What happened to the ultra-reactionary right-wing suburbanites?

[Alcibiades]

First of all, these ultra-reactionary types were mostly limited to Sunbelt suburbs, e.g. in Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, and, most famously, Southern California. The ones in the Northeast, for instance, tended to be more moderate, if still conservatively inclined.

As for what happened to them, well, for once ERM does kind of have a point. A lot of them just died. As for the ones who are still alive, most probably vote pretty Republican and even like Trump. I wouldn’t be surprised if white over-65s in Orange County were pushing 70% or 80% Trump. The disappearance of them in the sense of them ceasing to be politically influential in the suburbs is due to those places hugely changing and diversifying, and their children being nowhere near as conservative. The frenzied Cold War atmosphere couldn’t last forever.

[Alcibiades]

Orange County in the years that I lived there, was never particularly that socially conservative, at least not in the higher income zones. There also was not much racial tension that I sensed. What might cause a snap back to the Pubs is if the Dems start raising taxes on the middle to upper middle class, e.g., those making say 125K-250K.  In my former precinct, Romney got 60% of the vote. Trump 2020 got 49%, and that is a precinct without much demographic change, and has few kids, because its quite stunning views of the hills and ocean make the cost of housing per square foot relatively high, and those with kids want to spend their money on square feet, not views. So the place is dominated by white olds, with some Asians here and there and the odd Hispanic like Guillermo, who lives in my house there. Guillermo btw is a Republican never Trumper.

Anyway, I think some of the Dem trend in OC is due to the changing nature of the issues, and where the political cleavage points are, as opposed to a change in the demographics.

I think Orange County, while never as socially conservative as the South or Central Valley California, was and is still quite socially conservative next to most other comparable metropolitan suburban counties. There's far more evangelicals in high income neighbourhoods in Orange County compared to their equivalents in LA County or in Bay Area/NYC suburbia.

You only have to look at the types of Congressmen they used to elect (John Schmitz and Bob Dornan are the most notorious examples) to see that Orange County used to be pretty socially conservative.