The development and mobilization of conservative thought has increasingly permeated industries and institutions which are core to the American lifestyle, professional training, and education. From bro-podcasters such as Joe Rogan and Logan Paul to elite universities to even our nation’s judiciary, conservative thought has been gaining traction following the conservative legal movement’s successes.
Despite the relative novelty of this rise in conservative thought, the tactics utilized by the conservative legal movement to bring about such drastic change across the country are anything but new. Indeed, as Johns Hopkins professor Steven M. Teles details, the now-growing conservative legal movement has employed a litany of effective practices — most importantly, the ideological capture of key institutions — that mirror those of the twentieth-century liberal legal movement.
Now, after such an effort far outlasting electoral cycles, the movement is reaping the rewards of institutional capture through none other than President Donald Trump. While the tactics which allowed someone like Trump to become president are also not new in any way, the conservative legal movement’s success through President Trump has unleashed far more than a rise in conservative values. Never before have there been such brazen attacks on non-partisan public servants and entrenchment of politics into traditionally-non-partisan American institutions such as the Department of Justice and Federal Emergency Management Agency. The new Trumpian political norm of institutional degradation is ultimately a result of the conservative legal movement’s success in empowering a figure whose aim is not merely to advance conservative thought, but to reshape politics in favor of the American plutocracy.
The Liberal Legal Movement: The New Deal and The Warren Court
In order to understand the methods and successes of the conservative legal movement today, we must look back to the preceding liberal legal movement, beginning with the New Deal era of the 1930s through the Warren Court era of the 1950s and 60s. This period was defined by court-driven reform and the expansion of civil rights. Ultimately, the liberal legal movement provided the playbook for the conservative legal movement’s eventual dominance.
Following the devastation brought upon the United States by the unbridled capitalism of the Second Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression turned public sentiment against industry and toward the government. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal brought about some of the most significant developments in American history, including the drastic expansion of the welfare state with the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935 and other labor and welfare programs.
Prior to the New Deal era, conservative voices largely wielded judicial review to uphold standard business practices lingering from the Gilded Age. However, due to a convergence of vacancies on the Supreme Court and numerous constitutional challenges to New Deal programs occurring in the late 1930s, President Roosevelt was able to reshape the Supreme Court in his favor and also stock numerous federal courts with judges who would support a drastic liberalization of the law. Such a transformation turned judicial review into a tool for the nation’s liberals to implement fair business practices, workers’ programs, social safety nets, and, a couple of decades later, civil rights protections.
Furthermore, President Roosevelt’s restructuring of the federal judiciary allowed “New Dealers” to become prominent voices at elite law schools. These New Dealers often cycled between academia, specialized federal agencies, and the bench, which allowed Roosevelt’s appointees to dramatically impact jurisprudence. These individuals were largely responsible for training the legal voices that would soon lead the Warren Court era, when New Deal progressivism further liberalized the law and eventually brought about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Engel v. Vitale (1962), Griswold v. Connecticut (1963), Miranda v. Arizona (1966), and Tinker v. Des Moines (1969).
Along with gaining control of the nation’s highest court, the liberal legal movement of the mid-20th century also captured the American Bar Association through advocacy for legal services and through many large foundations and interest groups such as the Ford Foundation, which helped construct an array of law firms liberally defending public interest. Clearly, the drastic change in the landscape of the law advanced by the liberal legal movement involved far more than just electoral victories for Democrats — it required a sustained, well-concerted, and strategic effort to push liberal thought leaders into America’s leading legal, political, academic, and social institutions.
The Conservative Legal Movement: Late 1970s and Onward
Beginning in the late 1970s, conservative leaders began a similar strategy to capture America’s institutions, marking the end of the era known as the Great Compression, which was defined by a decreased wealth gap and rising income for working-class families. Neoliberals in presidential administrations, such as the Reagan administration of the 1980s, swung the pendulum away from the legal liberalization of prior decades by significantly weakening the power of workers’ unions, appointing federal judges sympathetic to big business interests, and focusing on economic deregulation.
