Rightwing Populism and the White Neighborhood

“I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood,” tweeted president Donald Trump on July 29, 2020. Two weeks later, he tweeted out,

The “suburban housewife” will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!

As is often the case during the age of Trump, the president chose to amplify the racist dog whistles of the past. The president and many other Republican leaders have made it clear over the last several years that a defense of the white neighborhood is a core tenet of the modern conservative movement.

Trump’s fiery rhetoric is connected to a long duree of conservative movements who pitted themselves against the New Deal and other liberal reforms during the second half of the twentieth century. Michelle Nickerson’s Mothers of Conservatism, Timothy Lombardo’s Blue-Collar Conservatism, and Jason Hackworth’s Manufacturing Decline, each examine the rise of the American political right but also focus on the politics surrounding the American neighborhood. This history included white communities who mobilized against public housing, progressive educators, and civil rights activists but also included the conservative intelligentsia who crafted popular ideological attacks on post–New Deal urban regions. Through offering up histories of the politics of conservative women in southern California, blue-collar whites in Philadelphia, and the conservatives who demonized the urban Midwest, it is even more evident that the American right succeeded at resolving the contradictions that existed within their national coalition through a well-defined enemy of their communities.

Throughout Mothers of Conservatism, Nickerson, a historian at Loyola University Chicago, provides readers with profiles of grassroots activists whose work show that there was almost always a thin line between extreme and respectable politics within the conservative movement. While Nickerson lays out the different ways that women responded to the politics of their eras, she places more of an emphasis on the continuity when looking at the role that mothers’ movements played in building a viable movement. “The gulf between the prewar far right and Cold War conservative movement should not be overdrawn,” writes Nickerson (p. 30).

Nickerson begins with an examination of the right of the 1910 and 1920s, when the conservative movement’s “basic components as a thought tradition” came together in American politics through the formation of a “mother-versus-the state dichotomy” (p. 1). Nickerson points to instances where women groups depicted the suffrage movement, progressive reforms, and early forms of internationalism as a “monolithic threat that menaced the nation from the outside in.” This was especially true when these movements were combined with the threat of new immigrants who were seen as taking “advantage of the status of progressive women” (p. 7). The fear of race-mixing was at the forefront of most conservative groups of the 1920s, as the Great Depression and the New Deal only heightened the “dire national crisis that could drag country into chaos and communism, unless female crusaders intervened” (p. 16).

The Great Depression led to the rise of what Nickerson refers to as “housewife populism,” a shift that reframed conservative attacks on the state and internationalism during the 1930s. Women would use their maternalism as a political tool, presenting themselves as proud bulwarks that protected families from progressivism. A populist movement crafted around gender framed conservatives as the underdogs who were battling the increasing powers of the expanding state. Grassroots study groups and other community organizations shaped the culture of the conservative movement in the Los Angeles region and beyond, as Nickerson pays special attention to the movement’s bookstores describing them as “nerve centers” for activists. Nickerson’s interviews with activists show that conservative women viewed their work as absolutely necessary and not just the product of anxiety. Both talked as if they had to expose the “left as if there was no other choice” (p. 54). Much like the mothers who viewed internationalist peace groups as a serious threat to their communities, the conservatives of the early-Cold War saw the United Nations and communism as part of the same broader threat that was “a global and community problem” (p. 67). Perceived attacks on the nation’s sovereignty became intertwined with attacks on Christianity, their homes, and their families.

The central episode of Mothers of Conservatism examines how mothers in Pasadena successfully removed their school district’s progressive superintendent William Goslin, and then made it a model for other conservative organizations across the country. Nickerson argues that this campaign against a single enemy helped unite Pasadena’s right as “activists resolved the political paradoxes that were necessary for them to develop a broad shared political subjectivity” (p. 86). Soon, other communities would claim that their own school officials would “out-Goslin Goslin,” as conservative networks encouraged grassroots activists to pressure their local districts to remove administrators who supported progressive curriculum. “Within months, then, Pasadena had become shorthand for a mix of racial and political affairs” (p. 75).

