Lee Edwards: Towards A Moderate Conservatism

In Memory of Lee Edwards

Every year, for many years, I knew I would always see him at the demonstration commemorating the June 3, 1989 massacre in Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) Square. Lee Edwards—always slim, more so in recent years, had grown a short beard. He usually came wearing his trademark cachet and spoke briefly. Then we lit candles on Washington Square in front of the “Goddess of Liberty.” This monument is indeed his work, like many others.

Lee Edwards was a journalist, conservative activist, university teacher, and architect of many moderate right-wing initiatives. In a word— and let’s not be afraid of hagiography—he was an institution—a kind, affable, gentle, pleasant, soft-spoken, and well-rounded institution.

Lee Edwards was born in Chicago in 1932. His parents were anti-communists. His father worked for the conservative Chicago Tribune. Its owner and publisher was Colonel Robert R. McCormick, a World War I veteran, an American patriot, a crusher of the Reds, a Republican. It was one of the few U.S. newspapers to consistently publicize Communist crimes, including writing about the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine, a subject that was virtually nonexistent in the American media—unless you wanted to deny it, which The New York Times routinely did (the leftist establishment honored the paper’s notoriously weepy correspondent, Walter Duranty, with a Pulitzer Prize).

While Lee Edwards never received that award, he should have. He deserved it his whole life. He was always involved in journalism: media and public communication, literature, and history were his great passions. It began at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature. He wrote his doctoral dissertation in political science and international relations at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

How did he become an anti-communist? As he told me, after graduating from college, he found himself carefree in France, smoking a pipe, walking around in a black turtleneck, enjoying bohemia, poetry, and intellectual unrest. It wasn’t long before Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary in 1956, and he was shocked not only by the carnage but also by the French left’s apologetics for Moscow. Later, in 1968, he experienced a similar climate when the Red Army invaded Czechoslovakia with its Warsaw Pact stooges. These great injustices shaped his anti-communism.

Back in 1960, he became one of the first members of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), an organization founded by Bill Buckley, the famous editor-in-chief of the conservative National Review. Buckley saw the need to create a platform for young conservatives and libertarians to work together. Lee was present at the birth of YAF and always supported it. In 1964, he was active in Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. Goldwater lost, but he galvanized the conservative movement. Lee fought on, advising presidents (Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan), senators (Strom Thurmond and Bob Dole), and a host of minor figures. He also served for a time as president of the conservative Philadelphia Society, founded by famed philosopher Russell Kirk.

Lee fought for freedom primarily with his pen. He edited mostly right-wing titles, including World & I and Conservative Digest. He was a frequent contributor to conservative magazines such as Reader’s Digest, Crisis, Policy Review, and National Review. His articles have also appeared in newspapers of varying ideological profiles, from left to right, including The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Detroit News, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe, among others. His radio and television appearances were similarly marked by his willingness to make his mark in a variety of ideological climates ranging from the left-wing National Public Radio (NPR) and the liberal Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to the populist Fox News. He presented his views in 20 countries, where he talked about American conservatism and human rights. It’s an art to break through like that with conservative views, but it was possible because Lee was very moderate.

He was the author of several thousand articles, introductions and notes, and more than a dozen books, including a biography of Ronald Reagan and the history of the conservative Heritage Foundation. There, he served as the Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. The Heritage Foundation was his main fort.

At the same time, he was always active in academia. He taught at Georgetown University, where he founded the Institute on Political Journalism, which he headed. He spent some time as a fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California. He was an adjunct professor at Catholic University.

He has been associated with our school since its inception in 1990. He taught media studies at The Institute of World Politics (IWP). For years, the Victims of Communism (VOC) Foundation, which Lee co-founded with Zbigniew Brzezinski and others, was also anchored at our school.

