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

[VAR]

We know the suburbs were... very different just 20 years ago. Significantly less tolerant, more backward/reactionary, etc.

Demographic change is certainly a thing, but some of these places have swung by 40-50 points to Democrats since then. It’s quite hard to believe none of these people voted Dem in either 2016 or 2020.

What do you all think?

[Greedo punched first]

We know the suburbs were... very different just 20 years ago. Significantly less tolerant, more backward/reactionary, etc.

Demographic change is certainly a thing, but some of these places have swung by 40-50 points to Democrats since then. It’s quite hard to believe none of these people voted Dem in either 2016 or 2020.

What do you all think?

Many of them died?

[Greedo punched first]

San Diego County used to have many, but they were old and died.

[If my soul was made of stone]

They're still there, just vastly outvoted by newer and more progressive demographics that have poured in from other parts of the world in recent years. Small amounts were also caught up in the realigning waves of 2008 and 2016, but especially in more racially-polarized states (GA, TX) this isn't as much a factor as the swings would make it seem.

[Greedo punched first]

They're dying in Escondido, CA.

[Pink Panther]

I believe the suburbs became much more diverse, along with most children of these ultra-reactionary surbanites being much more left-wing than their parents, possibly due to experiences with minorities and more left-wing ideals, both fiscally and socially, as college probably helped this process(though college shouldn't be blamed as the sole reason). Another reason is probably Trump, and since the GOP probably isn't going to purge Trumpism from their party anytime soon, surbanites will probably be more open to vote Dem. Though I am not entirely sure, due to me personally not living in the suburbs, and not knowing any surbanites personally.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Generational replacement has indeed caused quite a shift, and yes, many right-wing suburbanites have died, much like how New Deal Dems dying off has made rural America more Atlas blue. ERM has a point.
Then you have defections among those no longer voting on basis of Cold War issues and increasingly on basis of social liberalism and/or opposition to evangelical social conservativism and, more recently, rural-rooted strands of Trumpism.  Combined with suburbs diversifying, and many young persuadable-for-Dems types in the rurals moving to the Sunbelt and MSP and all other things I have so far mentioned, that explains the bulk of the suburban shift for Democrats.

[freepcrusher]

here are two somewhat adjacently relevant questions:

1) what happened to the right wing business community in southern California? Think Salvatori, Karcher, Knott and what not. They usually sent there kids to USC and were often in charge of things like the Tournament of Roses.

2) did the exodus out of California actually begin in the 1970s? If you look at the 1970 vs 1980 census - LA County alone lost 1 million white people (proxy for native angelenos). A lot of them probably went to Ventura or Orange county but a lot of them probably also left the state. It actually mentions in the Almanac of American Politics from that time period that people who thought orange county wasn't conservative enough were moving to Idaho.

[darklordoftech]

- The end of the cold war meant that the military-industrial complex had less of a need for factories, so military factories closing pushed the suburbs that employees of those factories lived in to the left.

- Growing income inequaliy has led voters to go from seeing the GOP as their party to seeing the GOP as the party of the 1%.

- The 1992 and 2008 recessions hurt the economic standing of a lot of suburban voters.

- Crime rates aren’t what they were in the late 1960s - early 1990s.

- The GOP has burned bridges with Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, Gingrich, government shutdowns, guns, Clinton’s impeachment, Iraq, homophobia, etc.

[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.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

- The end of the cold war meant that the military-industrial complex had less of a need for factories, so military factories closing pushed the suburbs that employees of those factories lived in to the left.

This is especially relevant in case of Southern California.

[H. Ross Peron]

here are two somewhat adjacently relevant questions:

1) what happened to the right wing business community in southern California? Think Salvatori, Karcher, Knott and what not. They usually sent there kids to USC and were often in charge of things like the Tournament of Roses.

2) did the exodus out of California actually begin in the 1970s? If you look at the 1970 vs 1980 census - LA County alone lost 1 million white people (proxy for native angelenos). A lot of them probably went to Ventura or Orange county but a lot of them probably also left the state. It actually mentions in the Almanac of American Politics from that time period that people who thought orange county wasn't conservative enough were moving to Idaho.

Salvatori's grandson is a Republican political operative but now lives in Naples, Florida. https://www.fordoconnell.com/

[Hope For A New Era]

A study showed that one of the few consistently successful ways to change someone's political views was to present them with the extreme versions of their own views.

I think Trump may have been a bit of an uncomfortable mirror to look into for some of these people.


Most of the other reasons have already been addressed in the thread.

[VPH]

Perhaps they also moved further out into exurbs as the suburbs diversified

[Torie]

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.

[Wormless Gourd]

The conditions that spawned them aren't around for most people anymore, so many of them are very old and their children lack the same economic and social context to vote/think like them.
Post-war economic boom gave a lot of people the ability to rise to middle class or upper middle class status without leaning heavily into education, generational wealth or for many even a labor organization.

In addition, they'd often have military backgrounds(tens of millions of conscripted men served 1940-1950s) and many were migrants from the rural Midwest or South(such as in SoCal), susceptible to post-war religious revivals, often working in jobs that aren't nearly as plentiful now, particularly defense and the countless industries that grew from defense spending. Often the values that these things confer stuck with people regardless of their social mobility and was particularly turned up under Nixon and Reagan.

Defense spending declines precipitously, degree requirement for jobs grew, new generations of degree'd liberals begin to live in the same neighborhood(often their own children) and the industry of universities, technology and social services begin to inform the opinions of those newcomers.

There still are newly-minted, wealthy arch-conservatives but they tend to move to the exurbs for both self-sorting(often on industry lines, like law enforcement) and greater political representation.
Most however are still very old and most suburbs will continue to lose members of that generation in favor of degree'd liberals coming into ascendant industries.

