University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The Self-Confirming Coalition: Ultraconservatives’ Guiding Hand on the Modern American Conservative Movement

Gimbel, Christopher T.

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GIMBEL_UNDERGRADUATETHESIS.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124922

Description

Title
The Self-Confirming Coalition: Ultraconservatives’ Guiding Hand on the Modern American Conservative Movement
Author(s)
Gimbel, Christopher T.
Issue Date
2024-10-17
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
  • Barrett, Marsha
  • Beck, Dave
Department of Study
History
Discipline
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
B.A. (bachelor's)
Degree Level
Thesis
Date of Ingest
2024-10-18T16:07:21-05:00
Keyword(s)
  • American Politics
  • Far-Right
  • Ultraconservatism
Language
eng
Abstract
In the scholarly discussion of the post-New Deal American conservative movement, there has been insubstantial research on how extremist groups influenced the ideas and strategies which grassroots right-wing activists utilized. To add to this, American conservatism as an intellectual movement has been, until recently, overlooked or underestimated by political scholars, so an updated and in-depth analysis of conservative ideation is necessary. This essay hopes to engage in the growing but still novel reanalysis of American conservatism’s intellectual history, arguing that extreme conservatism has not been properly explored as a movement and that new research insights are necessary to reanalyze and reinterpret historical and modern American politics. It will focus on the ideas and actions of far-right actors and how they influenced the activism of the larger conservative movement. A secondary theme will be an explanation of far-right members’ countermovement to what they believed to be totalitarian and leftist social programs established by the Democrats and moderate Republicans of the New Deal coalition. Chapter One summarizes the insights and ideas of American conservative authors who have engaged in this topic while also defining and explaining the political terms which will be used. Chapter Two provides explanations of the common beliefs in the American conservative movement and the methods by which extremists introduced their ideas to this mainstream culture. Chapter Three provides the backgrounds, ideas, and rhetoric of conservative periodicals and ideologically extreme organizations as well as how the narratives of the latter influenced the larger conservative movement. Finally, Chapter Four analyzes how certain radical conservative activists impacted modern understandings of politics and the means by which these activists became successful in their missions.
Type of Resource
text
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2024 Christopher T. Gimbel

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Undergraduate Theses at Illinois PRIMARY