‘We have been warned’: lessons from Marquand and Hofstadter’s early encounters with the radical right

The radical right is advancing globally. In the US, the MAGA movement is using a second Trump presidency to reshape the American state. In the UK, Reform surges while leading Conservatives see a hard-right turn as the way to revive their party’s flagging fortunes. Such a shift is not unprecedented. Revisiting David Marquand and Richard Hofstadter’s 1960s analysis of the radical right in their own time can put these developments in historical context, while highlighting the misplaced confidence of liberal intellectuals. 

A changing conservative mood

The 1964 elections on both sides of the Atlantic marked a significant moment for conservative politics. In the US, Barry Goldwater’s campaign signalled a sharp turn toward a more radical, ideologically driven right. In Britain, while Labour sought to end a long period of Conservative rule, the Tory ‘one-nation’ acceptance of the post-war consensus was slowly beginning to fracture. For contemporaneous observers like the American historian Richard Hofstadter and the British commentator (and later politician and academic) David Marquand, the key question wasn’t just who would win, but what these elections revealed about the likely direction of the right.

Writing in the October 1964 issue of Encounter, Hofstadter and Marquand each identified an emerging strain of conservative politics: anti-establishment, anti-consensus, and ideologically hard-edged. Their essays, revisited today, speak not just to the anxieties of that moment, but to the deeper forces that have continued to shape the radical right. Both Hofstadter and Marquand saw the 1964 elections less as battles between left and right than as moments of transformation within the right itself. For Hofstadter, this was the rise of a somewhat paranoid, conspiratorial brand of conservatism associated with Barry Goldwater, a Presidential candidate with a ‘special and dangerous view of the world’^[1]. For Marquand, it was the rise of a strident form of free market conservatism, associated with the likes of Enoch Powell. 

Consequential losers

Richard Hofstadter was one of the most influential analysts of the radical right in America during the mid-part of the 20th century. In 1964 he was at the peak of influence as a senior academic historian and commentator. His essay ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ retains great relevance to the conspiratorial aspect of the hard right, as expressed by media figures such as Tucker Carlson and, indeed, Trump himself.^[2] Hofstadter’s musings on the politics of resentment, the power of conspiracy theories, and hostility directed at intellectuals remain highly pertinent, demonstrating clearly the continuities in approach found in political campaigns of Goldwater and Trump. 

Though Goldwater would be heavily defeated in 1964, he has been called ‘The Most Consequential Loser in American Politics’.^[3] His brand of politics would eventually come to dominate the Republican Party under one of his main cheerleaders, Ronald Reagan. Goldwater’s rise was the first sign of a major shift to the right in the Republican Party which was continued under Reagan and now Trump. Trump has been seen as following in Goldwater’s footsteps in triumphing against the Republican Party establishment and shifting the party rightwards, as well as echoing aspects of Goldwater’s conspiratorial tone and style. This includes an ability to ‘weld together a mass of grievances’^[4] and the weaponisation of distrust in institutions^[5]. In his writings on Goldwater, Hofstadter offers an articulation of the view that the radical right constituted a threat not just to the post-war consensus but also to liberal democratic norms. Hofstadter's status as a leading American liberal is in line with the general line of Encounter, seeking to combat political extremism of the left and right.

Also typifying Encounter’s liberal centrist strand was David Marquand, a significant figure on the British centre-left for over five decades. Marquand was a regular contributor to Encounter in the 1960s, having first polished his prose as a Guardian leader writer. In the tributes that appeared following his death, it was Marquand’s role as a social democratic thinker and his articulation of ‘the progressive dilemma’ that was the primary focus.^[6] However, as Anthony Barnett noted, a key aspect of Marquand was that ‘was one of the first to warn against’ the rise of neoliberal politics.^[7].

Marquand saw, in the early 1960s, a new strand of conservatism emerging, articulated by Enoch Powell and other 'anti-collectivists'. These ideas would later form the basis of the New Right ‘counter-revolution’ and Thatcherism.^[8] Although Powell's political career, like Goldwater's, ended in failure, the approach he championed reshaped British conservatism. In his account of the British New Right, Maurice Cowling concluded that while 'Powell failed' he 'made a considerable impact in the course of failing’, and that it was ‘doubtful whether Thatcherism could have been so successful without him'.^[9] So, while Powell himself did not end up leading the New Right ‘revolution’ in the UK, he played a significant role in getting its key themes into the mainstream of the Conservative Party. 

