This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It is based on the podcast Landslide, which tells the story of how the 1976 primary transformed the Republican Party.
Mark Robinson is running for governor in North Carolina, not Virginia as is stated in the article.
Rick Perlstein wrote a great article back in 2012 on the history of this trend. Back then we thought Mitt Romney was the biggest liar we’d ever seen but that was before we were shown there was no bottom, that Republicans could go so low that Mitt could seem like up.
The strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers points up evidence of another successful long march, of tactics designed to corral fleeceable multitudes all in one place—and the formation of a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began. …
But the New Right’s business model was dishonest in more than its revenue structure. Its very message—the alarmist vision of White Protestant Civilization Besieged that propelled fundraising pitch after fundraising pitch—was confabulatory too. ...
– Rick Perlstein, The Long Con
Unlike far too many of my (white) peers, coming of age under Reagan forever turned me against the Republican Party. How the was story arc of Reagan’s GOP so completely obvious to me - a teen-to-twenty-something - and yet so many around me adored the bastard? Including my parents and brothers. Each step, from Reagan to Gingrich to Dubya/Cheney to The Tea Party to Trump … Just f’ing obvious that this was where the cultural right was destined to go.
Trying to repeal the New Deal since the ink on FDR’s signature was drying. It’s disgusting how fundamentally selfish and bullying these people are.
The basis of Populism for centuries.
Look no further than the Know-Nothings of the 1840s!
I think I should finally read Richard Hofstadter’s Paranoid Style.
Hope my memory is correct.
Tip O’Neill was speaking with a 80 some year old life long Democrat poll worker.
She informed Tip he said something unkind about Reagan and that was not nice.
“I would like very much to see this country become once again … the kind of country, the free country, that WHITE PEOPLE LIKE YOU and I grew up in.”
Reagan then fixed his mistake in 1979 by trashing civil rights and all those welfare queens and young bucks living it up on yoru hard-earned white tax dollars. Motherfucker.
Interesting. From Reagan to Trump what we can see is all you need is a candidate who is willing to eschew any semblance of ethics, morals or values, suck up what is doled out by the extremists and you too can ‘win’. The problem is actually believing that you are the ‘head’ and if something is too unpalatable ‘they’ will listen to you. You are merely a puppet being controlled by the person behind the curtain.
The basic elements of the “New Right” were emerging in the late 1960s when Nixon, advised by Pat Buchanan and others, went after the working-class whites who were angry about Vietnam War protesters, desegregation, disrespect for the flag, abortion and just about everything else.
But Roe v. Wade (1973) was the spark.
Yes, in fact Hofstadter’s article and Perlstein’s together capture the essentials of the backstory for populist wine in new Republican bottles IMO. I found Bob Altemeyer’s research on authoritarians very helpful there too.
The Democratic majority unfortunately included a lot of southern Dems as realignment had yet to take full control, so the racist dog-whistles were being heard on both benches - it was just shrouded by “shining city on hill” rhetoric so people who didn’t want to see it, didn’t have to. And he was charismatic in a folksy, disarming way. I guess I was just cynical before my time…
Reagan had a Democrat controlled house for his entire presidency (by a fairly large margin), and he still had his way with ridiculous tax cuts and BS fixes to SSI. His walloping of Mondale in '84 psychically damaged a generation of Dems to be on the defensive.
I think the article leaves the racism part out of it. Most of the culture war issues that the right wing has ginned up have been carefully designed to not be explicit about the racism, but always to have it as a subtext. (desegregation and affirmative action of course, but also abortion.)
This is a great take, and I would just add this. Maybe it’s addressed in the book, but the “New Right” social backlash was generally the junior partner in the Republican coalition for a long time. It was at all times fed and catered to, but the business/moneyed/military interests still drove things at the top of the party.
In retrospect, what flipped that dynamic on its head was Dubya and Dick’s incredibly stupid war in Iraq and the Great Recession. That absolutely killed the credibility of the old school Cold Warrior conservatives and drove the voters into the hands of the social conservative wing. The Tea Party and trump are in charge now because Dubya and Dick drenched their controlling part of the coalition with gasoline and set it on fire.
My memory of the history of the Know-nothing party was its antiCatholicism. The party was drowned out by the Civil War.
Well past time for America to look back at the truth about Reagan and the new right. Bring it on.
To be sure, a key driving element, and the party itself was subsumed by the Civil War, but its spirit has never died and is fully present today in MAGA Trumpism.
He and they only the Latest Manifestation.
(Rhymes with Maggot Infestation….)
Not sure how this squares with the ultra conservative Catholics on the Supreme Court. I’ve read that there was such a concern that JFK was Catholic and would follow the Pope rather than the Constitution that he had to actually address that in a speech or two.
And here we are now with the GOP and Trump that “their God” trumps (no pun intended) the Constitution when they want it to.
Some folks knew all about Ronnie a loong time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTluSxJ1EMI
Reagan chose to travel to a small town, Philadelphia, Mississippi, to announce his bid for the presidency, where he highlighted a states’ rights theme. Why there? Recall it was there that three civil rights workers were murdered.
“ Philadelphia in June 1964 was the scene of the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old Jewishanthropology student from New York City; and Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old Jewish COREorganizer and former social worker, also from New York.”