1. Running head: Suburban Warriors 0
1/18/2016
Key Players, Key
Political Issues
The Origins of the New American Right.
Krista A. Kyker
HISTORY 317 SEC. 1 DR. WYATT

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Abstract
Lisa McGirr’s novel Suburban Warriors the Origins of the New American Right, illustrated the
significant shift in the Republican Party’s organization, practice, and ideology in the second half
of the twentieth century. She maintained that while certain events and people had a large role in
the dynamics of the party itself, the origin of Conservative mobilization was a strong grassroots
conservative movement that began in Orange County, California. Major players like Barry
Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Phyllis Schafly helped to bring media attention to the shift in
party politics. However, the everyday women and men that lived and worked in the Cold War
economic boom, were the backbone of this dramatic change in momentum that brought the
conservative party to the National forefront.
Keywords: Cold War Boom, Conservative Mobilization, Lisa McGirr, Suburban

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Conservative Mobilization
Lisa McGirr’s novel Suburban Warriors the Origins of the New American Right,
connects the mobilization of a strong grass roots conservative movement with a reactionary and
changing society. She claims that a strong centralized government, with too many regulations
and public assistance programs, motivated an already conservative community to organize. Big
intrusive Government that supported the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960’s, seemed to parallel the
socialist policies of the New Deal. McGirr points to the location of the Military Defense bases
and manufacturing plants surrounding their Orange County community as a major factor in
creating a local communist hysteria. Defense spending may have elevated the income levels in
this area and allowed for the rapid suburbanization of Orange County, but it also inflamed pre-
existing fears and mistrust of the Federal Government’s relationship with the Soviet Union. The
end of World War 11 and the onset of the cold war only encouraged the Conspiracy Theorists in
Orange County, Suburbia. In her novel, Suburban Warriors, Lisa McGirr links the mobilization
of the Orange County grassroots movement, to the cultural, political, social, and economic
changes occurring in the world. These changes motivated local members of the conservative
parties to transform their traditional party rhetoric and fight their way into mainstream politics.
Key Players and Political Divisions
Lisa McGirr organized each chapter in Suburban Warriors into the major themes that
impacted the evolution of the conservative movement. The first several chapters of the novel
explain the demographics and circumstances surrounding the environment of Orange County,
California, and the people in that community. McGirr first describes the diverse group of
inhabitants, traditional and migrants, southern conservatives and western “cowboy

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capitalist”1that formed this Sunbelt community. She claims that the area’s rapid growth was “a
result of the largesse of Uncle Sam”2 and massive Federal spending on Defense, Aeronautics,
and Electronic Industry. As private businesses grew along with ranching/agribusiness, the
individualism and property rights that these citizens felt were their God given right, seemed
threatened by too many government regulations. A strict white Protestant work ethic motivated
by a high moral standard, encouraged the housewives of these working men to create a well-
organized, local conservative movement. They were seen by the community as the “Moral
Guardians”3 of the future of individualism, property rights, laissez-faire, decentralized
government, anti-communist, and Christian crusader. While their husbands worked, they met,
organized, and grew their grassroots movement from the “Kitchen Table”, to a nationally
recognized force.
The next phase in the mobilization of the conservative grassroots movement, in Orange
County, grew from groups and individuals that utilized the media to network. Robert Welch of
the John Birch Society, Dr. Fred Schwartz and his School of Anti-Communism, and Walter
Knott’s Americanism Educational League, were several of the people and organizations that
inflamed fear of a communist takeover in the country. Political candidates like Barry Goldwater,
George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan all took advantage mass media as a way to
publicly address their views. These men used radio, television, pamphlets, and high quality
oratory to attract disgruntled members of the Democratic Party. Goldwater’s “colorblind” speech
paved the way for Richard Nixon’s “a wink and a nod”, in order to gain white elite southern
supporters. These politicians tamed the extremist stigma that had followed the Republican Party
1 McGirr. Suburban Warriors the Origins of the New American Right. Pp. 30
2 McGirr. Suburban Warriors. Pp. 29
3 McGirr. Suburban Warriors. Pp. 87

