Conservatives have placed freedom at the heart of their political program since the 1930s. They have resisted the encroaching control of centralized bureaucracies by appealing to the dignity of human life, the limited government of the Constitution, and the space that market economics provides for individual choice and competition.
This consensus held despite criticism from libertarians and traditionalists. It held because the principles and institutions of the American Founding anchored conservatives in a national history and culture that, among other things, have long been individualistic and suspicious of authority. It held because conservatives of all stripes perceived a common danger in unconstrained government and, perhaps most important, in the Soviet Union and global communism.
The consensus unraveled in the 1990s. Victory defeated American conservatism. The collapse of the Soviet Empire, disintegration of the Soviet Union, and China’s turn toward state capitalism removed, or obscured, the communist threat. Congress lowered marginal tax rates and exempted more Americans from income taxes. Lawmakers imposed time limits and work requirements on welfare, and caseloads fell. Cities adopted broken-windows policing and removed violent criminals from the streets, and crime declined. For a moment in 2001, and again from 2003 to 2007, Republicans enjoyed full control of the federal government for the first time in 50 years.