The VOC was authorized by an act of Congress in 1993. It was to be a joint effort of all anti-communists and people of goodwill. The initial goal was to establish a museum in Washington to commemorate communist crimes, which took a long time to come to fruition. Congress was paralyzed (as was American culture at the time) by the so-called “end of history.” Francis Fukuyama’s thesis was that the permanent victory of liberal democracy and capitalism has been won, so there is nothing to worry about—just to enjoy the “end of the Cold War” or the “victory over communism” forever, and rest on the “national security siesta.” Since there is no longer a threat, there is nothing to fear.

This was the climate that delayed the museum’s creation for years, as interest in commemorating the victims of communism quickly disappeared. Who remembers the post-Communist slogan “Let’s choose the future”? It worked in the USA, too. It induced collective amnesia to forget the crimes of communism. It worked for most. Lee Edwards, however, remained faithful to the cause, faithful to the point of—as it seemed to many outside observers—donkishness. The prospects have now improved due to post-communist Russian aggression and the Chinese threat. The VOC has decent quarters. It’s expanding, and it even has a Polish program and fellowship system so people working on anti-communist issues in Poland can come to Washington to do research and present their findings to American colleagues. Lee Edwards was right.

Since 1999, VOC has been awarding the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom annually. Lee came up with this name because it unites anti-communist Democrats and Republicans. The most prominent (or at least best known in the West) in the fight against communism have received this award, including Cardinal Joseph Zen of China, Joachim Gauck of Germany, Yleem Poblete of Cuba, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, Pastor Nguyễn Văn Lý of Vietnam, Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania, Sandra Kalniete of Latvia, Tunne Kelam of Estonia, Natan Sharansky of Israel, and Paul Goble, General Ed Rowny, Professor Richard Pipes from the U.S.

Now, a Polish anecdote: Once upon a time, Lee decided that the medal should go to Lech Walesa. I understand that it is an international symbol of “Solidarity” because that is how it came out in the West. In Poland, this symbol was no longer the case. I suggested to Lee that the same decoration should go to Anna Walentynowicz. In fact, she received it in 2005, then John Paul II, and collectively “Solidarity.” Mrs. Anna even came to visit us at the school and was surprised to find that we had the same address as the VOC, and fate coalesced. Now, the VOC has acquired its own building, but it continues other connections to IWP. At Lee’s invitation, I have had the honor of serving on the Foundation’s academic board.

Lee Edwards is a legend of moderate American conservatism. I emphasize “moderate” because that is his hallmark in both his private and public life. Even now, with the great political polarization in America, Lee insisted on bipartisanship. I have already mentioned the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom. Now another example.

Recently, the Victims of Communism Foundation, which Lee headed, took action against the Chinese Communists for persecuting Han dissidents, Hong Kong students, and national minorities (Uyghurs and Tibetans). Many Republicans wanted to remain in their own company of hardline anti-communists. Some conservatives even wanted to appropriate China’s anti-Red offensive. They pointed out the similarity between the Leninist-Maoists in Beijing and the American left. They wanted to exclude everyone, including the Communists’ liberal allies, the Democrats.

Lee strongly disagreed. For a campaign to be effective, a wide range of personalities must be involved. He even invited a leading Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, to participate in the anti-Bejing brawl. Conservative youth and many elders were outraged. They grumbled that excluding the likes of Pelosi legitimized them as human rights warriors and anti-communists, while they themselves had more in common ideologically with communism than we liked. As the old Cold War American joke goes: “Communists are liberals in a hurry.” That is, the Reds are the same as the Pinkos, only more radical and voracious in achieving their goals.

This is true to some extent, but I explained that Lee Edwards’ approach is effective, not only because our anti-communist crusade with Pelosi will break through more easily in the liberal media, but also because when liberals join us, they become enamored with our anti-communism. They lose credibility with leftists, who condemn and sneer at them. This is not a permanent condition, for liberals will soon dance again as the revolutionary extremists tell them to. It seems that Lee’s ad hoc moderate approach has worked because liberals are being encouraged to do good in at least one limited area, and in this case to weed our anti-communist garden.

