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Where do Conservatives Come From?
…and why it matters in 2019
Today I’m reflecting on the book Suburban Warriors by Lisa McGirr. When it was originally published in 2001, it was one of the first monograph-length treatments of the rise of the “New Right” in the postwar United States. Nearly twenty years later, it has lost none of its insight and analytical power, and McGirr’s updated Preface does a service to anyone who’s interested in following the mushrooming literature on this and related historical topics. I’m reflecting primarily as a way of preparing to guide a discussion with my honors American Political History class.
Revisiting this book in the age of Trump throws some aspects of American political discourse into sharp relief. In fact, I hadn’t read the book before 2016. American history was not my major field, and as someone who always considered himself an outsider to the public political debates of the 21st century, I was sincerely taken aback by the success of Trump’s divisive rhetoric. Taken back, appalled, permanently scarred. Whichever fits best.
McGirr’s book provides some answers about where this comes from. To be fair, her book is not about the kind of public xenophobic race-baiting or social-media insult-slinging that catapulted Trump into power. Rather, her book focuses on the origins of the new type of Conservatism that emerged in the Sunbelt…
