Are conservatives promoting a narrow version of "Americanism" because they live in the suburbs or because they listen to too much Rush?

Ryan Streeter

Will Wilkinson has a compelling post at The Economist on Americanism as “the organizing principle of the contemporary right.”

Wilkinson applauds Thomas Sowell and Ed Glaeser for each recently showing how conservatives can appeal to African Americans and minority urban populations. But, he says, Sowell’s and Glaeser’s ideas will hit run up against the right’s version of Americanism. With tongue in cheek, he writes:

Because, you know, residing in a colossal, heavily-subsidised, detached, single-family compound in a vast exurban development with convenient access to an interstate highway is exactly what James Madison had in mind. Pro-minority, pro-poor urbanism, as lovely as that sounds to my ear, sends all the wrong signals to the American-flag t-shirt crowd.

Wilkinson’s point is basically right, it seems to me, but flawed in one respect: minorities have been moving in droves to less dense suburban communities over the past decade, not because they want to be part of “the American-flag t-shirt crowd,” but because they, too, want more space, better schools, and safer communities.  The urban-suburban political bifurcation is growing less relevant all the time. It seems there is some aspect of “the American Dream” understood as a plot of land, safety, and access to newer amenities that appeals not just to whites but to Latinos, blacks, and others.

The organizing principle of Americanism that Wilkinson points to seems rather to proceed from a different cultural wellspring than the suburbs. What he is describing strikes me more as the Rush-Limbaugh-Glenn-Beck-ification of the right. Conservative policies aimed at raising living standards among poorer citizens and creating greater middle class opportunities are as suburban as urban these days, and should appeal to a lot of people, not just whites.

The “leave-us-alone” nativism that Wilkinson hits on strikes me more as a mindset having less to do with geography than a predominant cultural mindset created by an increasingly powerful set of opinion-shapers whose words every day shape the worldview not only of regular Joes but also reactive politicians on Capitol Hill.