While targeting progressive educators was a successful tactic for uniting conservative mothers in southern California, the movement also focused on United Nations–sponsored curriculum in school and the ties between psychiatric professionals and the welfare state. Nickerson’s chapter on the panic surrounding the Alaska Mental Health Act of 1956, known to conservatives as “Siberia USA,” demonstrates how mothers’ groups were a part of a growing network of far-right conspiracies. The Act significantly improved Alaska’s mental health system but was quickly condemned by the far right due to the legislation’s commitment provisions. Rumors quickly spread among conservatives that that the law was an attempt to round up and brainwash Americans. Using their statuses as protectors of the home, mothers framed the bill as an attempt to break up the American family. They also used movement publications to not only raise awareness about the bill but of the broader dangers of the elites who promoted psychiatry. Nickerson highlights one poem about Siberia USA in a conservative newsletter that read, “If you stand up and say you love Old Glory, and show you’re an American with guts, Baby you’d better get yourself a lawyer, For ‘mental health’ is out to prove YOU’RE NUTS . . . !” (p. 119).

Siberia USA demonstrated the power of right-wing activist networks as they eventually infiltrated more respectable segments of the conservative movement. Nickerson shows that National Review did not embrace the Siberia USA theory, but the publication joined in the hype surrounding the danger of psychiatry. Furthermore, the thin line that might have existed between respectable conservative institutions and more extremist groups became even blurrier during the Goldwater campaign. Groups like Mothers for More Moral America and the Network of Patriotic Letter Writers (NPLW) were extensions of the same grassroots energy that fired superintendents and promoted anti-psychiatry conspiracy theories during the 1950s. The difference was that their movement had a national profile where conservative women could once again use their gender as a way to help soften the movement. This time, it would help soften Goldwater’s image in the press. “Goldwater Gals and Girls carried on partisan female political traditions dating back to the 1920s,” writes Nickerson (p. 158).

Nickerson concludes with the Goldwater campaign, but she makes sure to connect the suburban “housewife populism” of the Cold War to Governor Sarah Palin’s arrival on the national scene in 2008 when John McCain selected her to be the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee. Palin described herself as “Mama Grizzly” which she defined as a conservative woman “with common sense,” and encouraged her fans over the next several years to embrace a conspiratorial view of the Obama presidency. ¹ Palin’s attacks were racially charged and they also resembled the way that conservative women organized against the progressive reformers of the Cold War. Nickerson does not explore why Palin’s brand of politics surprised so many in the media, but she still lays out a vital roadmap for those who want to understand how conservative women promoted their work. In her conclusion, Nickerson writes that while she “does not deny the existence of false consciousness,” she does question “its value as a conceptual tool for political historians” (p. 169). The women who helped contribute to the rise of the right in the United States were true believers, and Nickerson’s work is a valuable reminder of the need to understand their motivations.

Timothy Lombardo, a historian at the University of South Alabama, joins Nickerson’s call to move away from a false consciousness narrative in Blue-Collar Conservatism. Lombardo’s history of postwar Philadelphia is a blend of the city’s social movements and its political figures, with the infamous police commissioner-turned-mayor Frank Rizzo as its central character. While the book situates itself within the broader historiography of the right United States, Lombardo’s research focuses on how white urban Democrats became a part of the Reagan coalition. “This is the story of how white, blue-collar Americans came to see their interests more aligned with conservatives than with liberals,” writes Lombardo. “It is a history of accommodation, reaction, and resistance to local, state, and federal policies” (p. 17). Lombardo also emphasizes that Rizzo and his supporters were not just transitional figures in the march toward the Reagan revolution. They should remind readers that “blue-collar conservatism was not a complete break from the New Deal liberalism that guided American, especially urban, politics since the Great Depression” (p. 6). In multiple White House conversations, Richard Nixon and his aide Charles Colson talked about the importance of appealing to disillusioned “white ethnics” to create a new Republican majority. Lombardo shows readers who made up Nixon’s “Silent Majority” in Philadelphia. “Rizzocrats” were in fact the original “Reagan Democrats,” but Lombardo does not just depict the controversial mayor as Reagan’s opening act. Instead, Rizzo and his voters are shown to be active participants in the formation of a new coalition with conservatives that was based on law and order politics. This coalition would eventually squeeze out the liberal and moderate wings of the GOP to accommodate cultural allies like Rizzo and his supporters.

