Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right

A provocative look at the relationship between the far right and the American conservative movement from the 1930s to the end of the Cold War

Since 2016, many commentators have expressed shock at the so-called rise of the far right in America at the expense of ＂responsible＂ and ＂respectable＂ conservatism. But is the far right an aberration in conservative politics?

As David Austin Walsh shows, the mainstream conservative movement and the far right have been intertwined for nearly a century, and both were born out of a ＂right-wing popular front＂ linking racists, anti-Semites, and fascists in a broad coalition opposed to socialism, communism, and New Deal liberalism.

Far from being outliers in the broader conservative coalition, these extremist elements were foundational in the creation of a right-wing political culture centered around shared political enemies, a penchant for conspiracy theories, and a desire to restore America to its ＂authentic＂ pre-New Deal values.

The popular front included Merwin Hart, a New York business lobbyist active in far-right circles who became a lobbyist for the Franco regime in Spain, the original ＂America First＂ movement, the movement to prevent Jewish immigration to the United States after World War II, the John Birch Society, the American Nazi Party, the George Wallace presidential campaign of 1968, the fight over the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Pat Buchanan’s support of Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk during the Reagan Administration. And connecting this disparate coalition was William F. Buckley, Jr., the editor of National Review and America’s leading ＂responsible conservative.＂

David Austin Walsh is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism and a College Fellow at the University of Virginia. He splits his time between New Haven, CT, and Charlottesville, VA.