List of American conservatives
is a broad system of political beliefs in the United States characterized by respect for American traditions, republicanism, support for Judeo-Christian values, moral absolutism, free markets and free trade, anti-communism, individualism, advocacy of American exceptionalism, and a defense of Western culture from the threats, whether real or perceived, posed by anarchism, communism, socialism, Islamism, liberalism, progressivism, authoritarianism, and moral relativism. The recent movement is based in the Republican Party, though some Democrats were also important figures early in the movement's history.
The following list is made up of prominent American conservatives from the public and private sectors. The list also includes political parties, organizations and media outlets which have made a notable impact on conservatism in the United States. Entries on the list must have achieved notability after 1932, the beginning of the Fifth Party System. Before 1932, terminology was different. Positions that are called conservative after 1932, were typically called "liberal" before then. Likewise European liberals, such as Friedrich Hayek, were called conservatives when they came to America, which puzzled Hayek.
People
Intellectuals, writers, consultants and activists
| Name | Lifetime | Notability | Ref. |
| Agnes Repplier | 1855-1950 | essayist, literary critic, and author | |
| George Santayana | 1863–1952 | philosopher and author | |
| Ralph Adams Cram | 1863–1942 | architect and writer | |
| Irving Babbitt | 1865–1933 | literary critic | |
| Garet Garrett | 1878–1954 | financial journalist | |
| H. L. Mencken | 1880–1956 | essayist and cultural critic | |
| Joseph Schumpeter | 1883–1950 | political economist | |
| Frank Knight | 1885–1972 | economist | |
| Pitirim Sorokin | 1889-1968 | sociologist | |
| Walter Lippmann | 1889–1974 | reporter and public intellectual | |
| Ernst Kantorowicz | 1895–1963 | historian | |
| George Schuyler | 1895–1977 | writer, journalist, and social critic | |
| Clarence Manion | 1896–1979 | direct-mailer | |
| Leo Strauss | 1899–1973 | political philosopher | |
| Whittaker Chambers | 19011961 | author of Witness | |
| Will Herberg | 19011977 | sociologist | |
| Francis Wilson | 19011976 | political scientist | |
| Eliseo Vivas | 19011991 | philosopher and literary theorist | |
| Ross J. S. Hoffman | 19021979 | historian, writer, and educator | |
| Eric Hoffer | 19021983 | philosopher | |
| Sidney Hook | 19021989 | philosopher | |
| George F. Kennan | 19042005 | historian and foreign policy advisor | |
| James Burnham | 19051987 | political philosopher and co-founder and editor of National Review | |
| Willard Van Orman Quine | 19082000 | philosopher and logician | |
| C. Vann Woodward | 19081999 | historian | |
| Willmoore Kendall | 19091967 | political philosopher | |
| Frank Meyer | 19091972 | editor of the Books, Arts and Manners section of National Review | |
| Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn | 19091999 | journalist and political philosopher | |
| Peter Drucker | 19092005 | sociologist, management consultant, and author | |
| Richard M. Weaver | 1910–1963 | author of Ideas Have Consequences | |
| Nathaniel Weyl | 1910–2005 | economist and author | |
| George J. Stigler | 1911–1991 | economist | |
| Henry B. Veatch | 1911-1999 | philosopher | |
| Robert Nisbet | 1913–1996 | sociologist | |
| Ernest van den Haag | 1914–2002 | sociologist | |
| Daniel J. Boorstin | 1914–2004 | historian | |
| Edward C. Banfield | 1916-1999 | political scientist | |
| Robert Conquest | 1917–2015 | historian | |
| Russell Kirk | 1918–1994 | author of The Conservative Mind | |
| Harry V. Jaffa | 1918-2015 | historian and political philosopher | |
| Peter J. Stanlis | 1919-2011 | literacy scholar and councilman | |
| Daniel Bell | 1919-2011 | sociologist | |
| Edmund Pellegrino | 1920-2013 | bioethicist | |
| Irving Kristol | 1920–2009 | Neoconservative author and writer | |
| Thomas Molnar | 1921–2010 | political philosopher and historian | |
| Gaetano L. Vincitorio | 1921 2007 | historian | |
| Philip Rieff | 1922-2006 | sociologist and cultural critic | |
| Robert Goldwin | 1922-2010 | political scientist | |
| Gertrude Himmelfarb | 1922-2019 | historian | |
| William A. Rusher | 1923–2011 | publisher of National Review | |
| James E. Bunce | 1924-2015 | historian | |
| Stanley Jaki | 1924–2009 | philosopher of science and historian | |
| Phyllis Schlafly | 1924–2016 | activist | |
| John Lukacs | 1924–2019 | historian | |
| William F. Buckley Jr. | 1925–2008 | author, television host, and founder of National Review | |
| L. Brent Bozell Jr. | 19261997 | speechwriter for Senator Joseph McCarthy | |
| Tim LaHaye | 1926–2016 | author and political activist | |
| Forrest McDonald | 1927–2016 | historian | |
| Paul W. Schroeder | 1927–2020 | historian | |
| Eva Brann | 1927-2024 | classicist | |
| Hilton Kramer | 1928–2012 | art critic | |
| Nicholas Rescher | 1928–2024 | philosopher and polymath | |
| Beverly LaHaye | 1929–2024 | activist and founder of Concerned Women for America | |
| Paul M. Bator | 19291989 | legal scholar and former government official | |
| Allan Bloom | 19301992 | classicist and philosopher | |
| Seth Benardete | 1930-2001 | classicist and philosopher | |
