The Social Origins of American Conservatism

The American conservative movement was founded by people who were largely socially outside the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) establishment of America at the time. William F. Buckely's book God and Man and Yale and the reaction to it cannot be understood without looking at this social dimension. He was an Irish Catholic criticizing the citadel of the Protestant Establishment that had graciously allowed him in the door.  At the same time, the conservative movement was also unrepresentative of its current voting base of Evangelicals.

The Christian side of conservative intellectualism has always been heavily Catholic dominated, from William F. Buckley at its founding to people like Ross Douthat today. The large number of people within conservative intellectual circles that are Catholic converts (both historically and today) attests to the normative status of Catholicism within the conservative movement.

Evangelicals, while constituting perhaps the largest and most loyal voting block within conservatism, have never played a material role in its leadership, particularly at the intellectual level. When Evangelical leaders or voters have asserted themselves (as in the person of Pat Robertson in the 1980s or by supporting Trump today), the incumbent conservative establishment has frequently been appalled.

Conservatism's social origins and continued existence on the social margins helps explain its lack of cultural success in the country. And the social difference between the Catholic dominated intellectual leadership class and the Protestant dominated voting base with different preferences is a key fault line that enabled Trump's victory. The fact that the conservative elite are a leadership group without a natural constituency in the country is a big challenge for them in a post-Trump world.  For Evangelicals, their lack of input at the leadership level of conservative intellectualism is a key reason they need to rewrite their relationship with the conservative movement and Republican Party.

Links:

First Things on  Samuel Francis: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/10/the-outsider

Michael Lind's "resignation letter" from conservatism: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/pdfs/lind.pdf

How the WASPs betrayed the country to communism: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/18/weekinreview/witching-hour-rethinking-mccarthyism-if-not-mccarthy.html

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