conservatism

SCOTUS's Affirmative Action Ruling no Coincidence; Court Seeks to Preserve Power of Small Elite

by Eddie R. Cole

Long before affirmative action was established, white elites fought to ensure that higher education benefitted themselves and their children. It is this political legacy that the Court has affirmed. 

The Pendulum of Queer History

by Samuel Huneke

As the Republican Party embraces aggressive transphobia as a political wedge issue, there is historical reason to believe that the strategy will provoke organizing, reform, or even revolution for queer liberation. 

Understanding the Leading Thinkers of the New American Right

by Charles King

The framework of integralist thought championed by Adrian Vermeule, Patrick Deneen and others argues for a view of the common good to supplant liberal individual rights as the core of a constitutional order. They claim to connect to intellectual traditions centuries old, but their claims of moral decline echo those of early 20th century eugenicists and nativists. 

Do Any Critics of "Marxism" on the Right Actually Know What it Is?

by Ben Burgis

The most prominent public intellectuals on the right-wing internet love to attack a version of Marxism that bears little connection to reality. Even Marxists should want better critics. 

Trump and DeSantis Two Peas in a White Nationalist Pod

by Clarence Lusane

Any Republican candidate will need to lean in to the politics of white Christian nationalism ascendant on the right; Trump has needed the MAGA movement as much as it's needed him. 

Two New Books Take the 1990s as a Pivotal Decade

by Henry M.J. Tonks

Books by Lily Geismer and Nicole Hemmer look at the changes that took place within the Democratic and Republican parties (respectively) during a decade that was supposed to be the end of history. 

What Does Clarence Thomas Think Clarence Thomas is Doing?

A panel of scholars and journalists examine a paradox: how Clarence Thomas went from embracing the tenets of Black Nationalism to an administrative and judicial career that most characterize as hostile to the rights of Black Americans. 

Fred Siegel, Urban Historian and Liberal Turned Law-and-Order Conservative, Dies at 78

Siegel's work lamented what he saw as the failure of liberal regimes to safeguard urban quality of life and lambasted the indulgence of rioting. Those views led him to support Rudolph Giuliani's mayoral administration and remain relevant to discussions of social disorder in cities today. 

Americans Can and Must Fight Back Against Anti-Woke Authoritarians

by Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Signs are emerging that Americans won't be persuaded by moral panics to surrender the freedom to learn. What can this counteroffensive build on? 

Matthew Dallek: The Birchers Won By Losing

The defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964 was supposed to mark the demise of the conspiratorial right. Matthew Dallek's book explains how the fringe rose to dominate the Republican Party in 2024, in part because of the shortsightedness of liberal elites. 

With Tucker, Fox Painted Itself Into a Corner

by Nicole Hemmer

Carlson was the key figure that allowed Fox News to avoid being eclipsed by MAGA and the ability of Donald Trump to command media attention without the network's help. Now the network must reckon with the costs – in legal settlements and journalistic legitimacy—of letting Carlson run the show. 

Once an Alumnus Critical of Diversity at UVa, Now He Sits on the Board

Bert Ellis has been appointed to the University of Virginia's governing board by Governor Glenn Youngkin, having worked as the leader of a conservative alumni group demanding and end to diversity programs he sees as conflicting with the university's heritage. 

What's Driving J.D. Vance?

by Gabriel Winant

J.D. Vance rose to fame through a book that was heavy on popular psychology and self-help tropes while skirting systemic analysis of poverty and social change. As the Senator now careens hard to the right, a historian decides to evaluate him on his own terms. 

When Right Wingers Struggle with Defining "Woke" it Shows they Oppose Pursuing Equality

by Adam Serwer

"To believe that the disadvantages of race, class, and gender imposed lawfully over centuries never occurred or entirely disappeared in just a few decades is genuinely “radical” in a negative way; to believe that creating those disadvantages was wrong and that they should be rectified is not."

The Local Roots of Marjorie Taylor Greene's "National Divorce" Rhetoric

by Michan Connor

To understand her embrace of secessionist rhetoric, don't look to the Civil War; look to the political conflict that erupted in Atlanta's suburbs in the 1990s and 2000s. 

Edmund Burke's Defense of Order Indulged Racism and Antisemitism

by Aidan Beatty

A critic argues that a founding document of modern conservatism was steeped in the author's belief that Jews were responsible for exporting French radicalism; while few right-wingers today seem to actually read Burke, some carry on this legacy.

Why is the Right Obsessed with Gramsci?

by Alberto Toscano

A lack of familiarity with the actual writings of the Italian Marxist hasn't stopped the right, including Christopher Rufo and Nate Hochmann, from placing Antonio Gramsci at the center of a conspiracy theory about leftists seeking to conquer social institutions to undermine American society. 

WDJD (What Did Jesus Do)?: Do Evangelicals Care?

by Adam Jortner

While American leftists could find much to embrace in the Gospels, the political actions of many white Evangelicals is likely to push them away. Is it too late to reverse the merger of evangelicalism with conservative movement politics? 

Review: The Right-Wing Abuse of Adam Smith

by Kim Phillips-Fein

Glory M. Liu's account of Adam Smith's reception in America explains how American politicians read selectively in Smith's capacious writings on political economy and public morality to construct a self-interested view of the market as a natural phenomenon, writes historian Kim Phillips-Fein. 

Texts by Youngkin UVA Appointee Full of Culture War Grudges, References to Faculty and Administrators as "Numnuts"

Bert Ellis's text conversations with other Republican appointees to the university's Board of Visitors show his adamant opposition to recognizing the history of slavery in building the institution, diversity initiatives, and other changes to UVA traditions, pledging a "battle royale for the soul" of the institution.