From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism

Joseph Lowndes, in his book From the New Deal to the New Right implores us to look past the "backlash" theory so often supported in academia today as the primary rationale for the resurgance of modern conservatism. Instead, he asks the reader to accept his argument that race is the primary factor in the rise of the modern right - not in retaliation to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965 but as a political trump card that enabled conservative candidates to capture political offices.

Lowndes focuses on several key political actors in the 1960s and 70s in this work, with significant attention paid to the writings of the National Review, a key conservative organ in this period. Lowndes acknowledges that the Reagan Revolution could not have been possible without the groundwork laid by others,such as Charles Collins, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon.

Lowndes' argument and analysis of Collins and Wallace's works and words is persuasive; he demonstrates without a doubt that both of these modern day Conservatives believed that employing race - through social and economic philosophies, was the best strategy to discount liberals and the New Deal order. His analysis of Nixon, however, was not nearly as compelling - rather than focusing on the personal animosity that Nixon was known to harbor, Lowndes evaluates the FAP (Family Assistance Program), which was promoted by the Nixon adminstration. I believe that his argument would have been more persuasive if we had seen how Nixon translated his sometimes racist rhetoric into action to discredit the liberals. Perhaps Lowndes has accepted the theory that he mentions in his work that Nixon was the last President of the New Deal Order rather than the first President of the modern Conservative order.

Overall, this is a good book and helps us to understand the rise of modern Conservatism in the South. I highly recommend that any students of modern Conservatism read this book in an effort to gain a better understanding of the whole picture of the rise of the right.

An informative and well documented discussion of recent political history.

This is an amazing account of the political and cultural forces at work in the rise of the modern right.

There are already 4 excellent articulate 4 and 5 star reviews here, I don't need to try to add much to those. The author provides a great deal of information and argument. One point to note, Trent Lott arranged for Reagan to begin his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, MS, the town where 3 civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. Hard to find a better or more insensitive way to support Southern racists. Reagan made a point of stressing his allegiance to States rights.I recommend this book and a similar book, Joseph Crespino's In Search of Another Country.

Good books and other information on democracy and politics here:

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Midwest Independent Research

Dr. Lowndes's aim in this book is to show the role of race as the leading facilitator in the emergence of the modern Right in American politics. I think he succeeds in his aim.

He starts off by presenting the figure of Charles Wallace Collins, the guru of the 1948 Dixiecrat movement which ran Strom Thurmond as a third party presidential candidate. Collins was part of a group of southern elites who were increasingly paranoid about the encroachment of the federal government on states' rights that began during the New Deal. Something close to a last straw came when the Democratic Party adopted a platform calling for federal government intervention against racism at its 1948 convention. The Democratic Party, of course, had been virtually the unanimous party of choice for the south and white supremacists since the Civil War but elements in the northern wing of the Party were interested in moving the Party away from white supremacy. However southern elites were not comfortable making a clean break with the Democrats. Most southern voters, while supportive of white supremacy, also supported many New Deal programs.

Meanwhile, the Republicans began their effort to capitalize on southern fears that the federal government would impose civil rights for blacks over the heads of southern state governments. Karl Mundt, the powerful reactionary South Dakota Republican Senator, toured the south in the early 50's stressing to business groups and other elite bodies his party's devotion to "states' rights" principles. It was under Eisenhower, Lowndes shows, that the Republicans began their effort to compete with Democrats for the votes of segregation supporters in the South. This effort did not begin with the Goldwater campaign of 64' as is commonly believed.

Lowndes shows how the National Review, as part of its efforts to wrest the Republican Party away from Northeastern moderates, began to cultivate southern segregationists. For example, in a 1957 editorial, William F. Buckley argued that at that particular point in time, southern whites were superior in civilization to southern blacks and so were entitled to continue to enforce their domination on such blacks. Another writer in the journal expressed support for the defense of the southern "way of life." Meanwhile, Brent Bozell, argued in NR's pages that while the federal government generally had no right to force an end to racial segregation on the states, it should enforce black rights in the south under the 15th amendment (the right to vote).

Lowndes next goes on to show how the conservative Republican effort to cultivate southern segregationists picked up steam in the early 60's. These efforts were temporarily derailed by Eisenhower's decision to send troops to Arkansas in the midst of white riots over school integration in 1957. But the conservative wing of the party, led by Barry Goldwater, continued to stress that, however much racism was distasteful to them personally, they firmly believed that federal government action against racial discrimination in the southern states was against the US constitution. Lowndes further shows how southern segregationists were making slow but steady inroads into the Party in the early 60's to the point where Bob Novak observed that the Republicans seemed to be becoming "the White Man's Party."

Lowndes next goes on to discuss the George Wallace phenomenon. He shows how Wallace was the first politician to show electoral prominence by bringing racial politics into areas of the Northern US. In 1968 he capitalized on the fears of northern urban ethnic whites about federal government enforced school integration, open housing laws and other anti-discrimination measures. He portrayed his supporters as honest hardworking middle class (white) people who were being forced to live side by side with rioting criminal minded welfare cheats (code for black people in the ghetto). Lowndes shows how Richard Nixon then appropriated much of the Wallace "backlash" rhetoric.

Lowndes argues that the right wing was able to dilute enthusiasm for the New Deal state among white folks, particularly with the New Deal's previously bedrock core supporters among northern urban ethnics, by using coded racial language. The climax of such a campaign was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Reagan, as Lowndes observes, launched his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, site of the murder of the three civil rights workers in 1964. The South immediately got the message loud and clear about Reagan's devotion to "states' rights."

Lowndes ends the book with a look at the very odd career of Asa Carter, a speechwriter for George Wallace and leader of an extremely violent underground KKK splinter group. In the early 70's, Carter changed his name to Forest Carter and set up shop as a novelist. His first book, The Outlaw Josey Wales, was made into a movie by Clint Eastwood in 1976. Of course, nobody knew that Forest Carter was actually Asa Carter, the former white supremacist activist. Carter then moved on to writing fiction about Native Americans, whom he portrayed sympathetically. One of Carter's stories is familiar to me, having had it read to me more than once when I was in elementary or junior high school: The Education of Little Tree. Carter would claim to be part Cherokee. Lowndes argues that Carter's novels show the author to believe that southern white supremacists and Native Americans shared victimization at the hands of the federal government. Lowndes reads Carter as having incorporated an element of the 1960's New Left (respect for Native American land rights) into his peculiar white supremacist vision. Of course, Lowndes runs a risk in that he is attempting to read Carter's mind through his novels, without having direct evidence to confirm that Carter was thinking the way Lowndes interprets. But nonetheless Lowndes's portrayal is plausible enough.