The 1980s also marked the onset of a conservative focus on issues related to culture and tradition, including opposition to same-sex marriage, the Equal Rights Ammendment, and abortion, along with a rise in White, Christian evangelicals — a population that conservative leaders such as President Ronald Reagan successfully mobilized to rally for business and against the expansion of civil rights.
Interest groups such as the Federalist Society, which was founded in 1982, came into being around this time with the mission of promoting constitutional originalism and providing a counter-weight to then-prevailing liberal legal philosophies in academia. Conservatives continued to capture key American institutions including law enforcement agencies, state and local governing bodies, and federal courts, helping solidify their influence in directing policy at all levels of American government.
The conservative legal movement gained an additional boost from the Roberts Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). Following the contentious 5-4 decision, conservative, pro-business donor consortia such as the Koch Network — which were and are incredibly strategic in philanthropic efforts — gained significantly greater influence in American politics.
Ultimately, conservatives employed the very same tactics of the liberal regimes of the New Deal and post-New Deal eras to achieve institutional capture in the judicial, academic, and market spheres. Many recent headlines testify to the success of those efforts.
What’s New?
Though the conservative legal movement’s tactics are not new, the results certainly are. In a 2024 keynote lecture, Harvard professor Theda Skocpol described President Trump as having transformed American politics by “marrying” multibillionaires to ethnonationalist, grassroots conservative groups — including the Christian Right — with the goal of developing and maintaining a plutocratic state of governance by the wealthy. As such, Trump’s coalition, leveraging the successful methods first used by the liberal legal movement, has captured institutions for the sake of far more than just conservative policy.
Moreover, America’s wealthy — who have in the past lobbied for policy initiatives through traditional political channels — are now quick to kowtow to President Trump himself for regulatory favors. Instead of spending millions in lobbying, domestic and foreign oligarchs have turned to spending millions in gifts to the president himself — whether that be contributions to his gaudy ballroom, a billion-dollar Boeing 747, or cryptocurrency transactions. Some business leaders have turned to creating distinct awards or gifts in order to curry favor with the president, including the FIFA Peace Prize and Tim Cook’s custom-made trophy, complete with a 24-karat gold stand. Such initiatives have removed America’s wealthy conservatives from the Iron Triangle and placed them directly into the Oval Office, illustrating a drastic departure from the conservative legal movement’s previous tactics for control and regulatory favor.
Through capture of the Supreme Court, the conservative legal movement ultimately paved the way for two of the most consequential decisions that will shape American politics for decades to come. Citizens United gave the world’s oligarchy a seat at the resolute desk, and Trump v. United States (2024) effectively allows presidents to govern without accountability.
This detestable combination of jurisprudence is what defines the conservative legal movement’s victory. America’s wealthy now have more political efficacy than ever before, far exceeding the efficacy of the average American voter. The conservative legal movement — through institutional capture — has created quite a dangerous positive feedback loop which leaves the backbone of the American citizenry at the wayside: More money leads to more political influence, which in turn yields less regulation and thus even more money for the wealthy.
Aside from the obsequious plays by the world’s wealthy in exchange for regulatory favor, the conservative legal movement’s triumph with President Trump has also drastically politicized traditionally non-partisan institutions in the American government and legal system. By appointing ideologues such as Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to executive posts, weaponizing federal funding based on political loyalty, undermining election integrity, governing through executive orders, and accusing federal jurists of “ransacking” the nation, President Trump has hollowed out political norms which serve to protect Americans from tyranny.
President Trump and the architects of the conservative legal movement certainly will not live to see the lasting impact of their deterioration of American institutions and enabling of relentless plutocracy, but the citizens who suffer as a result of them will. Fueled by the conservative legal movement, the asinine fairytale of never-ending profit and capital has infected our nation’s highest public offices. The conservative legal movement’s triumph is responsible for the deterioration of American institutions, and the executors of the movement’s will must be held accountable before the nation’s core institutions are forever captured by those who seek to profit from them. Our democracy will not otherwise survive.
