E. J. Dionne: New American right is old

Barack Obama's campaign promise of change was not a pledge to transform American conservatism. But one of his presidency's legacies may be a revolution on the American right, in which older, more secular forms of politics displace religious activism.

Reaction to Obama has also radicalized parts of the conservative movement, giving life to conspiracy theories long buried and strains of thinking similar to those espoused by the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups in the 1950s and '60s.

Conservatism's critics often see it as an undifferentiated mass animated by hostility to "big government," support for social traditionalism, and a deep animosity toward liberalism. But conservatism is a diverse movement with many philosophical threads and tensions.

Successful conservative politicians such as Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush in his first term) kept the peace among economic, social, and big-business conservatives while moderating the movement's public rhetoric. In opposition, conservatives often manage to bury their differences. But conservatism has flown apart when its components have come into conflict or extreme rhetoric has come to the fore.

The tea-party movement is a throwback to a form of libertarianism that sees most of the domestic policies government has undertaken since the New Deal as unconstitutional. It typically perceives the most dangerous threats to freedom as the work of well-educated elitists out of touch with "American values."

The movement's extreme antipathy to the federal government may threaten Republicans in what should be a good year for them. Rep. Joe Barton's apology to BP last week for Obama's alleged "shakedown" was embarrassing precisely because it underscored how far the right's mistrust of the federal government goes. When faced with a choice between supporting a large British corporation or a federal government battling for compensation of the disaster's victims, Barton sided with Big Oil.

Barton later withdrew his apology under pressure from Republican leaders, but many in the party and on the right echoed his views. The Republican Study Committee, made up of more than 115 House conservatives, had already called the BP escrow fund "Chicago-style shakedown politics," while the leader of Tea Party Nation labeled it "extortion."

The language of the new anti-statists, like the language of the 1950s right, regularly harks back to the U.S. Constitution and the founders in calling attention to perceived threats to liberty.