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The American Liberty League is founded to defend conservative values of private property and individual enterprise
Some of these critics joined to form the American Liberty League. Established in 1934, this organization included both industrialists and politicians. The Liberty League sought to teach respect for the rights of individuals and property and to underscore the importance of individual enterprise. All of these values, members claimed, were being undermined by FDR's large government programs. -
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The Conservative Revolution
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• Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the Supreme Court causes conservative backlash in Congress.
Roosevelt alienated many conservative Democrats, in 1937, by his unexpected plan to “pack” the Supreme Court via the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937. Following a sharp recession that hit early in 1938, major strikes all over the country, and Roosevelt's failed efforts to radically reorganize the Supreme Court and federal courts, the GOP gained 75 House seats in 1938. Conservative Democrats, mostly from the South, joined with Republicans led by Senator Robert A. Taft to create the conservat -
• Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected as a moderate Republican
Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower preached a doctrine of dynamic conservatism.[44] He continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and rolled them into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional ten million workers. His cabinet, consisting of several corporate executives and one labor leader, was dubbed by one journalist, "Eight millionaires and a -
• Barry Goldwater runs on a conservative platform and loses to LBJ in a landslide.
Johnson also successfully painted his opponent, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, as a right-wing legislator who wanted to abolish the social welfare programs created in the 1930s (such as Social Security). LBJ advocated more such programs, and after 1965, instituted three: Medicare, Medicaid, and the War on Poverty. -
• The Supreme Court angers social conservatives with its decision to legalize abortion in Roe v. Wade.
The court issued its decision on January 22, 1973, with a 7-to-2 majority vote in favor of Roe. Burger and Douglas' concurring opinion and White's dissenting opinion were issued separately, in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton. The Roe Court deemed abortion a fundamental right under the United States Constitution, thereby subjecting all laws attempting to restrict it to the standard of strict scrutiny. -
• Conservative Republicans sweep the historic 1980 election.
the 1980 election settled the overall contours of the relationship between the two parties. Conservatives formed their party to force the state GOP to the right, to drive liberal Republicans from office, and allow ideologically conservative national Republicans to succeed in the state. By 1980, it had achieved these goals changing the nature of politics in the state. This resolution affected politics beyond the state by diminishing the importance of ideological liberals in the national GOP, thu