Lombardo convincingly argues for the “centrality of spatial politics,” showing that it is the undeniable link between New Deal liberalism and the rise of the right (p. 6). Much like the conservatives who policed the educational content of schools in Pasadena, postwar Philadelphia provides stories of blue-collar whites monitoring schools, neighborhood streets, and city government. In both cases, activists used populist rhetoric (housewife vs. blue collar) to conceal the more odious elements of their ideological projects. Race is frequently at the forefront of the city’s debates surrounding liberal programs such as affirmative action, public housing, school desegregation, and policing. Economic anxieties did shape the political cultures of the white ethnic neighborhoods, but Lombardo believes those concerns were “never separate from race and white privilege” (p. 9). Race undoubtedly contributed to the postwar realignment of Philadelphia and other urban spaces during the mid-twentieth century. Private developers’ refusal to sell to African Americans led to the quasi-suburban Northeastern Philadelphia being more than 90 percent white during the postwar era. A defense of these neighborhoods was at the center of the story of Rizzo’s Philadelphia, as groups that were previously known as “white ethnics” became a part of a singular white identity. “We need you as long as you are white. We don’t care if you’re Polocks or Jews. We want whites!” declared the organizers of one anti-segregation march from a sound truck in 1968 (p. 114).

Although Democratic Mayors such as Joseph Clark, Richardson Dilworth, and James Tate presided over an era of modest reforms on housing, education, and policing in the 1950s and 1960s, Lombardo makes sure to point out the fragility of the city’s liberal consensus as “it was never as widespread as liberals hoped” (p. 29). There was a disconnect not only between reformers and white Democrats but also between City Hall and civil rights leaders. “The municipal liberal consensus that attempted to forge a coalition of business interests, blue-collar whites, and African Americans left a legacy of half-kept promises and urban division,” writes Lombardo (p. 48). His overview of postwar Philadelphia is comprehensive, as it highlights the very real limitations of postwar liberalism in Philadelphia. Still, it is worth exploring how the Cold War shaped the city’s politics, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s. While a fear of communism was arguably more of a factor in other regions, it is important to acknowledge the Cold War defined the parameters of liberalism and populism in cities like Philadelphia.

Lombardo also describes moments where black families were besieged with violent reactions when they moved into a white neighborhood, the most notable example being the rioters in Kensington who mobilized in front of a black family’s home. Lombardo also brings up the Columbia Avenue Race Riot of 1964 as a moment that “shattered the liberal postwar era’s myth of racial progress,” and dives deep into how police officers and their families organized against police advisory boards that emerged in the 1960s (p. 51). By 1967, Mayor James Tate decided to promote the already controversial Frank Rizzo to the city’s Police Commissioner as a way to placate the police officers and white working-class voters who were demanding “law and order.”

Tate’s attempt to compromise with “law and order” politics did little to rein in the boisterous Rizzo as blue-collar whites increasingly saw the South Philadelphia native as an extension of their own communities. Lombardo identifies numerous instances where Rizzo fought against school desegregation and federal housing projects, but it also examines how blue-collar whites were drawn to his traditional masculinity. Supporters trumpeted his macho image, viewing it as a necessary antidote to the rise of the Black Power movement. His working-class background was also used to enhance his masculinity when compared with liberal reformers who ran the city’s institutions. At one point, Rizzo threatened to fire Philadelphia’s superintendent of public schools, an authority that he did not have, but still strengthened his image with white voters. When targeting his political opponents, Rizzo once declared that he would “make Attila the Hun look like a faggot” (p. 163). While President Richard Nixon kept his dark side private, Rizzo made it a major part of his campaigns.

