the invitation of aei to this event. it means a great deal to me to be here in washington for a change on a cold and kind of rainy day. usually it's hot and humid when i'm here. this is a nice change. thanks for coming out to the event. i like to thank steve hayward who i taught with in a history of government class in ohio, steve, who works, of course, on environmental issues and energy issues for, ei dabbles in the side on ronald reagan publishes big books about him and figures he gets to talk about on every occasion. we talked about lbj and reagan and you can guess who got who. i'm angling for william harry and reagan. my talk tonight is adapted from my book. it is a little different than the book itself. it's the conservative century revisited. he was not the first person to predict the demise after a republican defeat. it's a standard stroke of politicians to state how a catastrophe at the polls states a requiem on the right. this is taken so seriously that an essay published in the february 18, 2009 edition of the new republic was turned into a book, the death of conservative released to wide acclaim a few months later. it was recognized that in the history of post war american conservativism, defeats contain the seeds of future victory, but something seemed different this time. conservativism lost its roots. it was not a philosophy endowed with insights on civil society and tradition by burke, the founder of american conservatism, rather, they were defending the administration of george w. bush and reckon with scoff laws of glenn beck and what passes for conservatism today would based on not a set of principles, but on a distrust of all ideologies. there's much to admire in that argument. he believes that . . often conservatism politicians act as echo chambers. conservatism was transformed to what was called a counterrevolution consistent on the prewelfare state regime. this perspective dominates thinking on the right today, he contended, but they have not been able to convince the american people of the rolling back of the welfare state. now, let's pause to reflect that this is written during the asession of barak obama and the new republic published it at the down of obama's presidency back when anything seemed possible and bush style conservism was a rejected force in american life. one is reminded who i losely par phrase. liberalism had arrived and two years down the road a shining path looks tarnished and even dull. not only is obama and the liberal congress misread its mandate, but compounded the economic problems facing the country through massive digit beef sits in the health care legislation. they are conservatives today, 42% in one poll. the tea party movement may be responsible for the seat change. beginning in march 2009 the tea partyers caught the obama white house, democratic leaders in congress, and the media by surprise. unable to explain such opposition in any other way, liberals relied on another common stroke, the tea party opposition had to do with race. they opposed obama because he is african-american. why would anyone oppose him for any other reason other than race? it's been the obama white house and not the tea party that is on gaps on race. despite the best efforts of liberal politicians and media to suppress and smear it if the tea party doesn't smear itself first, the tea party endured impacting this year's primary elections and next month's midterm elections in a manner no one could have predicted two years after the historic vote of obama. conservatism stood up again. we have been down this road before, and the only thing surprising about the reawakening of conservatism after political defeat is it still surprises some and pundits. it is a now well-established pattern in the history of the last century. remember when bill clinton's election in 1992 signified the end of ronald reagan? we were in the new other of are -- era of change, don't stop thinking about tomorrow was the refrain. then the overreach in health care and scandal in congress and the promise to the raising middle class taxes and a conservative republican congress was elected in 1994, a result of newt gingrich's tactic. two years later, clinton himself uttered the famous line, the era of big government is over. the resignation of richard nixon in august 1974 showed the ends of the republican party that year. voters elected a class of left liberal democrats to a congress that failed. during the next six years with the exhaustion of what remained of the new deal coalition they challenged policy and proposed policies to counter economic stagnation. conservatives made gains in the 1978 midterm elections k enabling rornld reagan to build on the coalition to win the presidency in 1980. on november 3, 1964 james resten wrote in the "new york times" that barry goldwater not only lost the presidential election yesterday, # but the conservative cause as well. it seemed that way at the time, but conservative organized and changed the focus of their movement away from the extremism that defined politics to that time. liberalism fractured over the great society, vietnam, race riots, and the urban crisis allowing conservative the to make gains two years later. ronald reagan won election as governor of california that same year. certainly no conservative, nixon emerged and was elected president. in each of the cases, conservative declared dead reenmerged in a short period of time. is the pattern occurring again this year? one common feature of the historical examples is that liberalism is its own worst enemy. liberals overreached pouching further on reform and economic redistribution than the american people want. the liberal coalition fractured over other issues developing out of their efforts to reform society, for instance, race, identity politics, antiwar views or abortion. conservatives are not immune on overreaching either. the bush administration failed to craft a coherent strategy in iraq. in its decoration of mission accomplished was the mark of hubris acane to fdr claiming victory in japan day after defeating the japanese fleet. newt gingrich believed he could shut down the government and the merch people would be with him. the social security checks, food stamps, welfare payments, the mail, you name it trumped conservative principals in this case. in they overreach on their agenda has success of organizing against liberalism and dumb luck the standard change of parties by e lock tore yats. it's propped american history alternates between activism and passivity. they are led by modern liberals and conservatives govern in a passive period