Divisions on the Right, especially among the young and passionate, are not news. Much more curious is the endurance of an at least nominal coalition between these two opposed groups. This improbable alliance is predicated on a shared intellectual tradition, often attributed to the Enlightenment and Edmund Burke.
Recently, however, a seemingly forgotten group of American statesmen and intellectuals have become new symbols of this supposed heritage. In my interactions with peers at conservative conferences, meetings, and social functions, I keep hearing familiar references to the “Old Right.” Both libertarians and traditionalist conservatives reminisce about it as a way to imbue their hopeful entente with some intellectual vigor.
The definition of Old Right remains a subject for debate in conservative circles. The term can be glibly described as those who were conservative long before Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley captured the spotlight in the 1950s and ’60s. Beyond that exists a whole host of competing definitions and evaluations of the Old Right’s history and legacy.
The Old Right, as Justin Raimondo put it in Reclaiming the American Right, “was that loose grouping of intellectuals, writers, publicists, and politicians who vocally opposed the New Deal and bitterly resisted U.S. entry into World War II.” It is not, however, the Old Right’s isolationism that is most commonly (or favorably) remembered by students. Libertarians champion the Old Right’s prewar commitment to economic liberty, while traditionalists view the group’s members as defenders of a social and moral order. Interestingly, members of both factions often proclaim appreciation for the same Old Right figures.
President Calvin Coolidge has become something of a right-libertarian icon. My fellow students view him as a consistent opponent of the expansionary state and a free-market classical liberal. Coolidge’s reputation seemed to rise on the Right after the release of a popular 2015 PragerU video, called “Coolidge: The Best President You Don’t Know.” Moreover, the 30th president’s famously laconic, subdued manner gives him an air of refinement and pragmatism that many young conservatives long for amid a chaotic political arena.
Many of my colleagues disregard Theodore Roosevelt as too much of a “progressive” to align with the modern GOP’s libertarian bent; instead they laud Coolidge as the patron saint of the early 20th-century Republicans. Due to his pronounced support for black and American Indian rights, Coolidge remains palatable to modern tastes, while Roosevelt the Elder’s racism renders him anathema to today’s “woke” libertarians.