Rizzo’s populism relied heavily on race and gender, but it also sought to preserve the benefits that working-class whites had won during the New Deal-era. Lombardo quotes a white mother in Northeast Philadelphia who asked, “The poor have welfare, the rich have money. What have we got?” (p. 130). These voters were not conservative ideologues, but they believed that liberal officials and civil rights activists were threatening their communities. Lombardo shows that blue-collar whites often separated themselves from others by distinguishing the benefits they gained as being from “hard work” as opposed to “handouts.” Rizzo combined a demonization of impoverished black communities with a defense of unions that had guaranteed higher wages to working-class whites in Philadelphia. “Thank God we have unions,” declared Rizzo at a 1971 campaign event where he also criticized his opponent for representing big business and owning three homes (p. 151). Rizzo’s class politics showed that he was not a conservative ideologue, but like George Wallace, his career was largely defined by his contributions to the rise of the right. Lombardo reveals how Rizzo’s career was connected to a New Deal tradition, but it was driven by a defense of white schools and neighborhoods. The people who voted for Rizzo were the same people who protested public housing projects by climbing on top of bulldozers and stopping work crews.

Lombardo’s ability to blend the social history of Philadelphia with the political history of Rizzo and his rivals is impressive, and it captures the significance of 1970s Philadelphia when situated within the broader story of conservatism. In the end, Rizzo’s two terms as Mayor (1971-1979) was the peak of blue-collar populism, as many of Rizzo’s voters left Philadelphia for the suburbs in the 1980s. Rizzo ran for mayor three more times, twice as a Republican, but was never able to win another election. Demographic changes meant that Rizzocrats no longer ruled the city, but Rizzo’s influence would live on with the mainstreaming of law and order politics in America’s cities and suburbs.

As cities like Philadelphia became symbols of white flight, they also became political weapons for conservatives who argued that they were the products of liberalism run amok. A professor of planning and geography at the University of Toronto, Jason Hackworth writes in Manufacturing Decline that as the nation saw the erosion of Jim Crow, it moved toward “laissez-faire racism.” He argues that conservatives bear the most responsibility for the decline of predominantly black Midwestern cities, and that they have used “laissez-faire racism to enact a whole range of deprivationist policies” in the modern neoliberal city. Hackworth adds that while “conservatives are not solely responsible for racial threat . . . they have played a crucial organizational role in its dissemination and implementation” (p. 21). Hackworth often adopts a polemical tone, but he also offers readers an overarching history of the last several decades. Hackworth weaves together the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Karl Polanyi, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, analyzes the nation’s fascination with “ruin porn,” and includes several detailed histories of the landscapes of several specific cities. Whereas Nickerson and Lombardo situate their compelling local histories within broader narratives on the right, Hackworth chooses to focus on the policies and rhetoric that have wrecked the nation’s entire Rust Belt.

Race is at the center of the Hackworth’s analysis as racial threat, urban decline, and the conservative movement are framed as forces that “animate and reinforce one another.” While others attempt to explain urban decline in explicitly economic terms, Hackworth argues that “laissez-faire racism is significantly built on an organized construction of the failed black city” (p. 26). The flight to the suburbs was not just an economic choice but was instead the product of racially charged conservatism that came to define the nation’s political culture. Hackworth splits his book into two sections, “Racial Threat and Urban Decline” and “Depriving the Othered City.” The former looks at how conservative politicians have successfully used racist imagery and rhetoric in their campaigns, while the latter focuses on the policies that have weakened city governments and in favor of private development. Hackworth writes that local governments have been “reduced to a business partner for downtown commercial developers—the convenient possessor of eminent domain and coordinating capacity” (p. 157).

