Standing at the podium at the 1992 Republican National Convention, his supporters cheering by the thousands, Patrick Buchanan did not mince words. Buchanan was a former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon and a White House aide to President Ronald Reagan, and despite having lost the nomination for president, he still hoped to shape the party’s message to voters. This election, he told the audience — including millions watching on television — “is about what we stand for as Americans.” Citing Democratic support for abortion rights and the rights of lesbians and gay men, Buchanan claimed there was “a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America.” It was, he emphasized, “a culture war.”

Buchanan’s war was another name for a long-standing political struggle, dating to the 1920s, between religious traditionalists and secular liberals (see “Culture Wars” in Chapter 22). This time, however, Americans struggled over these questions in the long shadow of the sixties, which had taken on an exaggerated meaning in the nation’s politics. Against the backdrop of globalization, American politics in the 1990s and early 2000s careened back and forth between contests over divisive social issues and concern over the nation’s economic future.