Lee and I knew each other professionally for over 20 years, and privately for even longer. He had a weakness for me, although temperamentally we are not very similar. He—moderate, I—not at all, but we had more in common than otherwise, even in private matters.

First, as a very young man, Lee was a roommate of my excellent and irreverent friend and mentor, Bishop Herb Romerstein. In the U.S., Herb was one of the greatest hunters of Communist spies and agents of influence. He always teased that Lee was nice and soft. Significantly, Herb and Lee once went on a double date together, I think in 1958. The girl Lee brought along became Herb’s wife, Pat Romerstein. Whenever I see Lee, I always imagine him with Herb and it becomes more pleasant.

Second, as a teenager, I started hanging out in conservative American circles. First in California, at the Hoover Institution, where the brains of the anti-communist movement were, including Robert Conquest. Of course, Lee knew everybody. And then, in New York and Chicago, I sought out conservatives in the same way. When I mention a person I knew or whose work I read (or both), Lee Edwards always has an anecdote. In the conservative movement, he simply knew virtually everyone.

In 2017, for example, we celebrated the centennial of the birth of the father of modern American conservatism, Russell Kirk. We organized a panel discussion at our university. My favorite, Mrs. Annette Kirk, came to join us. Also present was her son-in-law and my colleague, Jeff Nelson, vice head of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Mrs. Kirk has known IWP for a long time; one of her daughters was a student of ours. Annette and I have known each other for almost 30 years. It started with these right-wing kids who were friends of mine at Hamilton College in the early 1990s. They invited Russell Kirk to give a lecture, which was his last public appearance before he died. Mrs. Kirk sometimes jokes that I killed her husband because he went to Hamilton College despite his critical condition.

Then there were visits to her estate in Mecosta, Michigan, when I was at the University of Chicago Law School, and a member of the Ancient and Honourable Edmund Burke Society. I even once dragged my friend Darek Grzybek to visit her, who later helped translate and publish one of Dr. Kirk’s books in Poland. Our relationship with Mrs. Kirk remains cordial.

I was so happy to see her that I made plans for dinner after the official part and asked Lee Edwards to accompany us. Lee, of course, was on good terms with Annette. And he told me: “Marek, I’m making a big exception. I promised my wife that I would always come home for dinner, because it’s happened very often in my life that I couldn’t be at home.” At the table, Lee and Annette reminisced.

The following story popped into my head. Lee and his wife and young daughters, along with Mr. and Mrs. Kirk and someone else, went to dinner at a certain restaurant in Washington. Naturally, everyone—especially the fiery Mrs. Kirk—started talking politics. Mr. and Mrs. Edwards’ little girls became impossibly bored. They were taken care of by Dr. Kirk, who began to talk to them, telling them various stories. He treated them with the utmost seriousness. The girls really listened. That’s the way Dr. Kirk was, very cordial and warm. At home, too. He could comb his daughters’ hair for hours.

The second anecdote tonight is for adults. Once upon a time, Bill Buckley, editor-in-chief of National Review, came to Mecosta. He wanted to convince Dr. Kirk to write for him. The men went to a bar and had a good time until the wee hours of the morning. Dr. Kirk helped Buckley back to his room, where he fell unconscious. In the morning, Bill Buckley got up, went out in search of a hangover extinguisher, and almost collided in the doorway with Dr. Kirk, who was coming out of his office where he had just finished a serious scientific paper. Lee commented: “he loved children and had a strong head.” Such a small, intimate, sympathetic observation. That’s who Lee was.

We didn’t see each other again until the ceremony under the “Goddess of Freedom” when COVID-19 caused the meeting to take place virtually. But he was there. And he was there to the end.

A Brief History of American Conservatism

The story we are putting in your hands is largely a personal part of Lee Edwards’ story. He was a soldier in the conservative, anti-communist movement. He eventually became its historian. At the time he wrote his book, it actually seemed that conservatism would triumph in America. But God’s judgments are inscrutable. Let’s look at the context in which the conservative movement operates to better understand the author’s meaning.