| Eugene Genovese | 1930–2012 | historian | |
| Thomas Sowell | 1930– | author, columnist, professor, and economist at the Hoover Institution | |
| Norman Podhoretz | 1930–2025 | political commentator | |
| James Q. Wilson | 1931–2012 | social scientist | |
| Christopher Lasch | 19321994 | historian and social critic | |
| Harvey Mansfield | 1932 | political philosopher | |
| Ben Wattenberg | 1933-2015 | political commentator and demographer | |
| Richard Viguerie | 1933 | media pioneer | |
| Mel Bradford | 19341993 | literary critic and legal scholar | |
| Richard E. Morgan | 19342014 | political scientist and constitutional theorist | |
| Charles A. Fried | 19352024 | legal scholar and former jurist | |
| Richard John Neuhaus | 19362009 | founder of First Things | |
| John Kekes | 1936 | philosopher | |
| Daniel N. Robinson | 1937-2018 | philosopher and psychologist | |
| Peter Kreeft | 1937– | philosopher | |
| Walter E. Williams | 1938–2020 | author, columnist, and economics professor | |
| James Kurth | 1938 | political scientist | |
| Leon Kass | 1939- | philosopher and bioethicist | |
| Nicholas Capaldi | 1939- | philosopher | |
| David Horowitz | 1939-2025 | Writer, activist and founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center | |
| Arthur Laffer | 1940 | economist | |
| Hadley Arkes | 1940 | political scientist | |
| Virgil Nemoianu | 19402025 | literary critic, essayist, and philosopher | |
| George Will | 1941– | columnist for the Washington Post | |
| Elizabeth Fox-Genovese | 1941–2007 | historian | |
| Edwin Feulner | 19412025 | founder of The Heritage Foundation | |
| Paul Gottfried | 1941 | political philosopher and historian | |
| Paul Weyrich | 1942–2008 | president of The Heritage Foundation | |
| Angelo Codevilla | 1943-2021 | international relations theorist and philosopher | |
| Claes G. Ryn | 1943 | political philosopher | |
| Charles Murray | 1943 | political scientist | |
| Scott Soames | 1945 | philosopher | |
| George H. Nash | 1945 | historian | |
| Joseph Sobran | 1946–2010 | writer for National Review | |
| William S. Lind | 1947- | military author | |
| Donald T. Critchlow | 1948- | historian | |
| Vigen Guroian | 1948- | theologian | |
| Glenn Loury | 1948- | economist | |
| Charles Krauthammer | 1950–2018 | public intellectual | |
| Peggy Noonan | 1950– | columnist for The Wall Street Journal | |
| Larry Schweikart | 1951– | historian | |
| Wilfred M. McClay | 1951 | historian | |
| Peter Augustine Lawler | 1952-2017 | political scientist and philosopher | |
| Bill Kristol | 1952– | former editor of The Weekly Standard | |
| Jennifer Roback Morse | 1953- | economist, writer, and activist | |
| Roger Kimball | 1953- | art critic and editor of The New Criterion | |
| Victor Davis Hanson | 1953- | classicist and military historian | |
| Carol Swain | 1954– | Former political science professor at Vanderbilt University | |
| L. Brent Bozell III | 1955- | Activist, writer, Media Research Center founder | |
| Daniel Bonevac | 1955– | philosopher | |
| Terry Teachout | 19562022 | drama critic, biographer, and playwright | |
| Grover Norquist | 1956 | president of Americans for Tax Reform | |
| Robert P. George | 1969 | legal scholar and political philosopher | |
| James Hankins | 1955 | historian | |
| Patrick Allitt | 1956 | historian | |
| Heather Mac Donald | 1956 | political commentator | |
| Robert C. Koons | 1957 | philosopher | |
| John J. DiIulio Jr. | 1958 | political scientist | |
| Andrew Stuttaford | 1958 | journalist and editor | |
| Mark Bauerlein | 1959 | literary critic and senior editor of First Things | |
| R. R. Reno | 1959 | theologian, political philosopher, and the editor of First Things | |
| Dinesh D'Souza | 1961– | author and filmmaker | |
| Jonathan Turley | 1961 | legal scholar and writer | |
| Andrew Schlafly | 1961 | Conservapedia founder, lawyer and Christian conservative activist | |
| Frank Luntz | 1962 | political consultant and pollster | |
| Kevin R. C. Gutzman | 1963 | historian and constitutional scholar | |
| David Tse-Chien Pan | 1963 | literary scholar | |
| Patrick Deneen | 1964 | political theorist | |
| Yoram Hazony | 1964 | political theorist and philosopher | |
| Elizabeth Price Foley | 1965 | legal scholar and bioethicist | |
| John Yoo | 1967 | legal scholar and former government official | |
| Keith E. Whittington | 1968 | political scientist and legal scholar | |
| Christopher Tollefsen | 1968 | philosopher | |
| Edward Feser | 1968 | political philosopher | |
| Adrian Vermeule | 1968 | legal scholar | |
| Robert P. George | 1969 | legal scholar and political philosopher | |
| W. Bradford Wilcox | 1970 | sociologist | |
| Mark Regnerus | 1970 | sociologist | |
| Leigh-Allyn Baker | 1972 | actress and pro-life activist | |
| Yuval Levin | 1977 | political scientist and journalist | |
| Razib Khan | 1977 | geneticist and science writer | |
| Ross Douthat | 1979 | columnist for the New York Times | |
| Stephen E. Sachs | 1980 | legal scholar | |
| William Baude | 1982 | legal scholar | |
| Gladden Pappin | 1982 | political theorist | |
| Charlie Kirk | 19932025 | Founder and President of Turning Point USA, author and political commentator | |
| Yeonmi Park | 1993 | North Korean defector and conservative activist |