Hofstadter and Marquand’s 1964 essays highlight how quickly the ideology of conservative movements can transform, sometimes leaving social democratic opponents perplexed. And that, however incoherent and dangerous liberals and social democrats believe these ideas to be, that they possess enormous potential for reshaping politics. Despite Hofstadter and Marquand’s warnings, the radical right ideas they critiqued ended up reshaping US and UK politics. Before looking at what might be learned from Hofstadter and Marquand’s ‘failure’, we need to look at their analysis of the radical right in 1964. 

Betrayal from on high

In his Encounter essay 'Goldwater and His Party’, Hofstadter related that Goldwater had ‘altered the character of the party’ by ‘committing it firmly to an ideology’.^[10] Hofstadter was alarmed by the Goldwater campaign as it crystallised trends he’d become concerned about, such as ‘how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority.’ At a deeper level, Hofstadter presciently saw the coming of the ‘liberal elite’ thesis, which is central to the ‘cultural logic’ of the hard right.^[11] In contrast to previous forms of conservatism, which defended the establishment, ‘the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.’^[12]

As Hofstadter relates, Goldwater had some evidence for this, through the way the ‘doors of the establishment snapped shut against him’.^[13] However, this sense had grown into a much wilder notion that ‘that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans.’^[14] This shift to an embrace of an outsider status is a significant aspect in the changing character of conservatism in the US and UK.

Goldwater was unsuccessful electorally but set in train changes within the Republican Party. Reagan and Trump can be considered heirs of Goldwater in that both achieved a significant break with what constituted mainstream Republican thinking prior. Both shared Goldwater's famous rejection of moderation (‘Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice’).^[15] In the UK, a similar challenge was emerging from immoderate voices on the radical right. 

In 'Battle of the Ghosts', Marquand saw what was happening on the American right as a presage of what might happen in the UK. This connects to a wider sense that following trends on the US right is essential in making sense of the changing character of conservatism in the UK. This has contemporary relevance given the closeness of the hard right in the US and the UK, exemplified by the close connection between Trump and Farage. Marquand kept himself abreast of developments in the US and was very familiar with Hofstadter’s work, praising The Paranoid Style as ‘fertile and illuminating’ in its analysis of the radical right and its ‘spiritual ancestors’.^[16]

A takeover bid for the soul of British Conservatism

In his essay, Marquand provided a neat summation of concerns, from a social democratic perspective, about the radical free market right in the UK. In short, the implementation of such ideas would jeopardise social cohesion, undermining some of the progressive achievements of the post-war era. He also presciently understood what a significant break these ideas were with much of the Conservative tradition. Though Churchill had echoed Hayekian themes in his infamous ‘Gestapo speech’ on the eve of the 1945 election, such views were not then  ‘in vogue’ within British conservatism.^[17] Through the efforts of Powell and think tanks such as the IEA, this was to change.^[18] For Marquand, these ideas represented a shift in approach from the Tory tradition. 

Marquand talked of the way that the party had historically steered its way through social and economic change, in a pragmatic rather than ideological manner. While the Conservative Party had generally been 'the principal political instrument of the rich and powerful', they had 'never identified itself wholly and exclusively with the capitalist system and the law of the market'. Equally, while it had 'resisted the coming of the welfare state' the party 'was reconciled to its defeat with comparative good grace'. In short, it had successfully adapted to the new reality. However, not all within the conservative movement were happy with this. 