to return to normalcy. it's a nice theory, but too clever. the cycles remove agency from history. if change is simple, than passive periods when conservative run things leads to activism and establishes a new cycle. history is fixed a little different than your average marxists. it's on behalf of ideas and opposition to liberalism, the same pattern holds true for liberals. while correct to argue that liberal presidents are more active seeing their ideas and objectives in grand ways, it is not honest to suggest that all conservatives are passive in their approach to government, content to eat beans and nap during the afternoon. more importantly for the liberals, activism reflects the ideas of a nation emerging from darkness to light. franklin ruse vet said they have destiny. barak obama said we are the ones we have been waiting for. we are the change we seek. conservatives typically lack grandness in the duties of government because they have a better understanding of the limits of humanity and change. while quoted we have it in our power to start the world over again, it was not used for a great society. it was expressed best that government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. though as things turned out, government grew under reagan's watch. however it is clear from the tea party movement that after two years of economic stimulus, costing taxpayers $3 trillion and stimulating nothing more than an increased unemployment rate in the private sector the change people seek may be the reagan's renewal of government. my argument is that conservatism possesses a character that allows conservatives to shift and alter their movement in holding true to certain beliefs. it is a movement con stamently in flux, constantly in crisis and remaking itself. this is not a weakness of conservatism, but itself strength. it is one of the reasons that the much proffized has not happened. those deserving of the label of conservatism were reactionary. they were uninterested in political organizing. modern liberalism was the dominant political idea in the country. conservatives columbia university professor wrote express themselves only in action or in gestures to change their ideas. that would soon change. if conservatism is prod yum, what features are shared by those who use the label conservative to define their views? conservatives of every variety can agree that the constitutional order of the founding era what has been called ordered liberty is a crucial barometer for america. it is not that conservatives make a feddish of the constitution, but many in power have too often departed from those principles. rather, conservative seek to defend and protect the legacy of american rule and the rule of law. conservatives believe the christian religion and western civilization is crucial to society and politics. here, conservatives even many libertarians accept that most social and economic problems are at base moral problems. conservative have been nationalist and speck call of american power abroad early in the century, but willing to support internationalism when opposed to an ideological enny. finally they uphold the principles of liberty by fighting of the encroachment of state power, supporting the free market system, and protecting individual liberties. this doesn't represent any consistent ideological creed. indeed, few conservatives embrace them all at the same time and these principles all show oh desperate conservatism was and is as a belief system. how do conservatives contend for power if their movement was fractured and contentious concerning their basic principles? how did it move from the reactionary movement in which it began the century to the revolutionary one that ended it? the roots of conservative organizing as many historians have shown lie before the new deal, yet it was during the depression decade when a group of conservatives who george gnash called "scattered voices of protest profoundly pessimist tick about the future of the country." it went into a movement a writer one of the key opponents to fda. the revolution was "like the hag fish, the new deal entered new form and devoured the meaning from within." a government controlled by the people became one that supported the people and so controlled them. sounding like glenn beck speaking about obama without the millions of viewers and listener beck has going for him, garret concluded where the is new deal going? the answer is too obvious to be debated mple every choice made whether it was one that moved recovery or not was a choice true to the design of to totalitarianism government. describing the new deal became a staple criticism for a group of journalists called the old right. he was no means alone. albert j. knock impacted thinking and other founders of the movement as well described fdr election. they distrusted and sustained mass democracy equated with the threat of the revolution with the rise of culture modernism. the new humanist attacked the demise of standards and literature and others sout a return to the soil and federal and statists foe doesed on the rule of the elite. none of these rejected roads in america offered a new deal and failed to impact the shaping of conservatism. the architect who contributed to a brief gothic revival so popular that heches featured on the cover the "time" magazine gave way to the antidemocratic tradition in 1918. it achieved perfect work and reduced mankind to a level of incapacity where great leaders are not wanted or brought into existence while society itself is unable of its own power as a whole to lift itself from its own uniformity. the most essays centric essay argued most didn't deserve the label human. millennium after mill lin yum this basic flood sweeps on and it's the every lasting man, the matrix of the human being, the stuff from which he is made, unquote. all efforts to reform society and to improve the conditions by which men live were fallacious and free of education, democratic government and suffrage and the unlimited opportunities of the civilization have clothed man with the deceptive garments of equality, but underneath he is forever the same. i suggest that the cause of comprehensive failure and the bar to recovery is the persistence of this every lasting man and his assumption of universal control. this perspective is a long way from the tea party and from the pop pew louse conservatives of today. that was the biggest problem. they were like brave care robin. they ran away leaving the political battlefield to liberals alone. the masses couldn't be trusted to defend western civilization, only a