As I wrote in my monograph, On Right and Left, at the moment, the United States of America is increasingly associated with aberrations of political correctness. But not only that. Many people still see the U.S. as a country of extensive personal freedom, modernity, prosperity, dynamic economic development, and great military power. America’s greatness is based primarily on the achievements of the American conservative tradition.

American conservatism stems from English culture and tradition and consequently from Western Civilization. Historically, it can be divided into the following periods: elite (1776–1828); and mass democracy (1828–2020). From 1776 to the present, five generations of conservatives have been active on the American political scene, taking part in all the disputes and controversies of their time.

From the point of view of conservative orientation, the first period, the elite period in U.S. history, was characterized by the struggle against two opponents: the external enemy, England, for the country’s independence; and against internal opponents, the left or “liberals,” over how the country should be run (1776–1828). The second period of mass democracy can be divided into four phases: the social, political, and economic unification of the country in the context of the debate over slavery (1828–1865); the industrialization of the country and the imperial expansion of the U.S. (1865–1933); the progressive domination of the state in the lives of its citizens, the revolution of customs, and the defense of the state in the context of the hot war against nationalism and the Cold War against international socialism (1933–1991); and dealing with the consequences of these conflicts, including the challenge of terrorism and Islamism (1991–present).

Anglo-American conservative thought derives primarily from Edmund Burke. Some of America’s so-called “Founding Fathers,” particularly John Adams (1735–1826), Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804), James Madison (1751–1836), John Jay (1745–1829), and George Washington (1732–1799), shared similar beliefs with Edmund Burke. This was the first generation of conservatives, whose activities were in the elite period of the country’s history.

Thanks to them, the so-called “American Revolution” did not become a social revolution. “Revolution” is an inaccurate name for what happened in America. This is because the wealthy people, accustomed to their rights and self-government as Englishmen, revolted, and these principles were violated in a revolutionary way by the English king. In order to preserve the continuity of laws and institutions, the revolutionary royal changes had to be resisted—first evolutionarily, and then, since there was no way out, defensively. So we simply had to deal with the War of Independence of the colonies, fought by the propertied class (men of property), and combined with a crackdown on loyalists.

Thus, rather than a revolution, the American developments resembled an ancient Polish concept of a righteous rebellion (konfederacja— confederacy) combined with a national liberation struggle. The Americans claimed that their protest, which morphed into the War for Independence, was legal because the English parliament violated their ancient privileges. Namely, it imposed new taxes on them without their knowledge and consent. One should not be surprised that a legalist and traditionalist such as Edmund Burke supported them, though he could not have embraced a centralizing drive across the Atlantic which, favored inter alia by Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Party, aimed at the supremacy of the federal government over state legislatures.

The U.S. Constitution, penned by the Founding Fathers, is a fairly conservative creation. For example, because of property restrictions, there was no direct election of the president until 1828. Senators were indirectly elected until 1913. To this day, in congruence with the aristocratic idea, the Supreme Court is an unelected, indissoluble, and strictly elite body, whose decisions directly impact the social and political character of the United States.

After the final victory of the Americans in the War of Independence and the establishment of the American system of government, an era of unrestricted direct mass democracy followed. The first periods of this mass democracy were dominated by the antagonism between North and South over the issue of slavery. An important role in the second generation of American conservatives was played by John Quincy Adams (1767–1849), the Northern opponent of slavery, and John Calhoun (1782–1850), the Southern defender of the aristocracy and the right of the states to decide their own affairs, even against the federal government. Both Adams and Calhoun borrowed arguments from Burke, although Calhoun also drew on the ideas of Count Joseph de Maistre.

