Conservatives Without Conscience

Schlafly did not just organize women, but also persuaded businesses (like the insurance companies) and various religious groups to join her effort.[32] By 1980 Schlafly had successfully killed the ERA and had given birth to an antifeminist, so-called profamily movement that supported other social conservative causes. Schlafly’s activism evolved way beyond her allegiance to the “Goldwater-Reagan” (her term) school of conservatism (which she sums up as “lower taxes, limited government, fiscal integrity—and American military superiority, because everybody is safer that way”), and provided a corps of trained volunteers whose grassroots efforts have changed conservatism.

Not unlike Pat Buchanan, however, and notwithstanding her authoritarian conservatism, Phyllis Schlafly regularly takes issue with radical Republican proposals relating to domestic policy and foreign affairs. She also attacks the Bush/Cheney big-government policies and fiscal irresponsibility. Importantly, she remains a guardian of civil liberties at a time when other conservative authoritarians have willingly and unquestioningly trusted “the authorities’” claim that only the terrorists need worry. She has tried to correct abuses in the USA Patriot Act, explaining that “the problem that confronts America today is foreign-sponsored terrorism, and we must draw a bright line of different treatment between U.S. citizens and aliens. Our government should monitor the whereabouts of aliens, but not require U.S. citizens to relinquish our freedom”[33] (bold emphasis is in her original). To oppose the extension of the Patriot Act, Schlafly joined with former Republican congressman Bob Barr of Georgia and the ACLU in forming Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances. Schlafly’s example illustrates that authoritarians can be effective leaders without being social dominators.

PAUL WEYRICH

The same cannot be said of Paul Weyrich, whose early work complemented that of Phyllis Schlafly in the development of social conservatism. Both Schlafly and Weyrich were once strident anticommunists, Hoover’s vigilant Americans. They continued the culture war that Agnew and Nixon had started, and their principal contribution was mustering the troops, working from the bottom up.

Weyrich has been described by friendly observers as “the Lenin of social conservatism—a revolutionary with a rare talent for organization,” and while his stature within social conservatism is waning, it remains significant.[34] Weyrich is a master of the art of direct-mail fund-raising and is best known as the “funding father” of modern conservatism. He believed conservatives needed a Washington-based think tank comparable to the once liberal (now moderate) Brookings Institution, so along with a colleague from Capitol Hill, Edwin Feuler, Weyrich established the Heritage Foundation in 1973. Today Heritage is the wealthy granddaddy of conservative think thanks.[35] These organizations have become the marketing arms of contemporary conservatism, providing various factions an imprimatur of scholarship, and none more than social conservatives. Much of their “thinking” supports their particular “authority,” and in this sense they are efficient authoritarian tools. They devote significant resources, and intellectual firepower, to demolishing policies and programs on the liberal agenda.[36]

Barry Goldwater described Weyrich as “a bull-headed, stubborn, son-of-bitch,” and observed that “Weyrich doesn’t really understand how Washington works, but he thinks he does.”[37] In his memoir he worried that Weyrich and other social conservatives were “pushing [their] special social agendas…at the risk of compromising constitutional rights,” an agenda that threatened to splinter Republicans. Weyrich “preached little or no spirit of compromise—[no] political give-and-take.” He “failed to appreciate that politics is the ordinary stuff of daily living, while the spiritual life represents eternal values and goals.” Goldwater added, “Public business—that’s all politics is—is often making the best of a mixed bargain.” Social conservatives, nonetheless, stressed “the politics of absolute moral right and wrong. And, of course, they are convinced of their absolute rightness.”[38] The senator was addressing the second phase of Weyrich’s activism, when the latter helped organize the religious right. In a profile that recognized his authoritarian influence, the Washington Times noted that Weyrich “helped bring [conservatism] structure, discipline and, gradually, dominance” over the Republican Party.[39] Weyrich may be a Double High authoritarian, and his authoritarianism is, at times, brutal.