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for years by adjusting their messages from Civil Rights to Individual Property Rights and from
Anti-Communism to Anti-Welfare State. In Orange County California where Proposition 18
became a major source of contention eventually leading to Howard Jarvis’s proposition 13,
property rights were a hot button with residents. This new delivery style coupled with
charismatic speech, elevated politicians in the conservative movement to major players on the
National level.
The second half of Lisa McGirr’s novel illustrates the unification of the Libertarian and
Conservative ideologies into a populist conservative movement. McGirr explains this as a
connection of like associations and grievances. Libertarians’ belief in “absolute property rights as
a fundamental law of human existence served as the functional equivalent of the transcendent
moral authority of religious conservatives.”4 Both groups were in favor of personal/economic
freedom and the collectivist policies and welfare programs to create equality and social justice
for all, only solidified this union. McGirr points to this era as a pivotal moment in the Republican
Party’s movement, where they stopped focusing on anti-communism and began blaming the
Liberal party for the “Nanny State” in which they created through New Deal programs and Great
Society Policies. By using the media to help spread their message, redefining Republican Party
politics, and shifting their focus, they quickly gained momentum. The new populist movement
was able blame the Democrats for a Welfare dependent and idle society because their legislation
gave too many handouts. In trying to create a “Just and fair society where resources are
distributed fairly”5, the liberals managed to alienate some of their members. The Republican
Party capitalized on the Democrats loss in membership and quickly gained leverage on a national
4 McGirr. Suburban Warriors. Pp.165-165
5 McGirr. Suburban Warriors. Pp. 149-152

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level. Here, McGirr describes the Republicans shift from a marginalized group of extremist
fanatics, to a party contender for the office of President of the United States.
McGirr describes the last major step in transforming the Republican Party as a rebirth of
Evangelicalism. The countercultural mores that resulted from the hippy movement, were
borrowed from preachers to create a folk like environment to attract new membership. Churches
evolved into more than just places of worshipped that existed behind closed wall. Outside areas
of baptism, traveling ministries, televised sermons, and Christian rock radio stations, all
encouraged the growth of this movement. Moral decay within the society, crime, drugs, cultural
shifts in traditions, encouraged people to go back to their Christian roots. Mega churches and TV
Evangelist Preachers were able to reach groups of people that may have otherwise missed this
form of enlightenment. McGirr describes the populist conservative movement as coinciding with
this rebirth of Evangelism, to help explain the transformation in the conservative movement. All
the while maintaining that the Sunbelt regions of the United States, particularly Orange County,
California, were the one constant, in a slew of variables, which mobilized the Republican Party’s
drastic transformation.
Conclusion/Opinion
This novel was well-organized and easy to follow. Lisa McGirr used popular historical
figures, events, and themes, to help describe her theory of the mobilization of the conservative
movement. Her writing enabled me to make connections between specific areas of interest that I
have studied, while supporting her opinions about the movement with current events and factual
data. One example of such a connection was McGirr mention of Phyllis Schafly’s dissent from
the feminist movement. I first encountered Ms. Schafly’s twisted anti-feminist stance in a
Women in Politics class. Last semester Ms. Schafly’s book Positive Women and her life’s

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mission to keep the ERA from passage, was introduced into my historical repertoire. In learning
a little more about Ms. Schafly’s background in Suburban Warriors, I could hate her less and
gain a small amount of understanding about her position. In this way, the wealth of knowledge I
learned from reading McGirr’s book, helped me to take a more tolerant position about a key
figure in the conservative feminist movement. McGirr’s book did an excellent job of setting the
scene of each time period, and describing the major events/factors/people who impacted the
conservative movement’s transformative years of growth.

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Works Cited
McGirr, L. (2015). Suburban Warriors. (G. G. William Chafe, Ed.) Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press.

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