Why did the American West become more politically conservative by the 60's?

That just seems hyperbolic and strawmanish. I'm referring more to people like Dave Freudenthal, Gary Johnson, Brian Schweitzer, Barry Goldwater, etc.

Actually, Gary Johnson's Libertarian Party takes positions on social issues that are pretty close to how I characterized libertarianism. Though whether this is what New Mexicans were supporting when they voted for him as a Republican is another question.
 

RousseauX

Donor
The American West was a bastion of the New Deal, and voted for FDR all four times. Why by the 60's did the American West (such as Montana, Wyoming, Idaho) become more conservative politically?
The American west was always a Republican stronghold, it went Democratic in the 1930s-40s because the whole country did, if you actually look at electoral map, states like the Dakotas adjacent to the states you are talking about were among the first to defect back to GOP in 1940
 
Also, there are some democratic and left(not the same!) bastions in the American west historically-I think Native American reservations(maybe? dunno what the electoral history of them is), unions/copper and extractive industry unions, environmentally focused voters. So what negated those?
 
The American west was always a Republican stronghold, it went Democratic in the 1930s-40s because the whole country did, if you actually look at electoral map, states like the Dakotas adjacent to the states you are talking about were among the first to defect back to GOP in 1940


Well the West during the turn of the century was not a GOP stronghold. The Midwest and the northeast were the strongholds.
 
Unless someone would defend the right to stand on a street corner smoking crystal-meth while distributing copies of the NAMBLA Manifesto in front of a burning American flag, I don't think they qualify as libertarian.

Is that the sort of thing western conservatives tend to defend?

No, at least not where they live. But from my interactions with them (I have family out in that direction) a surprising number are just fine with folks in the "urban hellholes" doing it, and usually prefer community pressures/social disapproval as a method of trying to dissuade that behavior around themselves as opposed to government mandates or prohabitions. They're very much "local control"; close and responsive rather than messiceeily small government, which was more of a Democratic stance prior to the Southern abandonment/purging (depending on your viewpoint) from the party and the embracing of Federal uniformity following the taking up of the Civil Rights cause and Social safety net as key planks, which unlike their Progressive era equivalents required active management from Washington
 
Also, there are some democratic and left(not the same!) bastions in the American west historically-I think Native American reservations(maybe? dunno what the electoral history of them is), unions/copper and extractive industry unions, environmentally focused voters. So what negated those?

They're all outnumbered now by suburban value voters.
 
No, at least not where they live. But from my interactions with them (I have family out in that direction) a surprising number are just fine with folks in the "urban hellholes" doing it, and usually prefer community pressures/social disapproval as a method of trying to dissuade that behavior around themselves as opposed to government mandates or prohabitions. They're very much "local control"; close and responsive rather than messiceeily small government, which was more of a Democratic stance prior to the Southern abandonment/purging (depending on your viewpoint) from the party and the embracing of Federal uniformity following the taking up of the Civil Rights cause and Social safety net as key planks, which unlike their Progressive era equivalents required active management from Washington

Yeah, I'm familiar with the "I don't care what you do, as long as you leave me out of it" version of social liberalism that tends to permeate rural and smaller-urban jurisdictions. You heard a lot of that sort of thing where I grew up(Edmonton Alberta).

Though I'd hesitate to call it libertarian, since libertarianism for me is very much an either/or thing. If you don't support the legalization of crystal meth, for example, but still call yourself a libertarian, I'd say that's a mischaracterization of your ideology.

And I'm also gonna guess that the American West also harbours a fair bit of straightforward "Don't Tread On Me, Tread On Them" sentiment as well. Arizona in 2016 voted down marijuana legalization when it was put to a vote, for example.
 

DougM

Donor
And let’s be honest for a moment. Both sides have been moveing farther and farther away from the middle for decades
It is possible for someone standing in what was the conservative middle to right of the Democratic Party in the 40 And 50 to pretty easily find themselves well outside of the Democratic Party of today. Going the other direction with the GOP is pretty easy also.

