2,000 delegates, compared with 1,348 who came to the 1972 convention.

Viguerie’s first big client was Alabama’s segregationist governor and third party presidential candidate George Wallace. Viguerie used Goldwater’s list and raised millions of dollars for Wallace and then walked away from the campaign with Wallace’s list of “angry whites” to add to his Goldwater list.

The energized base that Reagan brought into the campaign, coupled with foreign policy problems; especially the Iranian hostage situation and energy concerns served him well. There has been a lot of speculation about the involvement of Reagan campaign operatives sabotaging President Carter’s efforts to gain release of the hostages but nothing provable in court surfaced. It all proved to be too much for the incumbent president. Reagan defeated Carter and won the presidency. Sixteen years after Goldwater’s defeat, the people of the United States, like the people of California before them, elected a former B-movie actor to the highest office in the land.

MCA’s television lineup for the 1962-63 season included such shows as Wagon Train, Leave It To Beaver, McHale’s Navy, Alcoa Theater, It’s a Man’s World, Laramie, The Jack Benny Show and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and accounted for eleven hours of prime-time network programming. As MCA Universal Studios it would go on to become one of the largest motion picture studios in the United States with offices in major cities all over the world. They also own book and music publishing companies, a major record company, transportation systems, home video marketing, recreation services, a savings and loan company, merchandising, cable television and theme parks in California and Florida.

Also out of the ashes of Goldwater’s defeat, came several men who would grow the radical conservative movement and create and implement the strategy that would defeat the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA); elect Ronal Reagan Governor of California and President of the United States, and take control of the Republican Party. These men included, Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie, Howard Phillips, Paul Laxalt, Taft Schreiber, Jules Stein, Henry Salvatori and Ronald Reagan.

During the two-year period from 1977 to 1979, at the height of the Women’s Rights Movement and efforts to ratify the ERA, conservative Christian organization sprang up around the country to fight the gains being made by and for women’s rights. James Dobson founded Focus on the Family, Weyrich created the Free Congress Foundation and launched the Moral Majority, and Beverly LaHaye formed Concern Women for America to fight ratification. The Conservative Caucus gave active support to Schlafly’s Stop ERA campaign that included money and mass mailings to conservatives in ungratified states. Schlafly addressed Caucus meetings and was told by Howard Phillips to stress the importance of joining together to win the big important battles. As a result, lobbyists of state conservative organizations served as chief organizers of anti-ERA lobbying in the ungratified states. In 1979, Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable urged Paul Weyrich and Phillips to engineer the Moral Majority and to draft the Rev. Jerry Falwell to front what would be the first organization to build a mass following for conservative religious politics.

Some topics in this essay:
Platform Committee, Jules Stein, Robert Kennedy, Giveaway” Moldea, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Cold War, Supreme Court, Conservative Caucus, YAF Washington, women’s rights, jules stein, ronald reagan, abortion rights, rights movement, moral majority, howard phillips, talent agency, equal rights, richard viguerie, women’s rights movement, equal rights amendment, rights women’s rights, free congress foundation, founded conservative caucus,