Harvey J. Graff
“The problem of the 21st century is not only with conservatism. Over recent decades and especially in recent years, there is rampant confusion of all political spheres: left, center and right. But widespread loss of basic conservatism stands out. It underwrites the white-supremacist and Christian nationalist transformation of the Republican party since the 1960s and most actively since the 1980s.”
[In this commentary, historian Harvey J. Graff looks at the loss of meaning of what used to be called “conservatism,” and the real-world consequences. –The Editors]
ON APRIL 9, 2025, my day began with these daily news headlines.
First in the Washington Post: “How conservatives are using Columbia as a ‘test case’ to enforce Trump’s agenda: The Ivy League university so far is the only school to see federal funding canceled, but it is hardly the only target of the administration’s push to combat what is sees as leftist ideology and antisemitism in higher education.”
Second, Inside Higher Education blasts: “Conservatives Seize the Moment to Remake Higher Ed: A Heritage Foundation event on Tuesday emphasized the need for reform in higher education. A Department of Education speaker touched on how Trump is forcing change.”
The news in 2025 is bad enough in itself. But in some ways even worse is the gross ahistorical, anti-philosophical, and anti-intellectual equation of Trump’s Department of Justice’s and declining Department of Education’s unrelenting assault on academic freedom, contractual, and visa regulations among other Constitutional and traditional rights as “conservative.” This is not conservative in any accepted meaning of that long-standing concept.
Similarly, to brand the Heritage Foundation and its so-far successful efforts to implement its undermining of education, knowledge, documented history, Constitutional and human rights, and the public at large as “conservative” is completely erroneous — no, ignorant. It is the antithesis of conservatism as historically, philosophically and theoretically understood and practiced for centuries.
A third example is the common habit among the media and many others including both pundits and academics who should know better of designating John Roberts’ (Un)Supreme Court as “conservative.”
The majority led by Alito and Thomas are far from that — far to the right, as decision after decision confirms, from removing century-old limits on political campaign contributions (“Citizens’ United”) to reversing Roe v. Wade on women’s Constitutional rights to abortion, and the cancellation of affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and SFFA v. University of North Carolina. These contradict both Constitutional rights and legal precedents.
With no respect for the documented past, this court alternatively ignores, dismisses, or attempts to rewrite social, cultural, economic and political, as well as legal history. No one can reasonably call it “a conservative court.”
Lost Meanings
In my view as a historian, the all but complete loss of the fundamental meanings of “conservativism” is one major reason for the rise and now triumph of a new radical rightwing ideology and ideologues in the seats of American government and in many state capitols.
The loss of this fundamental meaning among the media as well as many educators and the public at large underlie many of the overarching problems of the 21st century.
As a retired professor of almost fifty years, I continue to see and hear the word “conservative” applied loosely and more and more misleadingly. It is used with reference to today’s radical right-wing ideologues, Trump and MAGA, the Roberts (Un)Supreme Court, rightwing media and much more. It is ubiquitous. It is profoundly misleading. It is inaccurate.
To a significant extent, this includes the news and the opinion pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, local and national newspapers and on the airwaves of major media. But when I search for recognizable forms and expressions of conservatism, I find little to none, either in theory or in practice.
It is long past time to revise popular, media and political confusion about history and ideology.
Donald Trump, the MAGA movement, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute and its Christopher Rufo, and 2025 Project are not conservative. They are radical rightwing ideologues and activists. Their statements, proposals, and actions are directly antithetical to conservatism as we have recognized and understood it at least since the eighteenth century, if not before.
There is a world of difference between these interest and activist groups and what we have long known as the broad American political spectrum. Failing — or refusing — to recognize that distinction not only leads to confusion and misunderstanding. To a significant degree, it is among the reasons for the shattered state of America’s polity, politics and understandings.
Despite differences on many issues and orientations, conservative thought believes in facts. Unlike today’s far- right extremism, traditional conservative philosophy values history and historical documentation including the texts and the contexts of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, major court cases, and much more.
The problem of the 21st century is not only with conservatism. Over recent decades and especially in recent years, there is rampant confusion of all political spheres: left, center and right. But widespread loss of basic conservatism stands out. It underwrites the white-supremacist and Christian nationalist transformation of the Republican party since the 1960s and most actively since the 1980s.
Education Deficit
Analogously and contrary to both the media and the right wing, liberals are not “left.” Nor are many so-called Progressives. Progressivism was a major movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Populists can be right, center or left. They are not synonymous with Christian nationalists or America Firsters in today’s terms.
Overwhelmingly, conservatives are centrists along with genuine liberals. They respect facts, believe in respect for differences, support honest debate, and most importantly, they reject excessive power and control.
Explaining today’s loss of understanding requires several books. It turns on the limits of education on all levels especially about history and the U.S. Constitution — let alone political philosophies; rising conflicts between public and private, secular and religion; collapse of what were called “legacy media;” and the rise of unmoderated social media. Education in “basic civics,” never perfect, is a shadow of its former self.
However contradictorily it may appear on the surface, to a considerable extent, the simultaneous decline and loss of conservatism is inseparable from the rise of what I will call “the new right.” Fundamentally, that complex transformation is rooted in fears that are frequently sparked, inflamed, and manipulated especially by one or more of many notions of “the other” and “the others” — and especially the “unknown.”
The consequences surround us. They challenge us to begin again by learning from our collective histories, and sharing and applying that understanding widely.
Our futures — plural — depend on those urgent efforts. Can we fail to do so?
Harvey J. Graff is Professor Emeritus of English & History, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies, and Academy Professor, Ohio State University. His most recent books include Searching for Literacy (2022), My Life with Literacy: The Continuing Education of a Historian (2024), and Reconstructing the Uni-versity: From the Ashes of the Mega- and Multi-versity to the Futures of Higher Education (2025).