Working at the intersection of intellectual history and political history, this panel will consider the American Right’s cultural and political breakthroughs in the 1990s, but also the conflicts between its various factions–from paleoconservatives to neoconservatives, libertarians to populists–that made the Right’s political coalition ultimately discordant. We will ask, did the Right of the 1990s represent a natural extension of the conservative movement and the Reagan presidency? Or should we understand the post-Reagan, post-Cold War era as a new point of departure for the America Right? Although often united in their opposition to “the Left” and the Clinton Presidency, the Right’s political factions brought contrasting assumptions, prejudices, fears, and narratives to American politics.. The panel will draw out the contrasts between libertarian utopianism and conservative pessimism, accommodationist neoconservatism and apocalyptic paleoconservatism–analyzing what they had in common and where they departed from one another.

This panel will be a Formal session with four paper presenters, who will each examine the politics of a different faction on the American Right in the 1990s. John Ganz will present on Ross Perot as a pioneer of populist and conspiracist politics. Whitney McIntosh will present on the libertarian futurist imaginary, examining its origins within the libertarian movement and how it influenced national discourse around tech and the Internet in the 1990s. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd will explain how rightwing tropes about the subversive university crossed into the political and cultural mainstream in the 1990s. Josh Tait will present on the declining influence of National Review in the 1990s. We imagine the audience for this session to be American historians, but also anyone interested in grasping a deeper understanding of contemporary American politics.