Nixon and the 'culture wars'

In his aricle on the Guardian website Michael Tomasky makes the argument that the modern wave of what Americans call the "culture wars" dates back to Nixon.

I can see the case for this argument, since Nixon did paint himself as being a social conservative and did try to paint himself as the opponent of the "liberal elite". However, things were very different in his era from the situation more recently. In 1968, Nixon was able to win - not so much by relying on the "silent majority" that he claimed backed him and opposed the "Sixties counter-culture" - but because lots of white Southerners voted for George Wallace. Nixon only got 43.4% of the votes cast in that election.

More interestingly, although he hated "East Coast liberals", Nixon was actually quite progressive on economic policy. He continued the Keynesian trend of the post-war period. He was also prepared to countenance a prices and incomes policy. In many ways, he was to the left of Reagan and the two Bushes. On his watch, affirmative action started to emerge as government policy as well. Although Nixon tried hard to get the votes of racists, he did not implement racist policies and was not foolish enough to think he could turn the clock back on social changes.

The modern US Right manages to use social conservatism to get people to vote for them and then, when in office, focuses on economic conservatism and on policies like privatisation and deregulation that actually harm low-income social-conservatives. This was not quite Nixon's game. Nixon did appeal to social conservatism. But he did not use their support to build up support for a neo-liberal, free-market government. Nixon did not intend to attack the legacy of the New Deal. After 1980, the Republicans did. The change in the nature of the party, if anything, took place after Nixon's fall. Roe v. Wade politicised a new generation of social conservatives and, also, free market ideology gathered pace.