Marquand’s focus was the challenge to post-war Conservatism outlined in a ‘symposium of essays’, Rebirth of Britain, edited by Arthur Seldon of the IEA. In an advert in the same edition of Encounter, the book was described as a call for ‘a greater emphasis on individual enterprise and less power for the bureaucrats and planners’. Marquand was not convinced by the IEA’s description of Rebirth of Britain as ‘non-partisan’. What the essays contained was a particular view of the world, focused on the revival of free markets, 'not in the least peripheral to the submerged struggle for ideological victory which has been going on inside the Conservative Party'. What the ‘anti-collectivist’ tendency was aiming to do constituted no less than 'a takeover bid for the soul of British Conservatism'. A central figure in this was Enoch Powell, who was adding 'political spice to the attempt'. This was in the early 1960s, before his notorious interventions on the subjects of race and immigration and the full flowering of ‘Powellite populism’.^[19]

Powell’s intervention was revealing. He had, Marquand argued, 'shone a harsh and glaring spotlight on the internal conflicts and tensions of modern British Conservatism'. Powell’s critique of ‘Tory collectivism'^[20] was that the Conservatives had been too willing to accept the post war consensus. This ‘statist’ approach was both anti-conservative but also contained the seeds of profound economic and social malaise. Goldwater had a similar view, condemning the Republican Party establishment for their ‘accommodationist’ attitudes, offering merely a ‘dime store New Deal’. Instead, Goldwater offered ‘a choice’ and ‘not an echo’ of Democrat policies.^[21]

Marquand ends by looking forward to what might happen following the 1964 election. He suggests that 'if the Conservative Party loses the election by a substantial margin, it seems to me to be quite possible that the doctrines put forward by Powell and his colleagues may provide the rationale for its opposition to the next Labour government'. In short, a switch to the radical right was very possible, as had occurred in the Republican Party under Goldwater. Marquand felt that though the Conservative Party's 'power structure' was 'tighter and more hierarchical' than that of the Republican Party, it was possible that the party might 'succumb' to such a mode of politics. 

In short, ‘the Rebirth of Britain could yet become the manifesto for the British equivalent of Senator Goldwater’s movement in the United States’.^[22] Marquand was prescient in seeing how influential the publications of the IEA would become. 

Complacent, condescending liberals?

 For Marquand and Hofstadter, the ideas of the radical or hard right were not just incoherent but also dangerous. Especially in Hofstadter’s case, they were jeopardising major achievements of the post-war years and putting ‘the democratic process in this country into jeopardy’.^[23] Hofstadter and, to a lesser degree, Marquand can be seen as figures of the postwar consensus. In an Encounter piece with a very contemporary sounding title, ‘The Populist Nightmare’, Marquand talks of the ‘reigning liberal orthodoxy’ in the US to which the ‘American right has yet to mount a serious and coherent challenge’.^[24] There can be little doubt about the seriousness of the ‘challenge’ from the right today. As we have seen, Hofstadter and Marquand's view was that the hard right is both dangerous and intellectually incoherent. Could this sense that such ideas were riven with contradictions have blinded them to the political potential of such ideas?

Hofstadter and Marquand might be seen to manifest a certain liberal academic disdain regarding the radical right. Hofstadter certainly seems to fit the image of a liberal elitist, looking at the radical right and its supporters with some contempt. Christopher Lasch, a student of Hofstadter’s, believed that he ‘could not conceal his disdain for the hopelessly muddled thinking of ordinary Americans’.^[25] In Hofstadter's case, there's certainly a sense that the radical right feeds off a fundamentally anti-intellectual view of the world.^[26] Marquand shared this, sensing a ‘perceptible note of anti-intellectualism’ in the ‘anti-collectivists’, alongside the ‘elaborate intellectual structure of laissez-faire economics’.^[27]

Marquand certainly embodied a number of characteristics targeted by the hard right. He held senior positions at Russell Group universities, including a spell as principal of an Oxford college. Marquand was close to Roy Jenkins, seen by some social conservatives (such as Peter Hitchens^[28]) as having, under the cloak of ‘civilising’ reforms, helped inaugurate hyper social liberalism. As with Jenkins, Marquand shared a strong devotion to the European dream, believing that the UK should play a central role within the EU. For the hard right, the Brexit referendum was evidence of how divorced the ‘Europhile’ liberal elite was from, in Nigel Farage’s words, the ‘real people’. This narrative has re-emerged in the wake of Trump’s victory in 2024, with many liberal commentators perplexed by the result and appearing out of touch. While Marquand was never blindsided by the rise of the radical right, his writings do manifest a sense of surprise that they continued to have such a hold. To account for the continued success of the radical right, we need to acknowledge that the political success of such ideas is often related to the character of those promoting them. 