As a result of the War Between the States (1861–1865), the Southern agrarian elite (similar to the Polish landed gentry) was replaced by a Northern industrial elite adhering to laissez-faire principles. At the same time, the U.S. began to seek an outlet for its energies through a dynamic policy of foreign and domestic expansion (“Go West, young man!”, Manifest Destiny). The watchwords of the new elites were “rugged individualism” and “free enterprise.” These two attitudes, combined with imperialism, manifested themselves in the policies of the Republican Party.

There are several noteworthy thinkers among the third generation of American conservatives who challenged the prevailing laissez-faire attitude and returned to Burke and the Founding Fathers: the poet, diplomat, and critic of morally bankrupt mass society, James Russell Lowell (1819–1891); the defender of natural aristocracy and opponent of direct democracy, Henry Adams (1838–1919); the singer of Protestant individualism, Irving Babbitt (1865–1933); and the tolerant defender of religion, George Santayana (1863–1952). It is also appropriate to mention another, less moderate defender of the place of religion in modern society—T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Although he was born in the United States, became a British subject, and lived in England, Eliot took an active part in intellectual debates overseas and exerted considerable influence on American conservatives.

A fourth generation of American conservatives began to crystallize in the late 1940s and early 1950s in reaction to the leftist excesses of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Democratic Party and the threat of communism and the Soviet Union. In the sixties and seventies, the far left carried out a cultural revolution, in the context of the Vietnam War, and presently continues its creeping progress, sometimes accelerating by leaps and bounds. This cultural revolution further fortified the resolve of the conservatives to protect America and its heritage.

Thus, the “Reagan Revolution” erupted. Its intellectual manifesto was the so-called “Portland Declaration” of 1981.

Ronald Reagan’s election victory in 1981 was the fruit of more than three decades of work. In the beginning, there was an environment of older-generation conservatives, the so-called Old Right, or anti-New Dealers (it is to them that today’s paleo-conservatives refer), who preserved tradition, but whose dogmatism prevented them from developing strategies and tactics in line with the spirit of the times. They were unable to adorn things dear to them in robes harmonized with reality; they didn’t know what compromise was. They were surrounded by groups of intelligent and dynamic young people.

They subscribed to three intellectual currents: Burkean “traditionalism, classical liberalism, and anti-communism.”

The most brilliant of these was undoubtedly Russell Kirk (1918–1994). Kirk’s doctoral dissertation, “The Conservative Mind,” published in book form in 1953, was a landmark work, not only for its author’s erudition and mastery of the subject, but especially for its style. Kirk wrote with a balanced style, writing for the unconvinced, encouraging them to take an interest in their true roots and to examine their intellectual views in depth. He wanted readers to come to their own realization that the source of goodness, and therefore what every decent person should strive for, lay not in the leftist innovations of the Progressives, but in tradition and religion. Kirk himself was religiously indifferent in his youth, admired the Stoics, but converted to Catholicism as a result of such thoughts (and his wife Annette!).

In addition to writing thousands of articles and dozens of books, Kirk taught, lectured, and conducted training seminars for young conservatives at his Piety Hill estate in the village of Mecosta, Michigan. The organizational side was (and still is) handled by his wife and “chief of staff” Mrs. Annette Kirk and her daughters.

Another star of the conservative firmament was a columnist, journalist, and for many years editor-in-chief of the now legendary biweekly National Review—the enfant terrible William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925–2008). Bill Buckley developed a simple formula for the magazine’s success. Its pages are open to all branches of the right, except the extremists. This was not about some conjunctural ideological stunt, but Buckley understood that in order for conservatives, as well as the Right as a whole, to fight honestly for the Good, the Right must not accept evil in its ranks, in any form (e.g. in the form of racism).

Buckley understood that speaking from unambiguously moral positions gave conservatives a great advantage over the left, which is why, for example, he rejected the possibility of contact with the racist Ku Klux Klan. For conservatives, views matter, not ethnicity or race.

First came the conflict with the uncompromising libertarian Murray N. Rothbard. Rothbard hated government power. That’s why he claimed there was no difference between the Soviet and American governments. Such an anarcho-capitalist position could not be accepted by National Review for moral and practical reasons.

