Review: The Republican Party and the War on Poverty: 1964–1981, by Mark McLay

Abstract

Mark McLay’s The Republican Party and the War on Poverty is an important addition to scholarship on the War on Poverty. McLay’s work is a political history that examines the role of Congress and Republican presidents in opposing the War on Poverty. Throughout his book, the author convincingly argues for the direct connection between the rise of modern conservative Republicanism and the Republican Party’s evolving opposition to President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.McLay argues that in the early years of the War on Poverty, the Republican Party was divided in its response to both the Economic Opportunity Act and some of the antipoverty programs it created. While most Republicans in Congress firmly opposed the legislation on the principle of limited government, some liberal Republicans, mostly in the Senate, voted for the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964 and supported most of the programs created by the Office of Economic Opportunity. Those Republicans were in the minority of their party, however, and Republican opposition only grew through the 1960s and 1970s, as the number of conservative Republicans in Congress increased.McLay also explores the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and their approaches to the War on Poverty. McLay contends that in the first two years of his presidency, Nixon made efforts to “save Johnson’s antipoverty war and then attempt to launch his own” through his Family Assistance Plan (p. 167). But, after the failure of FAP and the 1970 midterm elections, in which more conservative Republicans were elected to Congress, Nixon became much more aggressive in his opposition to the War on Poverty, in part due to the increasing popularity of Ronald Reagan.McLay paints Reagan as much more consistent in his opposition to the War on Poverty than was Nixon. Reagan adamantly opposed the War on Poverty from the beginning and made that opposition central to his campaigns for the governorship of California and the presidency. McLay successfully argues that Reagan was able to unite the Republican Party, in part through his opposition to the War on Poverty. Reagan’s presidency then, according to McLay, led to the end of the War on Poverty.McLay’s central argument—that opposition to the War on Poverty was a galvanizing factor in the rise of conservative Republicanism—is a convincing one. Indeed, this book nicely complements Emma Folwell’s The War on Poverty in Mississippi, which connects the Mississippi Republican Party’s growing power to its opposition to the War on Poverty.There are a few shortcomings, though. McLay’s narrative of the War on Poverty as a failure that ended in 1981 ignores some newer scholarship that has extended that period well beyond 1981 and reframed some of those narratives. Overall, though, this book makes important contributions to our understanding of the significant and ongoing Republican opposition to the War on Poverty and to the importance of the War on Poverty in the rise of conservative Republicanism.