Messianic urgency

Goldwater’s heavy defeat by Lyndon Johnson in November 1964 seemed to confirm Hofstadter’s diagnosis that such radical conservatism was not attractive beyond his base. However, in Goldwater’s case, was his ‘less than respectable showing’ in 1964 a problem of ideology or one of leadership? Hofstadter talked of the ‘gross ineptitude’ of Goldwater’s campaign which undermined the electoral chances of his movement. This suggested that Goldwater’s themes, articulated by a more effective politician, could have been electorally successful. Ronald Reagan, one of Goldwater's most prominent supporters, seemed to prove this case. Similarly, Trump has been an effective advocate of radical right ideas. He has formed a loyal following, which supports his MAGA movement with cultish intensity. They resemble what Hofstadter described as the ‘Goldwater cultists’ attempting to take over the party in the 1960s.^[29]

Marquand was alive to the emotional aspect of political persuasion, reflecting that ‘Powellism can no more capture the Conservative Party by reasoned argument than Goldwaterism could capture the Republican party by reasoned argument’. The hard right’s ‘messianic urgency’ was one aspect in its rising ‘political relevance’.^[30] Today, the hard right’s ‘messianic urgency’ is undoubted, with many of its key figures warning darkly of existential threats to Western civilization and Judeo-Christian values. 

That Trump is dangerously effective is expressed by one of his most prominent conservative critics, Bill Kristol. For Kristol, Trump is ‘easy to mock’ but actually ‘a skilful demagogue’ who adeptly ‘reads the crowd’. It's now clear that Trump is no passing fad but that ‘Trumpism is a deep strain in the body politic’. However, argues Kristol, Trump himself is crucial to this; ‘Trumpism depends on Trump’. He cites the unsuccessful efforts by Ron DeSantis to echo Trumpian themes, especially in relation to culture war issues (‘we will never surrender to the woke mob’).^[31] J. D. Vance is emerging as a more convincing MAGA successor. Through his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2025, Vance is forging strong connections with the European hard right. However, as in the case of Goldwater and Powell, forcefully articulating a position is no guarantee of political success.  As is true of all political movements, the radical right needs good leaders capable of reaching beyond its base. 

This question of leadership is something which confronts the British hard right. As Marquand noted, Enoch Powell was something of a leader within the ‘anti-collectivist’ right but was not a ‘sufficiently charismatic figure’ to really make a breakthrough.^[32] Marquand and Hofstadter’s emphasis on the limited leadership capabilities of Goldwater and Powell indicated the potential the radical right might have with leaders better able to articulate the message. This was realised with Reagan and Thatcher. Today, Trump, Farage et al are again demonstrating the political potential of ‘incoherent’ ideas supported by clear narratives and articulated by those with media savvy. 

Again, there’s some degree of complacency here. While Marquand saw, in Thatcher, the political potential of ‘charismatic populism’, he felt such a mode of politics had a limited shelf life. He considered charismatic populism to be ‘inherently unstable’ as the ‘magic can’t last’ and ‘charisma wears out’.^[33] However, after a decade or more of the latest ‘populist wave’^[34], this magic shows little sign of dissipating. 

Out of hibernation

What Hofstadter and Marquand’s 1964 essays in Encounter demonstrate is that political parties contain particular strands of thinking which jockey for position over the decades. Determined effort and charismatic leadership is needed to bring these ‘recessive genes’ out of hibernation.

As historians, Hofstadter and Marquand recognised that hard right ideas had an impact as they fed off themes deeply embedded in the history of their respective countries. As Hofstadter observed, the paranoid style of Goldwater’s ‘extreme’ conservatism drew on disparate sources from American history. 

These ‘keynotes’ of ‘the paranoid style’ had emerged over time and were a ‘recurrent phenomenon in our public life’. In particular, the notion of a scheming and secretive elite planning to do the nation down for their own nefarious ends.^[35] In similar fashion, the anti-intellectualism that, Hofstadter argued, drove the radical right had a ‘long historical background’.^[36] As an example, Marquand considered Ronald Reagan’s victory in the 1966 California gubernatorial election to be the ‘latest verse in an old, old song’.^[37] Marquand saw comparable continuities in the UK. 