I consider myself an unaffiliated moderate. And if I was living in the late 50s and early 60s I would most likely vote more with the Democrats but today I find myself without a party. Basically I look at them today and think “give me my Party back”. Because the extreme right and extreme left have stolen both parties leaving the middle moderates to have to flip a coin every election.
 
I dunno-I think polarization has always been a thing. @Yes has more comments on this, but the relevant distinction is less "polarization bad"(it's inevitable that people will differ on this or that issue, some kind of left/right split or similar split is inevitable, and to my admittedly left-wing eyes moderation is really conservative by another name*-it's basically favoring status quo with only modest or absolutely necessary changes to preserve it) than a very specific process of stronger bipartisanship and more ideological centralization within parties as 1) the two-party system has stayed entrenched or become more entrenched and 2) the party coalitions have taken more of an ideological dimension as opposed to say regional or geographic(or rather those have become ideological distinctions as well-we have a very "urban versus rural versus suburban" party and ideological system"). Essentially, we can say that for example people who would have been Rockerfeller Republicans or Boll Weevil Dems have moved into the respective Democrat or Republican parties as 1) regional party identifications have weakened and 2) parties have centralized ideologically.** We could also note that there's a major influence which is the devolution of presidential elections into effectively predictable cycles. Right now since about the 50s we've had a pretty consistent two-term cycle for presidential party shifts, with rare third terms for parties and a fourth term for a party in presidential elections basically unheard of. Combined with fairly predictable midterm patterns and we have a pretty fixed electoral cycle.

*Not saying this is bad-if I were a voter in the 50s I'd probably be an Eisenhower style conservative. But we should be clear and honest about what we mean by Moderate and not fetishize what is perceived as being in "the center".

**I also am biased and think the movement has been weaker and more recent for the Dems than the Republicans-the Dem movement leftward has historically been contstrained by centrist social liberals so to speak as well as a stronger conservadem tendency, as well as fear of being politically impotent. The Dem shift leftward is fairly recent in vintage and it remains to be seen if it will last compared to the last dem shift leftward in the early 80s or McGovern.
 
Here's my two cents on the right-ward slide of the Western states. By Western, I refer to the states highlighted in the map below in orange, and to a lesser extent the ones in yellow, which overlaps with the Midwest.

FDR, of course, swept every state but Pennsylvania, Maine, and Vermont in 1932, and won all but Maine and Vermont in 1936. By 1940 and 1944, the Western states became voting more Republican, but for the most part Roosevelt had success in the West. A part of this is the somewhat forgotten aspect of the New Deal that was the electrification of the United States. Through infrastructure spending, millions of Americans who never had easy access to electricity suddenly did, and this, coupled with the expansion of dams, other resource-based employment opportunities, and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace's development of the 'Ever-Normal Granary' dramatically increased job opportunity and standard of living in the West. However, the West was typically more inclined to conservatism due to their rural nature, and also tended to favour international isolationism, and so more often voted for moderate Republicans such as Willkie and Dewey. New Dealism made a comeback in 1948 under Truman in the West less-so because of a regained appreciation of large-scale government spending projects and socially progressive causes (such as Truman beginning to desegregate the military) and more-so because of Truman's staunch anti-communist positioning that was popular in the formerly isolationist states pre-disposed to conservative lifestyle and fear of totalitarian socialism. Dewey's complete and utter lack of campaign substance in 1948 didn't hurt either.

