Talk:History of conservatism in the United States

This article should be about the 20th-21st century

The lead of Conservatism in the United States, specifically this sentence: "an organized conservative movement has played a key role in politics only since the 1950s," indicates that starting this article as early as the founding era seems silly. According to that lead, much of conservatism is a reaction to 20th century forces such as communism, socialism, moral relativism, multiculturalism and liberal internationalism. Furthermore, pre-20th century people and ideas that are in this are cherry picked so that they seem more conservative than they are. Much of is it uncited or cited to dubious sources. Can anyone really say that "conservatism," as the term is widely understood today, had any adherents in the colonial, revolutionary, or founding era? I propose we summarize the pre-20th century sections into a short introductory background section and keep the rest of the article about the 20th-21st century. I will implement my own suggestion within the next couple of days if there are no objections. --GHcool (talk) 23:03, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Strong objection here. Conservatism, as all the RS cited here, was a powerful force for over 200 years. Organizational structures esp re national communications like National Review that deliberately brought conservs together were developed much more recently. That is a pretty normal pattern of development. GHCool asks: Can anyone really say that "conservatism," as the term is widely understood today, had any adherents in the colonial, revolutionary, or founding era? well yes, look at the first 100 or so footnotes that cover pre-1945 conservatives. Lots of scholars on the list! Our job as editors is to follow the RS. Rjensen (talk) 06:49, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Note that many if not most conservatives in 20th and 231st centuries argue they are faithfully representing the policies and values of the Founding Fathers who created USA in the late 19th century. For example in the sense of closely following the "original" text of the Constitution.Rjensen (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Rjensen, this is one of your strangest texts yet. We can't predict events of the 231st century, and there were no Founding Fathers in the late 19th century. They had died out by the early 19th century. Dimadick (talk) 11:12, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

indeed--but when I'm less sleepy I write 21st for 231st, and 18th for 19th. Rjensen (talk) 04:05, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

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too long

This article is WAY too long. Unless there are any complaints, I will make the following trims in the coming days:

• The sentence in the lead that begins "Certain continuities can ..."

Bad choice--this is a main theme of entire article Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The sentence in the "Colonial era" section that begins "Aspirations to rise ..."

this is the anti-social mobility theme that died out when Loyalists lost Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The paragraph after the blockquote in the "Colonial era" section.

This is a central topic for scholars of conservatism. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The first paragraph of the "American Revolution" section.

it explains why the dramatic difference from European conservatism. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The sentence in the "American revolution" section that begins "The patriots formed"

this is when republicanism became a core conservative value in USA Rjensen (talk)

• The two sentences beginning with "In New York" and ending with ""old upper class"

Important detail covered by most RS. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The two sentences beginning with "One rich patriot" and ending with "to the king"

that sentence can be dropped in my view. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Y --GHcool (talk) 00:08, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

• The sentence that begins "Intellectually, Federalists, while"

core theme that explains why both new parties had some conservative elements. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The sentence that begins "In foreign affairs"

drop the French Revolution??? it's in all the textbooks and remains a theme in 2017 discussions. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The sentence that begins "Ideologically, the controversy"

another main characteristic. this is history article and people like Hamilton-Washington-Jefferson-Madison remain germane. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• The sentence that begins "The opposition party"
• The sentence that begins "By the 1830s"

better keep the Whigs -- they held the conservative torch. Rjensen (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

More to come. --GHcool (talk) 22:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Not too long -- each section is the right length. Coverage of 250 years is quite condensed as it. These suggestions will gut the intellectual history that is central to American conservatism. Rjensen (talk) 23:43, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Fine, I won't make the changes I suggested above, but was this edit necessary? You reverted legitimate copy editing, images, and simplified headings. --GHcool (talk) 23:45, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• File size: 438 kB
• Prose size (including all HTML code): 126 kB
• References (including all HTML code): 8799 B
• Wiki text: 149 kB
• Prose size (text only): 81 kB (12589 words) "readable prose size"
• References (text only): 1174 B

Per WP:SIZERULE, perhaps it is time to WP:SPINOUT content into a sub-article. Question is, what?

Too many headings

57 headings in the "Contents" box is too difficult to navigate efficiently. I propose combining the information contained under following headings:

• "Conservative empire building" and "Progressive era" under a single heading titled "Progressive era."
• "Russel Kirk" and "Internal disagreements" under a single heading titled "Russel Kirk"

My other ideas for superfluous heading elimination are contained in this edit, but let's start with the above two first. --GHcool (talk) 18:22, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

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• Depression-stock-market-crash-1929.jpg

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This entry is biased

Slave owners were not liberals, nor were they progressive in any way. They were states’ rights conservatives. You can tell that the person who wrote this has a modern political agenda. 2601:242:4080:AC00:B1BA:E034:50A0:2ED3 (talk) 21:04, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree. The section on Southern Conservatism is absurd. Gross omissions of context and deliberately misleading language. They painted less than half a picture for an uneducated audience seeking validation. Ptackley (talk) 23:04, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Primary sources are telling

“ Buckley, William F., Jr., ed. Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? American Conservative Thought in the 20th Century Bobbs-Merrill (1970).

Gregory L. Schneider, ed. Conservatism in America Since 1930: A Reader (2003).

Wolfe, Gregory. Right Minds: A Sourcebook of American Conservative Thought. Regnery (1987).”

These are not historical sources. 2601:242:4080:AC00:B1BA:E034:50A0:2ED3 (talk) 21:06, 27 August 2022 (UTC)