The New Right

Objective:

• Students will identify causes for the Reagan Revolution of 1980 in the New Conservative Movement of the late 70s.

I. The New Right

• The New Right– By the early seventies, a “New Right”

Movement emerged– This movement attempted to elect officials

that espoused both fiscally and socially conservative values

• Neoconservatism• “Traditional” Conservatism

I. The New Right

• Neoconservatism– Promotes interventionism in other countries – Accepts a limited, reduced Welfare State– Often in favor of socially conservative

initiatives• Prayer in schools• Pro-Life Movement• Legal Promotion of Traditional Gender Roles

I. The New Right

• “Traditional” Conservatism– Emphatic support of Free Market Principles– Decentralized Government – Lowering Debt– Often in favor of the same socially

conservative initiatives

I. The New Right

• Jesse Helms– Prominent Leader in the New Right– Neoconservative in most respects

• (1974) Opposed Busing• (1974) Introduced legislation to ban abortion in all

cases

II. Resurgence

• Defense of traditional gender roles– Phyllis Schlafly, the Positive Woman and the

STOP ERA Campaign– Opposition to Roe v. Wade (1973)

• Hyde Amendment (1976) • National Right to Life Committee

II. Resurgence

• Evangelicalism – Billy Graham, How to be Born Again (1977)– Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority (1979)

• “Pro-Family, Pro-Life, Pro-Defense, Pro-Israel”

– Pat Robertson

III. Conservative Victory

III. Conservative Victory

• The “Reagan Revolution”– Moral Majority credited with much of Reagan’s

electoral success– Carter’s perceived weaknesses (Iran Hostage

Crisis, especially) also helped Reagan to a landslide victory.