Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater published The Conscience of a Conservative in 1960. At first glance, a slender 123- page book by a little-known senator from a seemingly remote Southwestern state appeared insignificant. But looks were deceiving. The Conscience of a Conservative became a massive best-seller that sold 3.5 million copies and transformed Goldwater into a leader in the Republican Party.
The Conscience of a Conservative provided a concise but forceful statement of conservative beliefs. Goldwater countered the prevailing liberal consensus by lambasting expensive New Deal programs. Instead, he forthrightly called for a dramatically reduced federal government that only performed tasks specifically enumerated by the Constitution. Goldwater’s manifesto also embraced economic principles based on lower taxes and minimal government regulations.
The Election of 1964
Goldwater’s cogent arguments resonated among citizens disillusioned with liberal policies. “We just wanted the government to get off our backs and out of our pockets,” explained one Arizona supporter. A California housewife spoke for many when she said, “I felt like someone was finally talking to me and not at me. I went out and organized my entire neighborhood for Goldwater.”
The California housewife joined an army of Republican activists who successfully helped Goldwater become the party’s 1964 presidential nominee. The election featured a historic choice between liberal and conservative candidates. The Democratic nominee, President Lyndon Johnson or Texas, ran on a liberal platform promising to wage war on poverty, extend medical care to the elderly, and support a landmark voting rights bill. In contrast, Goldwater ran on a conservative platform promising to cut taxes, shrink the federal government, and restore American military strength.
The election appeared to produce definitive results. Johnson won 61 percent of the vote and crushed Goldwater in the Electoral College. LBJ’s overwhelming victory served to usher in a new age of liberal dominance and conservative retreat. However, an unexpected combination of Sunbelt conservatives, Christian evangelicals, and blue-collar workers forged an increasingly powerful political coalition that revived the Republican Party.
Discontented Sunbelt Conservatives
Political commentators noted that both President Johnson and Senator Goldwater hailed from states in a region they named the Sunbelt. The coincidence was not a surprise. The Sunbelt comprised portions of a booming region of 16 states stretching from North Carolina through Florida and Texas to Arizona and southern California.
A number of factors combined to make the Sunbelt America’s fastest growing region. Affordable air-conditioning cooled homes and offices during the region’s hot summers. Low taxes and weak labor unions attracted businesses. And finally, the federal government awarded Sunbelt states a host of defense and space contracts. For example, Florida and Texas became centers of huge aerospace complexes.
The historic migration of people and businesses translated into growing political power. As their population increased, Sunbelt states claimed more seats in the House of Representatives and thus more votes in the Electoral College. In the 1960 presidential election, California, Texas, and Florida had a total of 66 electoral votes. Twenty years later, these three states commanded 88 electoral votes.
The prosperous suburbs surrounding Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, and Atlanta quickly became conservative strongholds. White middle-class suburbanites opposed Great Society programs. Instead, they embraced Goldwater’s conservative philosophy favoring reductions in expensive government welfare programs and burdensome business regulations. The Sunbelt conservatives formed what historian Lisa McGirr called “the ground forces of the conservative revival.”
Alarmed Christian Evangelicals
The 1960s and 1970s produced a number of social and cultural changes that alarmed Christian evangelicals. Hippies experimented with drugs and celebrated premarital sex. Feminists challenged traditional family roles and enthusiastically endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). At the same time, the newly vocal gay community demanded recognition and equal civil rights.
Outraged Christian evangelicals did not limit their opposition to hippies, feminists, and gays; they also directed special outrage at liberal Supreme Court decisions. Rulings prohibiting officially sponsored prayer and Bible readings in public schools deeply offended devout Christians who believed these activities played an important role in the development of moral values. The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion aroused outrage among both Protestants and Catholics who defended the unborn infant’s right to life.
Sexual permissiveness, the ERA, school prayer, and abortion galvanized a determined group of conservative Christians known as the Religious Right. This movement became a significant political force when Jerry Falwell, a Baptist minister and popular religious broadcaster from Lynchburg, Virginia, founded the Moral Majority. Launched in 1979, the organization advanced a “pro-life, pro-family, pro-morality, and pro-American” agenda. The Moral Majority’s four million members and two million donors played a key role in mobilizing evangelical Christians into a powerful political force.
Discontented Blue-Collar Workers
During the 1970s, millions of Americans watched All in the Family, a humorous but culturally relevant television program about a working-class family living in Queens, New York. Most episodes revolved around the outspoken views of Archie Bunker, a World War II veteran who worked as a foreman on a loading dock. Although he was a fictional character, Archie’s frustrations accurately reflected the growing discontent among America’s blue-collar workers.
Beginning with the New Deal, working-class voters formed a core group of the Democratic Party coalition. However, during the late 1970s slowing wage growth, rising prices, and growing tax burdens threatened their standard of living. At the same time, court-ordered busing of school children to achieve racial balance fueled a rising sense of resentment.
As the 1980 presidential election approached, real-life Archie Bunkers felt increasingly alienated from Democratic Party policies and candidates. They searched for a new leader who promised to roll back expensive social welfare programs, support traditional family values, and restore economic confidence.
The Election of Ronald Reagan
During the fall of 1980, millions of concerned Americans felt squeezed by double-digit inflation, crippling mortgage rates, and an unemployment rate of nearly eight percent. Overseas, months of futile negotiations by the Carter administration failed to persuade the Iranian government to release 53 American hostages. Opinion polls reported that less than 25 percent of the American people approved of President Carter’s leadership. For many, it seemed as if America had lost its way.
Sensing victory, the Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan as their presidential candidate. A one-time movie actor, television host, and two-term governor of California, Reagan refused to listen to dire forecasts predicting an increasingly dismal future. “There are those in our land,” he declared, “who would have us believe that the United States, like other great civilizations of the past, has reached the zenith of its power.” Reagan then confidently insisted, “I don’t believe that.”
During the presidential campaign, Reagan repeatedly asked the American people to answer one question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” On election day, a resurgent coalition of conservative Republican voters answered no. Reagan and his running mate, George H.W. Bush, won a convincing victory. A prominent Goldwater supporter quipped, “Goldwater won in 1964; it just took until 1980 to count the ballots.”
So why should you remember the rise of the Conservative Movement from 1960 to 1980. This topic generated a DBQ in 2015 and set of multiple-choice questions on almost every subsequent APUSH exam. Although the prompts vary, the questions all ask students to know that conservatives and their evangelical allies defended traditional family values, supported free market economic policies, opposed Great Society programs, and helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980.