Marquand noted that a belief in the efficacy of ‘free enterprise’ had been articulated by many British thinkers and politicians long before 1964. Powell, Seldon and their ‘anti-collectivist’ colleagues were drawing on the tradition of classical liberal thought, exemplified by the likes of Adam Smith. In short these ideas were merely dormant rather than unprecedented. What was unprecedented was their prominence with the Conservative Party.  What has occurred over the decades was the gradual drift of what Marquand considered, perhaps condescendingly, as ‘lunatic fringe’^[38] ideas into the mainstream. Absolutely vital to its success is the way that the radical right has been drawing on narratives long in the construction. Most notably, the notion, articulated by both Goldwater and Powell, of an ‘enemy within’, acting to undermine established ways of life.  

Marquand and Hofstadter were correct in seeing the new variants of conservatism brewing in 1964 as significant. Marquand ended his essay with ‘we have been warned’. While he was sure that Powell was ‘not the man to do it’, there were ‘others waiting in the wings’.^[39] This proved true with figures influenced by Powell, such as Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher, playing this leading role.  The radical right was subsequently instrumental in the New Right 'revolution’ of the 1980s and, in a new iteration, is now reshaping politics on the right and beyond. Hofstadter and Marquand hoped that what they considered to be the incoherence of the hard right would have caused this ideology to wither and die. That did not prove to be the case. Instead the New Right went on to reshape US and UK politics.

As has been evident in his subsequent work, Marquand believed that the radical right was fundamentally wrong in its diagnosis of Britain's problems and its thought riven by contradictions.^[40] Marquand became one of the most prominent critics of Thatcherism (The Unprincipled Society, 1988), and its deleterious effects on the public domain (The Decline of the Public, 2004). In one of his last works, the polemical essay Mammon’s Kingdom (2014), Marquand argued that a ‘market fundamentalist moral economy’ lay behind the UK’s discontents. Despite Marquand’s best efforts, the free market ideas he saw emerging in 'Battle of the Ghosts' became the dominant ideas of the age. These included the view that the state ought to have a limited role in the economy and that the public sector should be more open to market discipline. These notions subsequently became the ruling orthodoxy, adopted by parties of centre right and, significantly, centre left. 

A malady that may do us all in

Hofstadter and Marquand perceptively observed that the conservative mood was, in the early 1960s, turning against consensus and towards embracing something more radical. The rightward shift Hofstadter and Marquand feared and manifested by the New Right, is being replicated in today's rise of the reactionary populist right. In the period since the 2016 triumphs of Trump and the Brexiteers, the radical right has become a prominent feature of the political landscape. In Stuart Hall’s terms, we seem to be witnessing another ‘great moving right show’.^[41] This potential for once insurgent ideas to be mainstreamed is something well expressed in the work of Hofstadter and Marquand. 

Marquand and Hofstadter represent the view that its intellectual incoherence, and its reliance on charismatic populism will eventually undermine the radical right. This seems, from the perspective of 2025 - with Trumpism and Farageism on the march - a naive, possibly complacent view.  As complacent perhaps as Hofstadter’s view that Goldwater’s campaign ‘may come to be seen as the high tide of the radical right’.^[42] A more accurate reflection of the size of the task facing social democrats is encapsulated in one of Hofstadter’s earlier pronouncements on the radical right. This was his gloomy prognosis that  ‘America is visibly sick with a malady that may do us all in’.^[43] The lesson social democrats need to take from Marquand and Hofstadter is to never underestimate the radical right. 

Charlie Ellis is a researcher, writer and EFL teacher based in Edinburgh, with a PhD in politics from the University of Sheffield. He writes on culture, politics, specialty coffee, sport, and education, and is a regular contributor to Society, Scottish Affairs, and Modern English Teacher.