As for the Eisenhower years, I believe that Republican success had more to do with Eisenhower himself being such a popular and recognized figure rather than it being a complete turn against the Democrats. With the economy recovering, the West would have likely voted more conservative with a financially comfortable 'status quo' back, but if a more typically Republican had been nominated - especially Robert Taft - they would have done well in the West but lost nationally. By 1960, the West had more fully settled into conservative-leaning economic and social positions that had more to do with ruralism and the 'frontiersman' mentality then it had to do with entrenched racism. While I'm not saying that the American West was some sort of equal rights egalitarian utopia during the 1960s, due to the very small number of racial minorities in the West, I suspect Westerners just didn't care all that much about it segregation either way, which made it an open field for political figures such as Mike Mansfield of Montana to take pro-civil rights stances without fear of major backlash at home while in other parts of the West, 'folksy conservative' types such as Roman Hruska remained popular while still voting for civil rights legislation. That's why, in my mind, Johnson won in the West in 1964 by painting Goldwater as too radically conservative, but why the West voted overwhelmingly for Nixon in 1968 and 1972 because of a 'law and order' campaign that appealed both to segregationists as a race-baiting dog-whistle, and to more apathetic Westerns who believed law and order was what the country needed after headlines filled with riots and assassinations in the dens of sin that was urban America.

And from then on, I think that mentality stuck in the West of the 'law and order,' 'family values' brand of country conservatism that lasted through Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was emboldened by Ronald Reagan's election and the rightward drag of the Overton Window that came with it. While some Western states have become more reliably progressive, or at least moderate, due to population growth and urbanization, as well as demographics changes that favour the Democrats (e.g. New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado) the 'traditional West' has arguably shifted from moderate conservative to reactionary 'paleoconservative' stances that were harnessed by Bush Jr, the Tea Party Movement, and most recently, Donald Trump. While the War on Terror has certainly added a xenophobic angle to Western conservatism, I think it remains, at its core, about fiscal conservatism and a resurgence of the economic and international non-interventionism that originally held sway there. Who knows, maybe the West will vote Democrat once the economic crashes again, which is looking to be sooner rather than later.


Blank-Map-Of-the-USA-1-395x265.jpg


tl;dr The rise of Western conservatism in the 1960s and beyond was a result of resurgent rural attitudes of small government mixed with growing religious evangelism, and the mentality created by Nixon of the great importance of 'law and order' for Americans.​
 

Marc

Donor
Racism; hostility to Hippie culture, Feminism and other 60s change; spread of Evangelicalism; collapse of small farming; domination by Big Aggro and cooperatives which control input (fertilizer, feed) and output (food processing); collapse of many industry to competition from Coast and Offshore; brain drain of college graduate to Coast; etc

the Key point is Eisenhower and building of Interstate; easy transportation cause collapse of many industry and services to competition; bigger corporation (Monsanto, Walmart, NY advertising, etc) dominate economy; poverty become widespread; young people who in past lead labor union, farm cooperatives, and political reform now go to Coast for better jobs; poverty and migration of "non-communal" people cause more conservatives and insularity to spread; Evangelicalism and Republican Reaganism become cultural markers; and outlook of "big people" (factory owners, priest, rich) become accepted by ordinary people in small cities.

Well, keep in mind that the the Rockies Mountain states were in the lead in giving women the right to vote. Wyoming, yes Wyoming, wrote it into it's territorial constitution in 1870. Also, and often forgotten, there was (and is) a great deal of mining - and mining has historically been heavily unionized going back to to the early 1900's. So, there was a strong liberal current (still is some places, like Western Montana). I suspect the answer about the swing from being relatively progressive to be quirky conservative is much more complex...
 
Big State government, not messiceeily Big Federal government. The Prarie Left isen't really an offshot of Machine Politics like it is in on the coasts and south ; it's largely the descendent of Farmer-Labor parties that merged into the New Deal Coalition (and had aligned with/partially made up the Progressive Cohalition of the very early 1900's) rather than an offshot of the instiitional Left. It's ideological core has always had a strong element of local control to it, and around the 60s was when the national Dems via policies like the Great Society really seemed to push away from that hard (without the obvious need of war time).


Ahh that makes more sense. So since the prairie left is not in favor of centralization as is the General american left, they tend to not vote for the aggregate left-leaning party. Yet that is not th case in state locations. Fair summary?
 
