What was promoted during the social changes in the United States in the 1960s?

Conservative social movements in the United States since 1960

The social movement of conservatism refers to the movement of conservative thinkers out of their ivory towers and into society to expand the influence of conservative ideas socially and politically through the mentoring and establishment of political and religious organizations, interest groups/political action committees, foundations, and think tanks. This social movement is broad in scope, involving economic/fiscal conservatism, social/cultural conservatism, federalism, free will, etc. The most important of these is the social/cultural conservatism movement, which consists of the "New Right" and the "Religious Right" movements. Although the Religious Right is closely related to the New Right, it is more theological than the New Right because its leaders are preachers of various denominations, both Evangelical and Protestant fundamentalist, and both Catholic and Jewish orthodox. In addition, the "New Right" and "Religion.

The New Right was mainly active in the 1970s and 1980s, while the Religious Right was more active in the 1980s and 1990s and in the current 21st century.

Just as the "Old Right" of the 1940s and 1950s was the antithesis of the "Old Left" of the 1930s, the "New Right" of the 1970s and 1980s was the antithesis of the "New Left" of the 1960s." The antagonism between the "Old Right" and the "Old Left" was mainly due to economic problems, while the differences between the "New Right" and the "New Left" were caused by a series of social and cultural problems. The New Right was already in the making in the 1960s, but it only emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, and its impact on society and politics lagged behind that of the New Left.

Beginning with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), an organization founded on campuses in 1962, the New Left launched a series of social movements in the 1960s, such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, the Counterculture Movement, and the Sexual Liberation Movement, whose criticisms of society and the development of these movements prompted a series of history-altering laws passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress, such as the Civil Rights Act and the War Authorization Act. such as the Civil Rights Act and the War Authorization Act; they supported presidential candidates Hubert *Humphrey and George *McGovern who won the Democratic nomination in the two elections of 1968 and 1972 respectively, however, their influence declined after the 1970s. The right-wing student organization Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), founded on campuses in 1960 under the guidance of conservative thinkers such as William F. Buckley, Jr., did not disintegrate until the 1980s; most of the students in the organization came from families that were **** and Party members, and were not impressed by the **** and the Party being tainted by liberalism, which they saw as less "conservative" than the **** and the Party. freedom, tradition, and order that classical liberalism honors; and that the centralized system in Washington is the result of the overdevelopment of Democratic-style liberalism, where the expansion of government functions has made it possible to give freedom to some while taking it away from others, such as the imposition of the new coercive racial integration, affirmative action, etc., in the South. This organization trained many of the cadres for the New Right conservative movement in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the core leaders of the New Right: Richard Viguerie, who was the first executive director of YAF and became an expert on direct mail fundraising for conservative political campaigns; Howard Phillips, a veteran of YAF, founded the Conservative Caucus; and conservative activist Paul Weyrich launched the "Christian Right" conservative movement. conservative movement.

It is generally believed that the "New Right" and the "Religious Right" operate through four types of organizations:

(1) Political Action Committees.

Political action committees (PACs) are political organizations of interest groups that make contributions to candidates running for office, and their activities are mainly fundraising and donations; the purpose is to help help conservatives get into the leadership class, so that they will be sympathetic to conservative ideas, for example, in 1974, Weyrich led the establishment of the "Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress," which was designed to help conservatives get elected to Congress; In 1975, Phillips led the establishment of the Conservative Caucus, which operates mainly at the grass-roots level, with chapters in every congressional district in the country and about 300,000 members; and in 1974, Terry Dolan led the establishment of the National Conservative Political Action Committee and other conservative political action committees, which has become the largest conservative political action committee in the United States.

(ii) Single-issue interest groups.

The National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion, claims 10 million members; the National Right to Work Committee, which advocates the elimination of minimum wage laws, claims 1.5 million donors; the National Taxpayers Union, which opposes high taxes, has 450,000 members and claims to be the nation's oldest and largest taxpayers' organization; and the Gun Owners of America, which opposes gun control, also has 1.86 million members.

(iii) Religious organizations.

Religious conservative groups that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s had a growing influence on politics, starting with Robert Grant's Voice of Christ, founded in 1978; the Religious Roundtable, founded by Edward McAteer and the Reverend James Robinson in 1979; the National Coalition for Christian Action, founded by Robert Billings; and the Moral Majority, founded by Jerry Fowell in 1979. The Moral Majority is the most powerful, with 400,000 members, 60,000 pastors, chapters in every state in the country, and an annual budget of more than $6 million, followed by Pat Robertson's Religious Right; the former claims to have caused the defeat of twelve liberal Democrat legislators in the 1980 elections, and the latter claims credit for the party's regaining the leadership of Congress in 1994. In fact, the Religious Right has grown to 1.7 million members.

Since 1992, it has become a major force within the **** and the party; in some states (such as Alaska and Minnesota), the Religious Right's offshoots, Evangelical Christianity and the Right to Life Movement, have de facto taken control of state **** and party organizations. These more political religious groups have been active in the last three presidential nominating processes of the **** and the Party. Like most interest groups, religious groups have adopted new technologies for their political activities, such as telephone banks, facsimiles, satellite television, electronic bulletins, radio addresses, and direct mail.

The Religious Right, which publishes its ratings of members of Congress on issues every two years, is most concerned with family morality, and therefore opposes any proposals for abortion, same-sex families, etc.

(The Religious Right) is also very active.

(iv) Idea banks and publications.