After a while, Buckley also broke off relations with the ultra-libertarian group Objectivists, led by Alice Rosenbaum, a.k.a. Ayn Rand (1905–1982). The ideology of this group was extremely anti-religious, materialistic, and socially Darwinist, extolling extreme individualism, or rather selfishness, while at the same time radically condemning vulnerable people (e.g., the unemployed, the sick). A “Randian” man has no obligations to the society from which he comes.

Conservatives, however, reject such proposals. Not only do they emphasize co-responsibility and national solidarity, but they also recognize the important role of religion in social life and therefore do not believe that the weaker person should be left to fend for himself in times of need. That would be unchristian.

For similar reasons, unable to reconcile his militant atheism with the open reverence for religion constantly expressed in National Review, ardent free-market advocate Max Eastman (1883–1969) quit his collaboration with Buckley. The latter stated that he had always worked and would continue to work with people who did not believe in God but treated it as a personal, private matter. However, Buckley could not work with people who hate God and spread that hatred publicly.

Buckley also parted ways with the anti-Communist, semi-secret John Birch Society, founded in honor of the first American officer to die fighting the (Chinese) Communists. The conflict arose because the leadership of this organization in the 1950s came to believe that the Communists’ extraordinary international successes were possible only because of a large Soviet agent network inside the United States. This network was said to extend throughout the U.S. government and media. It even alleged that President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the editors of National Review were part of this network. We emphasize that Buckley’s conservatives did not condemn the anti-Communism of the John Birch Society, but only distanced themselves from the paranoia of the organization’s leadership, which paralyzed all practical activity.

However, in addition to the cases described above, the conservative milieu around National Review adheres to the principle that there is no enemy on the right (pas d’ennemi à droite).

The conservative movement supports the intellect of libertarians. Most prominent among them are the monetarist Milton Friedman and the neoliberal Friedrich von Hayek, both Nobel laureates, champions of the “Chicago School,” and ardent defenders of the free market as the guarantor of personal freedom. Ludwig von Mises was also among them.

In addition to Kirk and Buckley, the intellectual giants of American conservatism include the likes of sociologist Charles Murray, ruthless in his defense of the family; monarchist and tireless defender of the truth about the common roots of national and international socialism Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn; philosopher Robert Nisbet, who reconciled classical liberalism with conservatism; philosopher Eric Voeglin, who sees the origins of the left in gnosis; theologian Gerhart Niemeyer; and political scientist and defender of tradition Leo Strauss. Then there are the incomparable Sovietologists: British Robert Conquest (1917–2015), as well as Richard Pipes (1923–2018) and Adam Ulam (1922–2000), both of whom were born in Poland and taught at Yale and Harvard. Last, but not least are the classical philosopher Allan Bloom (1930–1992) of the University of Chicago, the only one of the best American universities—a stronghold where the left has not yet completely broken in; and the publicist of the youngest generation and slayer of radicalism in the universities, Dinesh D’Souza.

Among the conservative activists are: the relentless crassness and brilliance of lawyer Phyllis Schlafly (1924–2016), who fights for the good name of women hated by feminists for putting home and raising children above their careers; Florence King (1936–2016), an unparalleled columnist with a sharp pen who, despite her own preference for women, mercilessly scorns those who make a virtue out of their homosexual weaknesses to make political capital; and Jean Kirkpatrick (1926–2006), a consummate expert on international affairs.

Jewish conservatism is represented, among others, by the philosopher Will Herzberg (1901–1977), who was the first to point out the points of contact between Judaism and modern conservatism. From his school come, directly or indirectly, Jewish neoconservatives such as the columnist Irving Kristol (1920–2009); his wife, the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb (1922–2019); the journalist Midge Decter; the Georgetown law professor and staunch defender of religion Rabbi Barry Freundel; and the international affairs specialists Norman Podhoretz and Joshua Muravchik.

