American Contradiction – Paul Starr

Patrick Buchanan had recently created a stir while campaigning for the 1992 Republican nomination when he asked whether a million Zulus or a million Englishmen “would be easier to assimilate and would cause less problems” in Virginia if that state had to take them in. While some conservatives were outraged, Brimelow rose to Buchanan’s defense, citing a news story from South Africa about crimes Zulus had been committing.

Responding to an article that called for embracing Haitian immigrants, Brimelow wrote: “Be careful about those embraces. A significant proportion of Haitians are reported to be HIV positive.” Brimelow denied he was racist; he was just giving the facts (the facts about HIV transmission apparently eluded him). The real problem with conservative elites, he argued, was that they were too fearful of being called racists.

They should say clearly that Third World immigrants were responsible for crime, welfare dependency, overpopulation, and other problems, and they should recognize that the immigrants would vote for Democrats and therefore spelled political trouble for Republicans.17 Rather than a slowly growing, continuous trend, the political reaction against the new immigrants came in a series of waves.

The first came between 1993 and 1996. According to Gallup, the proportion of Americans who favored a decrease in immigration hit a peak of 65 percent in 1993 and 1995, though even then immigration did not rank as a top priority for voters nationally.18 It was in this period, however, that the undocumented population became a hot political issue in California. California in the early 1990s was in the grips of a severe recession and state budget crisis, its high unemployment rate stemming in part from post–Cold War cuts in defense spending.

The incumbent Republican Governor Pete Wilson, trailing in his bid for re-election in 1994, first attacked welfare recipients but then focused his campaign on illegal immigrants and the fiscal burden they imposed. A television ad for Wilson showed shadowy figures slipping through a border crossing as an ominous voice declared, “They keep coming. Two million illegal immigrants in California.

Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of Amasa Stone Mather of the Class of 1907, Yale College. Copyright © 2025 by Paul Starr. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.

Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in Janson by Westchester Publishing Services Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2025936905 ISBN 978-0-300-28243-6 (hardcover) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Authorized Representative in the EU: Easy Access System Europe, Mustamäe tee 50, 10621 Tallinn, Estonia, [email protected] 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1kitap1.com/en To Ann 1kitap1.com/en Contents Preface Introduction: A New People, an Old Nation: America in the Twenty-First Century Origins of the Upheaval Why the Full Backlash Took So Long Marchers and Sleepwalkers The Progressive Project and American Identity PART I AMERICAN REVOLUTIONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 1.

Midcentury Normal Consensus as a Contested Political Project “The Area of American Agreement” Consensus as Intellectual Framework 2. Black Americans, Model Minority Black Prototypes The New Model Movement Black Power as a Political and Cultural Prototype The New Family of Minorities Individual versus Group Striving 3. How Sex Got Serious Feminism as Equal Rights Feminism as Women’s Liberation Gay Rights and the Turn toward Sexual Pluralism The New Centrality of Gender Politics 4.

Half a Counterrevolution The Conservative Project and Political Realignment The Conservative Take-Off (1): Religion The Conservative Take-Off (2): Business and the Counter- Establishment The Democrats’ Squandered Opportunity The Half-Truth of the Reagan Revolution PART II SLEEPWALKING INTO REVENGE 5. Americans as Enemies: The 1990s as Historical Pivot From Cold War to Culture War The 1990s as the Beginning of a New Era The Limits of Democratic Victories 6.

Sleepwalking (1): Immigration A Quiet Explosion The Return of Nativism The New Immigrants versus the Old 7. Sleepwalking (2): Race A Majority of Minorities? The Return of “People of Color” Diversity as an Ideal and Legal Standard Obama and the Racial Loop America, the Boiling Pot 8.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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