This chapter examines right-wing anti-globalization through a consideration of the conservatism in the US, with attention paid to the period from around the 1950s, through to the conservatism that has at least in part influenced the Trump administration. It traces the shift from a position that in effect supported neoliberal globalization, particularly in the Reagan era, and which continued under Bush II. The Trump presidential campaign of 2016 was much more critical of globalization, promoting an America-first isolationism, a more sceptical account of international commitments and institutions, including liberal interventionist wars, a hostility to migration and a questioning of the liberal cosmopolitanism associated with the Democrats and many Republicans, including, to some extent, neoconservatives. The chapter therefore highlights differences within the conservative movement, particularly between the more “pro-globalization” neoconservatism (initially associated with Irving Kristol in the 1960s and now William Kristol) on the one hand, and Patrick Buchanan and Paul Gottfried's paleoconservatism on the other, which promotes a more isolationist stance that is in some respects more sceptical of global “free markets”. The chapter is largely an exposition and not a critique, but some criticisms are implied and sometimes made more explicit. A fuller critique is developed in Chapters 6 and 7.

The chapter starts by discussing how conservatism developed in the US in the period before 1945. It particularly outlines conservatism's seemingly ambiguous relationship with capitalism, and especially its antagonism to liberalism, socialism and “mass society”. The second section then examines the development of conservatism after 1945, particularly the development of a postwar American conservatism that essentially made its peace with capitalism, and in its neoconservative form essentially allied itself with neoliberalism from the 1960s onwards. The third section examines alternative conservative thought in the US and specifically the paleoconservative tradition, which is hostile to neoconservatism and indeed to globalization. Finally, the fourth section examines the links between different strands of conservative thought and the rise of the Trump phenomenon. This will look in particular at the question of what Trump stood for during his presidential campaign, and in developing some of the themes discussed in the last section of the previous chapter will look at the social basis of support for Trump and the rise of anti-globalization resentment.