This is the neoconservative school. Alongside them are Catholics like the philosopher and journalist Michael Novak (1933–2017), the Lutheran convert Father John Neuhaus (1936–2009), and the thinker George Weigel.

Most neoconservatives trace their lineage to the revolutionary and liberal left. They moved to the camp of the Right when they realized the threat the Left posed to their world, whether by radically undermining society from within or by attacking the United States and its allies (and especially Israel) from without.

Friedman, von Mises, Pipes, Ulam, and Bloom were also of Jewish descent. However, their specialization is broader and more universal than just presenting issues primarily from the perspective of the Jewish community, which is what the neoconservatives primarily do. There are also many other conservatives, Christian or Jewish, who simply cannot be listed here, but whose contributions to conservative thought should not be ignored.

Paleo-conservatives (paleoconservatives) stand in opposition to mainstream conservatism, especially neoconservatism. It is an intransigent conservatism. Its main proponents are Joseph Sobran (1946–2010), Samuel Francis (1947–2005), Thomas Fleming, Paul Gottfried, and Pat Buchanan. They were inspired, among others, by the British thinkers and publicists (and great friends of Poland) G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936), Hillaire Belloc (1870–1953), and Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966), as well as the so-called “southern agrarian” Richard Weaver (1910–1963). They are proponents of neo-isolationism, economic protectionism, “third way” (distributism), and conservative populism. Its main organs are The American Conservative and Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, a magazine long run by Polish-born Leopold Tyrmand (1920–1985).

So much for personnel. Now about the structures. In the beginning, after World War II, conservatives had trouble getting their ideas published. The first to help them was the now-legendary Chicago publisher Henry Regnery (1912–1996), founder of Regnery Gateway. Other publishers followed, including Arlington House, Birch Lane, and Liberty Lane. Gradually, conservatives also began to be published by politically independent publishers. Simply put, the activities of conservatives created an interest in right-wing thought, which created a demand for it, which created a market.

Various businessmen and industrialists sympathetic to the conservative community provided the necessary funds to establish conservative lobbies in the U.S. Congress. Information for these groups was gathered by various privately funded conservative, academic institutes (think tanks). In addition to the aforementioned “Chicago School,” these include the conservative Heritage Foundation, the libertarian Cato Institute, the conservative Hoover Institution, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an intellectual incubator for young conservatives, and the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute.

The conservative movement is not a monolith, but rather a confederation of people on the right with diverse, often conflicting views. In practice, the dominant approach is as follows: a presentation of positions in which each conservative tries to convince the others of the validity of his or her views; then the most appropriate proposal is modified by working out a compromise in the environment that does not undermine the principles; then pressure is exerted on members of Congress through media action and behind-the-scenes action by interest groups or directly by voters. Knowing that they will be held accountable to their constituents, they will propose legislative solutions that will please conservative voters.

In their practical efforts, conservatives often rely on grassroots voter initiatives. On the right, voter organizations composed of actively-evangelizing Christians have been particularly successful in recent years. One of the most influential is the Moral Majority of fundamentalist pastor Jerry Falwell. Their almost fanatical dedication to the cause, along with their pragmatic use of the latest advances in telecommunications and information technology, make them—and other similar grassroots initiatives—very valuable volunteers. For example, it was voters affiliated with Christian grassroots initiatives who were the main force in the army of volunteers working in support of Virginia state senatorial candidate, the uncompromising anti-leftist Oliver North.

During the campaign, there is a practical unification of conservative elites with local activists and voters themselves. Conservatives are not afraid of accusations of populism. On the contrary, it is only through populism— directly addressing and mobilizing potential voters—that one can win in a democratic system. Conservatives do not shy away from populism, or as Kirk called it “national conservatism” (popular conservatism), for they are not ashamed of their ability to understand and identify with what the average citizen feels.