In the first chapter, Hackworth examines attacks on black Democratic mayors in the Rust Belt who faced intense scrutiny from white residents and the business community. In regions where black people became a majority or a plurality of a city’s population, black politicians often rose to power and inspired hope for civil rights organizations. Labeling this a “hollow prize,” Hackworth argues that black leadership in the Rust Belt has not led to an increase of black political power. “No matter how accommodating the black leadership structure, and it was often more accommodating than the white liberal predecessors in places like Detroit, Atlanta, and New Orleans, they were and continue to be framed as ‘anti-business’” (p. 50).

Hackworth believes that black elected officials, even if they were modest in their aims, faced an ideological project that was determined to other black population centers. The othering of black people through emphasizing the “pathological inner city” was a central component of the conservative movement. Racially charged dog whistles fused “two elements of the conservative movement: the racially resentful voter and the racially anxious voter” (p. 67). Hackworth quickly covers the political history of race in the United States, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Donald Trump, but also provides thoughtful analysis of certain key turning points for the conservative movement. After covering Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” and Reagan’s decision to begin his general election campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Hackworth devotes several pages to the latter’s campaign stop in the South Bronx. The event, which was organized by a young Roger Stone, featured Reagan decrying big government while standing in front of an abandoned lot and a large sign that read “DECAY.” Hackworth writes that Reagan used the setting as “a proxy for government failure and black pathology in a way that would animate his racially resentful supporters but offer plausible deniability for his racially anxious supporters” (p. 76). During the 1980s and 1990s, Reagan’s critiques of America’s cities became conventional wisdom, as market solutions replaced the perceived excessive restrictions of New Deal liberalism. Black cities like Detroit and other Rust Belt metropolitan areas were frequently held up as examples of the “failures of black militancy and Keynesianism.” Hackworth warns that “this narrative is allowed to drive policy discourses in Lansing and Washington” (p. 111).

Manufacturing Decline’s fourth chapter concludes with a reminder that “the conservative understanding of city governance is rooted in the paradigm of public choice.” Hackworth adds, “Within this frame, a cold and autonomous logic will discipline cities into becoming market-friendly” (p. 132). Much of the second half of the book demonstrates that choice is an illusion, and that conservative leaders in the public and private sector have made specific choices that have led to the decline of urban areas. “This attempt involved and continues to involve institutions, organization, common purpose, and intent. Urban decline is, in short, planned” (p. 215).

Hackworth also dissects land abandonment and demolition policies that were designed to attract investors but have not improved the lives of neighborhood residents. Several case studies of Rust Belt cities like Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Rochester, and Youngstown repeatedly demonstrate that efforts to “downsize” impoverished neighborhoods have mixed results at best. While demolishing neighborhoods creates more green space for residents, Hackworth argues that an austerity-driven approach to urban planning does not have a solution for those who are in need of affordable housing. Hackworth’s conclusion explicitly critiques the notion of a “free-market utopia” but also encourages readers to recognize the importance of creating institutions that promote alternatives to conservatism. After arguing that “grassroots participation does not automatically equal progressive justice,” he states that “the Left needs an intelligentsia too” to counter the power of the conservative movement.

Manufacturing Decline would have benefited from a greater engagement with the history of left social movements, and the problems they created for figures like Rizzo. Nevertheless, Hackworth’s top-down approach is a compelling contribution to the existing scholarship on the conservative movement. It is worth considering the individuals and organizations that are featured by Lombardo and Nickerson as they show how grassroots activists can create substantive roadblocks for governmental elites on both sides of the ideological aisle. Still, Hackworth’s conclusion is a valuable counterargument and perhaps a warning against romanticizing grassroots activism.

While each of these projects tackle different elements of the path toward late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century conservatism, they all stress the importance of race and neighborhood politics when attempting to understand the rise of the right. Hackworth’s emphasis on top-down political messaging and policy is still rooted in how Americans view their neighborhoods, schools, and often the communities that surround them as political battlefields. Taken together, these authors suggest that the right-wing populism that led to the Reagan Revolution could not have existed without those who felt compelled to defend their homes from liberal reformers, civil rights activists, and black cities.