In 1973, Paul * Weyrich founded the Heritage Foundation, a think tank for the New Right. Before entering the 1980s, the Heritage Foundation seldom transcended the activities of *** and party conservatives, and thus was not very visible, but after the 1980s, with the Reagan presidency, the scope of the Heritage Foundation's activities gradually expanded, and it often researched domestic affairs, foreign affairs, economics, and social issues, and frequently organized Seminars, policy recommendations, especially since the 1990s, the Heritage Foundation's influence on policy is particularly obvious, in 1994, *** and the party's new lawmakers change the norm, do not go to Harvard University to listen to reports on legislation, but go to the Heritage Foundation, which reflects the influence of the new right on the *** and the party. The influence of the Heritage Foundation has been greatly enhanced since George W. Bush Jr. took office, and many of the nominations for the Bush Cabinet were recommended by the Heritage Foundation's talent pool. The main New Right publications include Conservative Digest, a monthly magazine founded by Wiley in 1975, which has become the organ of the New Right. In addition, many organizations of the New Right have their own publications, such as the Heritage Foundation's quarterly Policy Review and Heritage Today. In contrast to the conservative ideological movements of the 1940s and 1950s, the social movements of the New Right and the Religious Right are populist movements of the right, and their impact has been far-reaching and enormous, as evidenced in the following ways:

(a) Their organizations have continued to grow, and the number of self-declared conservatives in American society has grown steadily, to the point where by 1993 it was almost equal to the number of self-declared moderates (40%). . The Religious Right has had a strong influence in the South and Midwest, which have come to be known as the "Bible Belt";

(ii) a growing influence on the **** and the party, with conservatism becoming increasingly dominant in the post-1980s period: people tend to think that the upsurge of the conservative movement in the late 1970s was an important factor in Reagan's rise to power, and that the 1994 midterm elections saw a landslide victory for the party in taking back the Congress. and the party's landslide victory in the 1994 midterm elections to regain control of Congress was also associated with strong support from the "Religious Right".

(3) After the 1980s, the influence on U.S. public ****policy is getting bigger and bigger, for example, the "New Right" uses grassroots organizations to put its policy ideas into practice directly: Phyllis * Schlafly's 50,000-member "Eagle Forum" "succeeded" in getting the "Equal Rights Amendment", which was passed by Congress in 1972, passed in 1972, to be passed by the U.S. Congress on January 1, 1977, by way of testimony in state legislatures, holding rallies, mass petitions, and lobbying, etc.

This is the first time that the "Religious Right" is being used in the United States. Amendment" passed by Congress in 1972 lapsed in 1983; under pressure from numerous organizations of the anti-abortion "New Right" and the "Religious Right", four consecutive times since 1976, the **** and party platforms supported the passage of a constitutional amendment "to restore the protection of the rights of the unborn child" In 1981-1982, the "New Right" also introduced 118 bills in 31 states. The "Human Right to Life Amendment" prohibited abortion for any reason except to save the life of the mother, and banned the use of intrauterine devices because life begins at conception. In the mid-1960s, the Religious Right hoped that the conservative 104th Congress, which was controlled by the **** and Party, would pass a bill banning abortion, but that didn't quite materialize, and they passed the "Compact with America's Families" in 1995 as a way of expressing their dissatisfaction with **** and Party legislators. **and Party legislators .

(iv) The effect on the political perception or public philosophy of all Americans. According to a study by the General Social Survey of the Chicago Center for Public Opinion Research, people's positions on a range of issues have become increasingly conservative since 1974 . In the 1988 election, liberalism became a "dirty word," synonymous with big spending and lack of restraint, and in 1996, even President Clinton, a Democrat, claimed that "the era of big government is over. This shows that the conservative trend has not only become the dominant trend of the **** and the party, but has already had an impact on the policy concepts of the Democratic Party.

Since the end of the Cold War, conservatives have stepped up their efforts to "capture" think tanks and universities in an attempt to keep the conservative social movement in the United States growing and having a greater impact in social politics." A survey by the National Committee for Compassionate Philanthropy found that from 1992 to 1994, 12 major conservative foundations in the United States provided $210 million in grants to research institutes, universities, think tanks, media outlets, and interest groups, with the Heritage Foundation, which advertises itself as a "free-market" foundation, receiving the largest share of the grants, $8.9 million, followed by the American Enterprise Institute, with $6.9 million, the Cato Institute, with $3.9 million, and the Cato Institute, with $3.9 million, and the American Enterprise Institute, with $3.9 million; The Cato Institute, $3.9 million, the Hudson Institute, $3.3 million, and the Manhattan Institute, $2.1 million. Weyrich's Freedom Committee received $5 million William *Kristol's National Interest and Public **** Interest magazines received $1.9 million, The New Criterion, $1.7 million, and Podhoretz's Commentary, $1 million, and an additional $3.2 million went to television programs by William *Buckley, Jr. and Ben *Wattenberg. Of the leading universities, the University of Chicago, a bastion of conservative thought, received the most money, more than $10 million, followed by Harvard, more than $9.6 million, George *Mason University, more than $8 million, and Yale University, more than $5.9 million . These think tanks and universities have had a major impact on U.S. social policy (e.g., welfare reform, affirmative action, Social Security, education reform), economic policy (e.g., balanced budgets, tax cuts, etc.), and foreign/defense policy (e.g., NATO's eastward expansion, the rewriting of the New Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, and the introduction of the NMD) over the course of the decade. Conservatives know exactly what they know: ideas make an impact, and therefore invest even more aggressively in them.