The Reactionary Mind argued, among other things, that many of the characteristics we have come to associate with contemporary conservatism—racism, populism, violence, and a pervasive contempt for custom, convention, law, institutions, and established elites—are not recent or eccentric developments of the American right. They are instead constitutive elements of conservatism, dating back to its origins in the European reaction against the French Revolution. From its inception, conservatism has relied upon some mix of these elements to build a broad-based movement of elites and masses against
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