Ahh that makes more sense. So since the prairie left is not in favor of centralization as is the General american left, they tend to not vote for the aggregate left-leaning party. Yet that is not th case in state locations. Fair summary?

Fairly so, yes. I mean, I might have either a uniquely insightful or biased perspective on the situation myself due to my line of work (I work with the Minnesota DFL) but you won't believe how many potential voters I've dealt with who'll gladly vote Dems for local, county, and even state positions while speaking... Ill of the national party.
 
Fairly so, yes. I mean, I might have either a uniquely insightful or biased perspective on the situation myself due to my line of work (I work with the Minnesota DFL) but you won't believe how many potential voters I've dealt with who'll gladly vote Dems for local, county, and even state positions while speaking... Ill of the national party.

The old joke was 'Too much Democrat, not enough Farmer-Labor'

Also Outstate DFL'ers were often more socially Conservative than your typical St. Paul big business Republican.

Not exactly happy that Walz 'evolved' his NRA rating from A to F
 
Well, keep in mind that the the Rockies Mountain states were in the lead in giving women the right to vote. Wyoming, yes Wyoming, wrote it into it's territorial constitution in 1870. Also, and often forgotten, there was (and is) a great deal of mining - and mining has historically been heavily unionized going back to to the early 1900's. So, there was a strong liberal current (still is some places, like Western Montana). I suspect the answer about the swing from being relatively progressive to be quirky conservative is much more complex...[/SIZE]
.

? These all predate 60s. While all reason mentioned to turn conservatives all in 50s-80s.
 

Marc

Donor
.

? These all predate 60s. While all reason mentioned to turn conservatives all in 50s-80s.

Ah, I read: by the 1960's. And to my thinking, causality for a major social shift usually takes decades. What is particularly interesting about the transition in the West is that there was such a strong progressive streak - the IWW and other radical labor movements like the Western Federation of Miners. To this day such industries as lumber are still unionized. In fact, the economic shift away from the traditionally unionized primary sector (outside of agriculture - a whole other history) may have had a more significant role than most give credit; given how fairly low in population the Mountain States are, a decline in union employment, suggesting some migration of those workers, could tilt the politics if nothing else...
 
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The American west was always a Republican stronghold, it went Democratic in the 1930s-40s because the whole country did, if you actually look at electoral map, states like the Dakotas adjacent to the states you are talking about were among the first to defect back to GOP in 1940

Always a Republican stronghold? Look at 1916:


1916_Electoral_Map.png
 
Well, keep in mind that the the Rockies Mountain states were in the lead in giving women the right to vote. Wyoming, yes Wyoming, wrote it into it's territorial constitution in 1870. Also, and often forgotten, there was (and is) a great deal of mining - and mining has historically been heavily unionized going back to to the early 1900's. So, there was a strong liberal current (still is some places, like Western Montana). I suspect the answer about the swing from being relatively progressive to be quirky conservative is much more complex...
From what I've read, western states tended to be liberal when it came to women's suffrage because more voters meant they would become a state earlier and they wanted people who would vote for prohibition.
 
From what I've read, western states tended to be liberal when it came to women's suffrage because more voters meant they would become a state earlier and they wanted people who would vote for prohibition.

Prohibition and women's suffrage indeed were strong allies.


Also, in the west women on the farm had more say as they also worked on the farm as well. Not too many people, hands needed on the farm, so while not an ideal society for a feminist, places such as Wyoming gave women much more say earlier on than even most northern states.
 
Prohibition and women's suffrage indeed were strong allies.


Also, in the west women on the farm had more say as they also worked on the farm as well. Not too many people, hands needed on the farm, so while not an ideal society for a feminist, places such as Wyoming gave women much more say earlier on than even most northern states.
Furthermore, there was a lack of entrenched business interests who feared that women would vote for child labor laws.
 
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