As these former Trotskyists embedded themselves in the American right, they began to swing the balance away from the original opposition to the New Deal and foreign interventionism. The group—which is now known as the neoconservatives—instead saw the interventionist programs built up by Hoover and FDR as institutions worth conserving and the USSR as a foreign menace that required a significant expansion of Washington’s war-making apparatus to oppose.

The neoconservatives and other right-wingers who aligned with their goals and priorities formed a coalition that successfully transitioned the American right into a “conservative” movement that—while a bit skeptical of some future government interventions—was in favor of keeping the many that had already been implemented in place.