[H. Ross Peron]

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.

[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.

[sting in the rafters]

A) Became more diverse and younger.

B) Many suburbanites got hit hard by the great recession, which made Keynesian economics more palatable.

[Indy Texas]

The contemporary version of them is ultra-reactionary right-wing exurbanites.

Ex. Dallas County, TX used to be a hotbed of Goldwater Republicanism in the 1950s and 1960s because of the suburbs immediately abutting Dallas.

As Dallas grew, those places became more urban in character and the new conservative suburbs were in Collin and Denton counties.

Now, we're seeing those places shift away from the GOP and the new place for extremely conservative Republicans is Johnson County.

[Brittain33]

"Why do Democrats keep struggling in Florida?"

[freepcrusher]

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.

I feel the part of the county that was the most socon was Dannemeyer's old seat (especially the eastern part). It was basically everything north of highway 91 and some areas south of it (Anaheim, Villa Park, Orange, north Tustin). Kind of rich enough to not have much of a blue dog lineage but close enough to the IE to have a socon mentality.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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.

For sure, change in demographics cannot explain 100% of the OC shift towards Dems. That might fly in Henry County, GA (and be valid in that case) but not in OC.

[H. Ross Peron]

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.

I feel the part of the county that was the most socon was Dannemeyer's old seat (especially the eastern part). It was basically everything north of highway 91 and some areas south of it (Anaheim, Villa Park, Orange, north Tustin). Kind of rich enough to not have much of a blue dog lineage but close enough to the IE to have a socon mentality.

I think that's borne out in the city level breakdown for Prop 8 in 2008 (http://projects.latimes.com/elections/orange-county-prop-8-results-by-city/)

Villa Park and Yorba Linda joined heavily nonwhite cities such as La Palma and Garden Grove in overwhelmingly voting to reject gay marriage. Meanwhile, coastal Republican strongholds such as Newport Beach and Huntington Beach only narrowly voted for Prop 8 by less than the county or even state level margins. Inland South County suburbs such as Mission Viejo and Lake Forest voted in between those two extremes, generally matching the county average. Interestingly both the inland and coastal GOP strongholds remain pro-Trump but the inland south county suburbs flipped to the Democrats in 2020.

[RINO Tom]

This would depend on both the suburb and the demographic of said voter (age, race, industry, etc.), but I would say that in general, studies show that most people don't just flip their politics one day because of some event that places like Atlas overemphasize the importance of ... like Donald Trump's candidacy.  Additionally, I will point out that when you look at precinct maps, there are still "classically right wing suburbs" that still have Republican areas like Newport Beach (home of the Bluths in Arrested Development) and Palm Beach, FL (not to be confused with WEST Palm Beach).

I can only speak to suburbs I am more familiar with, so I will focus on the Chicagoland area and two specific people who might fit this archetype of a reliable, right wing suburban voter:

1) The voter who doesn't notice any change: A guy I had a networking call with who knows someone in my family.  VERY well off, works in consulting and lives in Barrington Hills.  This is an area that used to be super Republican and I think voted narrowly for Biden?  Can't remember.  Anyway, I would imagine that he has LITERALLY no idea that his suburb isn't still a 70%+ Republican stronghold based on comments he has made.  I would argue this points to his "circle" still largely being Republican and the movement being caused by those who were on the fence switching or younger, more liberal couples moving in.  In other words, an area can flip without the "hardcore Republicans" changing their voting patterns.

2) The voter who perceives their area as changing, rather than the party: A friend's dad who is a doctor and lives in Naperville.  Rabidly Republican and talks about how "Naperville has changed."  This also describes my aunt who lives in NOVA, talking about how this "isn't the NOVA we moved to in the 1990s, that's for sure!"  That isn't to say that people in Naperville haven't switched parties (they obviously have), but it IS to say that many of these turncoats never fit your stereotype you mention and also that many newcomers/kids of these people are indeed changing the political culture.

In conclusion, I would argue that there are three main lurking causes that are ALL much more important than the whole "Romney-Clinton phenomenon," as a place going from Romney to Clinton could happen with far fewer VOTERS going from Romney to Clinton than one might expect (though obviously some would have had to switch).  This is anecdotal, so take it for what it is worth:

A) The kids of these voters do not share their parents' politics in many cases, but they DO like their home suburbs.  Imagine how much more Democratic suburban voters aged 30-45 were in 2020 than in 2004, whip open a spreadsheet to toy around with and see just how much of a difference that will make with the margins of an area.  It takes less than you think.

B) (Some) suburbs are indeed changing demographically, and that doesn't have to mean racially.  The type of voter who would have raised a family in an outer neighborhood of Chicago might now find an inner suburb to fit his or her cultural apatite.  Similar to what IndyTexas said except for Chicago, Naperville was the new Park Ridge, McHenry County is the new Naperville and in 20 years there will be more outer suburbs full of conservative families who want that exurban feel.

C) The voters who I would GUESS have been swayed the most are moderates in the middle who are more susceptible to "how people like them vote."  Excuse my lack of political correctness, but if you are a rather apolitical, upper-middle class woman living in a given Chicagoland suburb and part of your social community, you might have indeed felt pressure to vote for George W. Bush in 2004 or at least not to talk much about it at wine night ... Obama is a bad example for Chicagoland, so I will skip 2008 and 2012, but by 2016 that pressure was gone.  By 2020, it might have even been reversed!  However, that doesn't mean Chad Republican down the street who you used to talk shlt about Al Gore to has changed his voting patterns whatsoever.  A few people die off in the last 16 years, a few new people move in and Sally Swing Voter decides that Donald Trump's crassness is more offensive than John Kerry's Democraticness and all of a sudden you go from 60% Republican to 55% Biden pretty quickly.