Movement Conservativism (Movement Conservative)

Entry in progress—B.P.
 
Wikipedia: Movement conservatism
The term movement conservatism was an inside term describing conservatism in the United States‎ and New Right. According to Nash (2009) the movement comprises a coalition of five distinct impulses. From the mid-1930s to the 1960s, libertarians, traditionalists, and anticommunists made up this coalition, with the goal of fighting the liberals’ New Deal. In the 1970s, two more impulses were added with the addition of neoconservatives and the Religious Right.
 
R. Emmett Tyrrell, a prominent writer on the right, says, “the conservatism that, when it made its appearance in the early 1950s, was called the New Conservatism and for the past fifty or sixty years has been known as ‘movement conservatism’ by those of us who have espoused it.” Political scientists Doss and Roberts say that “The term movement conservatives refers to those people who argue that big government constitutes the most serious problem…. Movement conservatives blame the growth of the administrative state for destroying individual initiative.” Historian Allan J. Lichtman traces the term to a memorandum written in February 1961 by William A. Rusher, the publisher of the National Review to William F. Buckley, Jr., envisioning the National Review as not just “the intellectual leader of the American Right,” but more grandly of “the Western Right.” Rusher envisioned philosopher kings would function as “movement conservatives”.

Recent examples of conservative writers using the term “movement conservatism” include Sam Tanenhaus, Paul Gottfried, and Jonathan Riehl. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman devotes a chapter of his The Conscience of a Liberal (2007) to the movement.
 
Conservapedia: Movement conservative
A movement conservative is one who supports all or nearly all conservative principles with a coherent philosophy, and who advances broad conservative goals both individually and through teamwork. This is contrasted with cafeteria, or single-issue, or self-serving approaches. Movement conservatives, unlike cafeteria conservatives, understand that since conservative philosophy is a coherent whole, it is untenable to discard part of it without discarding all of it. Movement conservatives favor logic rather than self-centered behavior and therefore reject the teachings of Ayn Rand, who considered selfishness to be logical.
 
Simply put, a movement conservative is a conservative who seeks to help others, and the nation, by explaining, advocating and defending the logical and beneficial conservative approach. A movement conservative is not primarily seeking political gain for him or herself, but advocates the insights and values of conservatism for the benefit of others.
   
OCLC WorldCat record
The Federalist Society and movement conservatism : how a fractious coalition on the right is changing constitutional law and the way we talk and think about it
Author: Jonathan Riehl; J Robert Cox
Publisher: Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007.
Dissertation: Thesis (Ph. D.)—University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007.
Edition/Format:  Thesis/dissertation : Document : Thesis/dissertation : State or province government publication : eBook Computer File : EnglishView all editions and formats
Publication: UNC electronic theses and dissertations collection
Summary: This study is the first in-depth examination of the Federalist Society, the nation’s preeminent organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers. Founded by a few enterprising young college friends in the early days of the Reagan administration, its participants now number 40,000 lawyers, policymakers, judges, and law students. The Society functions as a forum for debate, intellectual exchange, and engagement between the factions on the right as well as their liberal opponents—hence my use of rhetorical theory. I explore how Federalists have promoted conservative legal theories of interpretation, such as originalism and textualism, and also how have also fueled the broader project of the American right to unmake the liberal consensus on a wide range of legal and social issues from Affirmative Action and race to foreign policy.
 
The New Republic
Movement Conservatism, Rip?
Damon Linker
February 3, 2009 | 11:27 am
Sam Tanenhaus’s essay on the death of ideological or “movement” conservatism is unquestionably today’s must-read. Herewith a few disconnected, preliminary thoughts on the piece.
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UPDATE: My friend Russell Fox has some typically original and insightful things to say about the Tanenhaus piece here. As for Russell’s dissent from point 2 above, I think we’re reading Tanenhaus’s line about the American distaste for ideology in different ways. When linked up with Tanenhaus’s praise of conservatives (like Disraeli in mid-19th century Britain and the mature Chambers in mid-20th century America) who were willing to make compromises with changes in modern society and culture, I think we’re left with pragmatism and caution but little ideological content at all. Instead of standing athwart history yelling, “Stop!,” Tanenhaus’s ideal conservative would patiently clear his throat before ironically intoning, “Hey, would you mind slowing down a little bit so we can catch up with you before the next round of creative destruction?” That’s temperamental, not ideological, conservatism.