Notes

1. R. Hofstadter ‘The Goldwater Debacle’, Encounter, January 1965. 
2. R. P. Hart, ‘Donald Trump and the Return of the Paranoid Style’. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 50, 2020, pp. 348-365.
3. L. Edwards, ‘Barry M. Goldwater: The Most Consequential Loser in American Politics’, www.heritage.org
4. R. Hofstadter, ‘Goldwater and His Party,’ Encounter, October 1964.
5. A. Fried & D. B. Harris, At War with Government: How Conservatives Weaponized Distrust from Goldwater to Trump, New York, Columbia University Press, 2021. 
6. N. Lawson, ‘Marquand remembered: an open mind’, Renewal Blog, April 26th 2024
7. A. Barnett, ‘The strange career of David Marquand’, New Statesman, April 26th 2024. 
8. C. Schofield ‘A nation or no nation? Enoch Powell and Thatcherism’, in B. Jackson & R. Saunders (eds.) Making Thatcher's Britain, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012. 
9. M. Cowling, ‘The Sources of the New Right’, Encounter, November 1989.
10. R. Hostadter, ‘Goldwater and His Party,’ Encounter, October 1964. 
11. C. Ellis, ‘Paul Johnson and the Cultural Logic of the British Hard Right’, Society, Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 197–213.
12. R. Hofstadter, ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’, Harper’s Magazine, November 1964. 
13. R. Hofstadter, ‘The Goldwater Debacle’, Encounter, January 1965.
14. R. Hofstadter, ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’, Harper’s Magazine, November 1964. 
15. R. Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, New York: Nation Books, 2009. 
16. D. Marquand, ‘America’s Bad Guys’, Observer, November 27th 1966.
17. E. H. Green, Ideologies of Conservatism, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 250. 
18. R. Cockett, Thinking the Unthinkable, London, Fontana, 1995.
19. D. Marquand, Britain Since 1918, London, Phoenix, 2009, pp. 225-229. 
20. D. Marquand, 'Battle of the Ghosts', Encounter, October 1964. 
21. R. Mason, The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan. Cambridge University Press, 2011, pp. 182-215.
22. D. Marquand, 'Battle of the Ghosts', Encounter, October 1964. 
23. R. Hofstadter, ‘Goldwater and His Party,’ Encounter, October 1964.
24. D. Marquand, ‘The Populist Nightmare’, Encounter, October 1963. 
25. F. Siegel, ‘The many misunderstandings of Richard Hofstadter’, The New Criterion, Vol. 32, Iss. 6, 2014. 
26. R. Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, London, Jonathan Cape, 1963.
27. D. Marquand, 'Battle of the Ghosts', Encounter, October 1964. 
28. P. Hitchens, The Abolition of Britain, London, Quartet, 2000; N. Clark, ‘Roy Jenkins made Britain a far less civilised country’, The Daily Telegraph, January 9^th 2003. 
29. R. Hofstadter, ‘The Goldwater Debacle’, Encounter, January 1965. 
30. D. Marquand, 'Battle of the Ghosts', Encounter, October 1964. 
31. ‘Civil war gaffes and robotic smiles: can anyone beat Trump?’, Politics Weekly America (podcast), January 5th 2024. 
32. D. Marquand, 'Battle of the Ghosts', Encounter, October 1964.
33. D. Marquand, Mammon’s Kingdom, London, Penguin, 2014, p. 180. 
34. C. Mouffe, For a Left Populism, London, Verso, 2019. 
35. R. Hofstadter, ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’, Harper’s Magazine, November 1964. 
36. R. Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, London, Jonathan Cape, 1963, p. 6. 
37. D. Marquand, ‘America’s Bad Guys’, Observer, November 27th 1966.
38. D. Marquand, ‘Passion and Politics’. Encounter, December 1961.
39. D. Marquand, 'Battle of the Ghosts', Encounter, October 1964. 
40. D. Marquand, ‘The Paradoxes of Thatcher’, in R. Skidelsky (ed) Thatcherism London, Basil Blackwell, 1988. 
41. S. Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal, London: Verso, 1988. 
42. R. Hofstadter ‘The Goldwater Debacle’, Encounter, January 1965. 
43. R. Hofstadter, ‘Goldwater and His Party,’ Encounter, October 1964.