White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement
By Allan J. Lichtman

…things have changed in the last 10 years as open racism has led to public humiliation and GOP disavowal of prominent conservatives, including former Senators George Allen and Trent Lott. As Lichtman points out, pandering to anti-pluralist views is hard to do “without alienating centrist voters” who are key to electoral victory.

Lichtman’s book has been attacked by prominent leaders of the conservative movement, in particular former Bush speechwriter David Frum, for over-emphasizing conservatism’s nastier strands. While it is true that moderate conservatives like Frum, who is openly pluralist and advocates a tolerant, big-tent GOP, are a world away from Willis Carto or the conspiracymongers of the John Birch Society, the anti-immigrant outburst seen in the 2008 GOP primaries and the anti-gay rhetoric of the Christian Right — views that have been reiterated by some prominent GOP leaders — show that anti-pluralist beliefs are alive and well in certain sectors of the conservative movement.