remanent of like mind the individuals could do that. this is not a politics of conservatism but of reaction. it was a politics without any hope of ever seriously challenging roosevelt or anyone else threatening constitutional government and ordered liberty. what about political figures on the right down the 20s and 30s? there were certainly plenty of politicians who fit the label conservative and calvin cool lig for one equated well with modern conservatives. robert taft was the best known conservative politician of the era and failed to win the gop presidential nomination three times. other conservative republicans, many former progressive like william and johnson proposed a noninterventionist foreign policy, but they were not laissez faire and believed in high tariffs. the gop was not the most fruitful vehicle for opposition at the time and conservative politicians lack charm and political savvy of fdr. there was no think tapings or other constitutions to craft policy during the depression. organizations like the american liberty league founded by al smat and founded by the dupont family promoted economic freedom that was labeled the wall street model of human liberty. there was scattered tax protests in chicago and women organizing in fifer of the limited government. none of this activism flourished or was it organized. it was happen hazard. it came from within his own party from southern democrats hostile to labor unions and civil rights for african-americans. they could work with figures to oppose fdr and the new deal, southern democrats remained wedded to their party and region well beyond the new deal era. southern racial conservatism was not a fruitful style for organizing a national conservative movement. when the south switched to contism in the 1980s it was not backlash against race, religion, taxes, so played a role in the south. they had no answers for the problems of the gretion great depression or response to the new deal. when similar downturns occurred in later years, the stagflation of the 1970s and the long recession and academics, stiewlts, economists, politicians and pundits offered solutions and policies designed to address economic problems, not then. it would take some time for conservatives to get with the program and craft an alternative to the new deal. this al alternative was a return to limited government and free market economics. an assault athe new deal had to come first. business executives like son oil began to fund and direct an assault developing resources necessary to resurrect the free enterprise system. organizations like the manufactures and the national chamber of commerce played a crucial role in this effort as did economic economists at the university ever chicago including frank knight who challenged the arguments about deficit spending. fdr's use of the federal government purse to secure votes and support for organized labor and a tax on business all had the intended effects making it difficult for business to advance their ideas successfully. it was roosevelt's own missteps, own hubris the supreme court packing plan and executive branch reorganization followed by his cuts to spending in 1938 which brought down the new deal and came to their opponents. many who focused on free enterprise at the time seems that businessmen opposed the new deal. they focus was on activism in groups and individuals like puw. seeing this as the basis for the conservative movements. this links the activists of the 1930s to the antitax and labor of the 50s and of the 1970s. most of these histories ignore the larger corporations which accommodated to the new deal and to liberalism generally. new left critics called this corporate liberalism. what alternative did business have but to fight against the regimen of the economy? there was nothing sinister about business organizing against unions and government. few of the businessmen of this era was the supermen and there was no one among them and they saw plainly that liberalism and encouragement of organizing was not beneficial to their self-interests and to the spirit of free enterprise. only during world war ii did he realize he needed the support of business allowing them to profit from the war effort giving them favorable tax breaks and most importantly helping businessmen recover their loss social capital. this did set the table for conservative revival. business executives helped support the publication and wide distribution of books and founded the journal the freeman and tired activists established organizations like the foundation for economic education in 1947. in 1947 too he helped create a free market salon for economists. by the end of the 40s, conservative intel lek chiewls wanted to move out of the remnant and into the revolution. communism played an important issue in the post war period more more so than businessmen and the communism was the main yiewn fier for the right after world war ii and got over their mass democracy. this broke the old right foreign policy of ice lacism which would have faced communist expansion. those among them proved crucial to the movement by the mid 1950s from the experiences vividly and beautifully described by chambers in witness equipped them with an i want mat understanding of the temptation. liberal politicians defended others and conservatives saw them for what they were and could not trust liberals to prosecutor the cold war. there's huge differences of opinion of course among conservatives on handling the issue in politics. many are different about supporting joseph mccarthy for example, but they supported efforts to support the government age r anded world. the foreign policy embodied best by the america first committee represented a major change in thinking. few of the old isolationists supported america first and experienced no crisis in a shifting ground to defend cold war internationalism. you did not have to be a communist convert to understand the dangers to civilization represented by communism especially after the soviet union acombier qiered the -- acquired the atomic bomb. they learned to like them it became fruitful for the gop winning control of congress in 1946 opposing the extension of government regulatory regimes like the office of price administration, restricting the power of labor unions, and investigating con mew nighs influence in government. .. the combination of continued intellectual development end of act that some proved a potent mix in the eisenhower years. william f. buckley junior was the person who helps recognize the possibilities of unified conservative viewpoint, welcoming conservat