Meyer and Buckley: Heroes or Has-Beens of the American Conservative Movement?
Two prominent intellectuals enabled the resurgence of American conservatism in the 20th century. But how relevant are their ideas today?
Much has been made of the remarkable shift in the American conservative movement in recent years. To the chagrin of many right-wing intellectuals and public figures, the tremendous optimism, commitment to traditional values, praise for smaller government, and support for free markets that have dominated the agendas of so many Republican politicians since the 1980s now appear to be things of the past. In a remarkable twist of events, the Reagan Era has faded before anyone could have ever realized. The new Trump-inspired ideas dominating the American right have rendered Reaganism archaic. Unsurprisingly, these developments have left much of the American public (and even many academics) wondering what the hell happened to American conservatism.
The long journey to the Trump presidency began with a spark engineered by two intellectuals hardly remembered by a movement they shaped forever. Frank Meyer and William F. Buckley, Jr. authored a philosophy that would change American public opinion and the Republican Party forever. In the 1950s, the two patriarchs of the conservative National Review magazine developed the concept of “fusionism,” an unprecedented proposition that laid the basis for a broad coalition destined to sweep the American conservative movement. Buckley, a self-described conservative and libertarian, identified fusionism as the optimal manifestation of conservatism. Meyer and Buckley’s fusionism integrated social conservatism and traditional values with the political and economic frameworks of classical liberalism, which emphasizes limited government, individual rights, and economic freedom.
Fusionism’s presence on the national political stage began with Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential bid. Between 1945 and 1980, Republicans occupying the White House tended to represent the party’s moderate factions. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford were never known as firebrands; in fact, some of the successes these men enjoyed in office are arguably attributable to their mild policy prescriptions. But Goldwater, a Senator from Arizona, hailed from the GOP’s conservative wing. He was a crusader against the New Deal coalition, a committed defender of states’ rights, and a staunch anti-communist. Goldwater’s positions were steadfast enough that even after defeating his moderate opponents at the 1964 Republican National Convention, many centrist Republicans refused to campaign for him. Meanwhile, Democrats successfully portrayed Goldwater as a dangerous zealot, most famously through the “Daisy” advertisement. Democratic nominee Lyndon B. Johnson comprehensively defeated Goldwater and expanded his Great Society agenda during his remaining years in office, but the migration of conservatives into the Republican Party had already begun. Goldwater’s 1964 campaign foreshadowed what was to come.
In 1980, fusionism secured itself as the driving force behind American conservatism with Ronald Reagan’s defeat of Jimmy Carter in that year’s presidential election. Reagan redefined conservatism and reshaped the relationship between the average citizen and his government to an extent unseen since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. The GOP’s moderate leadership was phased out and replaced by a new conservative consensus. The promise of low taxes, smaller government, individualism, and orthodox social values came to dominate conservative dogma and the platform of the Republican Party. Right-libertarians found new motivations to ally with these fusionist conservatives because of their mutual commitment to free markets and advocacy for limited government. Some socially and fiscally conservative Democrats defected to the Republican Party as well.
The policy implications of this new conservative success were enormous. The Reagan administration enjoyed much of its support due to the revival of the American economy; Paul Volcker’s Federal Reserve oversaw a dramatic reduction in inflation even as economic growth rates improved. Reagan championed ambitious regulatory reforms, repealing numerous economic regulations and solidifying a neoliberal economic order in the United States. Moreover, Reagan’s influence on regulation stretched well beyond his tenure. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush continued the deregulatory trend started by the conservative icon. Clinton also expanded upon Reagan’s changes to welfare policies, notably abolishing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in favor of the more restrictive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in 1997. The Republican Revolution of 1994 also signaled the limits of Clinton’s popularity and reminded liberals that fusionist conservatism was as potent as ever. Fusionism and the politicians who embraced it had ushered in a new golden age of American conservatism.
But Meyer and Buckley’s influence could not endure forever. Despite the successes of Reagan and his contemporaries, fusionism was never going to last. A coalition so diverse as to contain right-libertarians, traditionalists, neoconservatives, anti-communists, and the occasional minarchist could not succeed in the long run. By the time of George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004, fusionism was in dire straits. The PATRIOT Act was now federal law, the Iraq War was well underway, and government spending continued to rise. Tensions between libertarians, paleoconservatives, neoconservatives, and fiscal conservatives exploded. The Republican Party had returned to the state of disunity that cost it stability and support for much of the twentieth century. With the fiscally conservative wing of the party declining in prominence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and Barack Obama’s election that same year, the identity of the GOP shifted once again. The perceived failure of policies such as foreign intervention and free trade (promoted by neoconservatives and fiscal conservatives, respectively) caused great disillusionment within the conservative movement, particularly outside intellectual and establishment circles.
In 2016, a populist who spoke nothing of limited government, freedom, nor the Constitution on the campaign trail exposed fusionism’s failures. Sentiments motivated by protectionism, nationalism, and general frustration whisked Donald Trump, perhaps the most unorthodox presidential candidate in American history, into the Oval Office. A new “silent majority” had made its voice heard. Such a development confirmed fusionism’s collapse at the ballot box, perhaps initiating the early stages of a new Republican realignment.
This collapse resulted not from left-leaning opposition but rather from a complete recreation of conservative thinking in America. Most Republicans in 2021 adhere to ideologies such as nationalism, protectionism, and populism, a starkly different set of principles from the fiscal conservatism and constitutionalism that have traditionally dominated the GOP since the Reagan years. This is incredibly distressing news for orthodox conservatives, as these new right-wing ideals are highly dissimilar from the ones that carried Republicans to considerable success in previous years.
Whether conservative intellectuals can build a united front again amidst fierce liberal reactions to Trumpism and a Biden administration seemingly committed to a more expansive federal government remains unknown. Many fusionists have lost hope, as more conservatives than ever condone or even support expanded government intervention in the economy. Whatever this new American political zeitgeist may be, it will fail to enable the resurgence of fusionism or any similar ideology, thereby relegating the fusionism of Meyer and Buckley to the history books.