Conservatives are fighting for “common sense” to prevail, which is simply a non-intellectualized and rational approach to life. This approach, after all, is based on everyday human experience, and it can be held by anybody: a black man, a farmer, a follower of Judaism, an Irishman, a doctor, and a fundamentalist Christian. Most of them draw similar practical conclusions from their experiences (e.g., about the need to protect taxpaying citizens from banditry). However, some of the voters are unable to verbalize the conclusions they draw from their experiences eloquently. On the other hand, they feel that these experiences indicate that certain social problems can be dealt with in an uncomplicated manner.

Simply put, ordinary people understand that problems should be solved “in one’s own way,” and not according to elaborate theories prepared in the laboratories of progress by the epigones of the left. The task of the conservative elite, on the other hand, is to incorporate the aspirations of ordinary people into the traditional value system, translate them into elegant intellectual language, and convey them to politicians. Politicians must give these aspirations a legal form in a pragmatic package. The final product, in the form of a congressional bill, in turn, has a direct impact on the lives of ordinary people. If they don’t like the end result, they will change it sooner or later.

Although, as we have already mentioned, the contemporary conservative milieu in the U.S. is not homogeneous, it does agree on several basic issues.

In foreign policy, conservatives believe that the United States should have a strong military to ensure national security by actively supporting America’s foreign allies. Prior to 1989, conservatives advocated the liberation of Soviet satellites and active support for anti-communist opposition or insurgent movements (e.g., Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Poland). They have always and everywhere fought against the influence of international communism in all its forms. They have been critical and even reluctant toward the United Nations.

Today, conservatives are lukewarm supporters of intervention in times of external aggression (e.g., the first Iraq war to restore the status quo; the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in retaliation for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001); and tend to be reluctant to intervene in the internal affairs of individual countries in conflict (e.g., Somalia, where they were reluctant to support U.S. intervention primarily on humanitarian grounds; and Yugoslavia, where they proposed from the beginning only to arm the Bosnians and Croats so that they would have a level playing field against the Serbs).

In economic policy, conservatives favor free trade; minimal government intervention in the economy; a strong dollar; a tax structure that encourages new capital investment; and preferential treatment for small and medium-sized businesses, which are the main drivers of the economy.

In social policy, conservatives value individual human initiative. However, they recognize the need to harmonize individual activity with the healthy development of the family. After all, the family has a cardinal influence on the formation of children, i.e. future citizens. Children raised in normal families, i.e. traditional families (a father and mother, together), are not only better off economically but also tend to have better academic performance and fewer mental problems than their less fortunate peers from broken or so-called “alternative families” (e.g. homosexual parents).

According to conservatives, normal families are easier to find where strong religious beliefs have been preserved. Therefore, conservatives support various pro-family legislative, private, and ecclesiastical initiatives, such as tax discounts for parents who send their children to Catholic schools, which emphasize the teaching of traditional morality. At the same time, conservatives oppose left-wing initiatives that accelerate the degeneration of the family, such as welfare benefits that encourage single motherhood.

In administrative policy, conservatives oppose government bureaucracy at all levels, especially at the federal (central) level. This is because they believe that the vitality of a local community comes from the individual activity of one person, supported by his or her family. After all, the average citizen and his neighbors are convinced that local issues are better resolved locally than from a distant center of power. Therefore, conservatives support all local initiatives, such as encouraging private and church charitable activities.

These are still the main tenets of the Conservatives, which they tried to implement in 1982–1988 and, to a lesser extent, thereafter.

The Reagan (Counter-) Revolution basically remained unfinished. This is because, in reality, it only succeeded in delaying the march of the leftists. However, as the cyclical electoral victories of the right and the pogrom of the “progressives” show, a principled and prudent conservative policy has its supporters and can bear positive fruit later in this century. It can benefit the USA above all, but also the rest of the world, including, of course, Poland (provided that it is not governed by the left).

And that is, pretty much, what Lee Edwards devoted his life to propagate and fight for. RIP.

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz