Nut Country Right Wing Dallas & the Birth of Southern Strategy

On the morning of November 22, 1963, President Kennedy told Jackie as they started for Dallas, andldquo;Weandrsquo;re heading into nut country today.andrdquo; That dayandrsquo;s events ultimately obscured and revealed just how right he was: Oswald was a lone gunman, but the city that surrounded him was full of people who hated Kennedy and everything he stood for, led by a powerful group of ultraconservatives who would eventually remake the Republican party in their own image.

In Nut Country, Edward H. Miller tells the story of that transformation, showing how a group of influential far-right businessmen, religious leaders, and political operatives developed a potent mix of hardline anticommunism, biblical literalism, and racism to generate a violent populismandmdash;and widespread power. Though those figures were seen as extreme in Texas and elsewhere, mainstream Republicans nonetheless found themselves forced to make alliances, or tack to the right on topics like segregation. As racial resentment came to fuel the national Republican partyandrsquo;s divisive but effective andldquo;Southern Strategy,andrdquo; the power of the extreme conservatives rooted in Texas only grew.

Drawing direct lines from Dallas to DC, Millerand#39;s captivating history offers a fresh understanding of the rise of the new Republican Party and the apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and ideological rigidity that remain potent features of our politics today.

andquot;With Texas-sized ambition and a touch of flair, Edward Miller taps the fascinating history of a surprisingly understudied place--Dallas, the and#39;Athens of the Southwestand#39;--to reorient our understanding of Americaand#39;s Republican Right. Out of the heated warfare that divided this cityandrsquo;s ultra- and moderate conservatives during the 1950s and 1960s emerged a pragmatic, potent, and anxious Republicanism that would capture the south in the 1970s and the nation in the years that followed. Packed full with colorful characters and surprising turning points, rich with historical insight yet pertinent to today, Nut Country is a book that students of U.S. (not just Texas!) history need to digest in order to appreciate why the and#39;Big Dand#39;sand#39; brand of politics has long held sway.andquot;

andquot;If you want to read a riveting account of how the Republican Party became conservative after World War II, pick up a copy of Edward H. Millerand#39;s Nut Country. What makes this journey into political history so captivating is the local story of Dallas. From the pews of the First Baptist Church to the lobby of the Adolphus Hotel, Miller walks his readers vividly through the webs of family ties, social rituals, and political brokering through which locals participated in establishing a spectrum of conservative positions rather than a set ideological stance. Be prepared to have your definition of and#39;conservativeand#39; broadened by the fine research of this book.andquot;

andquot;Phoenix, Orange County, and even bucolic Sharon, Connecticut can all lay claim to being foundational places in the making of modern conservatism. Edward Miller moves our sights to the Lone Star state.andnbsp;He makes a bold and convincing claim that if you want to understand the conservative movement, we have to reckon with Dallas, Texas: and#39;Nut Country.and#39; Featuring a memorable cast of characters--H. L. Hunt and General Edwin Walker not the least among them--Millerand#39;s book reveals how conservatives used racial politics in Dallas to change the fortunes, forever after, of the American right and the Republican Party.andquot;

andldquo;Miller painstakingly details how a combination of newfound wealth (and a desire to hold on to it), a sudden rise of the middle class (which allowed for a single breadwinner and freed wives to dabble in politics), and the need for new residents to assimilate resulted in a highly conservative political stance riddled with deep-seated racism and and#39;conspiratorialand#39; John Bircher thinking. Millerandrsquo;s outstanding research allows him to weave a number of parallel stories, most notably his portrayal of the role of women working behind the scenes to enact this political shift. An insightful examination of a political shift that endures to this day.andrdquo;

If there was a city most likely to host the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Dallas was it. Kennedy himself recognized Dallasand#8217;s special and extreme nature, saying to Jackie in Fort Worth on the morning of November 22, and#147;Weand#8217;re heading into nut country today.and#8221; Edward H. Miller makes the persuasive case in this lucid and insightful book that the ultraconservative faction of todayand#8217;s Republican Party is a product specifically of the political climate of Dallas in the 1950s and early 1960s, which was marked by apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and absolutist thought and rhetoric. Miller shows not only that the influential ultraconservative figures in Dallas fomented religious and racial extremism but that the arc of politics bent ever rightward, as otherwise moderate local Republicans were pressured to move away from the center. This faction promoted the creation of the national Republican Partyand#8217;s and#147;Southern Strategy,and#8221; which reversed the partyand#8217;s historical position on civil rights. This strategy, often credited to Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater in the wake of the crises of the 1960s, has its origins instead in the racial and religious beliefs of extremists in this volatile time and place. Dallas is the root of it all.

On the morning of November 22, 1963, President Kennedy told Jackie as they started for Dallas, "We're heading into nut country today." That day's events ultimately obscured and revealed just how right he was: Oswald was a lone gunman, but the city that surrounded him was full of people who hated Kennedy and everything he stood for, led by a powerful group of ultraconservatives who would eventually remake the Republican party in their own image.
In Nut Country, Edward H. Miller tells the story of that transformation, showing how a group of influential far-right businessmen, religious leaders, and political operatives developed a potent mix of hardline anticommunism, biblical literalism, and racism to generate a violent populism--and widespread power. Though those figures were seen as extreme in Texas and elsewhere, mainstream Republicans nonetheless found themselves forced to make alliances, or tack to the right on topics like segregation. As racial resentment came to fuel the national Republican party's divisive but effective "Southern Strategy," the power of the extreme conservatives rooted in Texas only grew.
Drawing direct lines from Dallas to DC, Miller's captivating history offers a fresh understanding of the rise of the new Republican Party and the apocalyptic language, conspiracy theories, and ideological rigidity that remain potent features of our politics today.

Edward H. Miller is adjunct professor of history at Northeastern University in Boston.