It's weird to me how much people think conservative populist culture war is some invention of Trump or Bannon. Read Nixonland! It's all the same tropes, right down to the interviews with white construction workers who see Nixon as their bulwark against the professor and hippies
Similarly, the entire of the narrative of the first Bush term was about Bush representing "Red America," the hardworking salt-of-the-earth white Christians whose values weren't reflected by the coastal elites. The Brooks red/blue essay is entirely about this!
The subtext in all of this is always that the right is the natural representative of what Palin called "Real America" and the left only represents urban professionals with degrees, racial minorities and ivy league professors. It's never been true! But the messaging is ubiquitous.
