“Today we see signs across the political spectrum that make a conventional political compass seem inadequate” (p. 155). This quote, from Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity, perfectly captures why this book is so important and timely. Its authors, Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph E. Lowndes, explore how changes in the contemporary economic and political environment in the United States beg for a rewriting of our understanding of race in America.

To that end, many of the ideas in the book are centered around the idea of racial transposition, which occurs when traditional characterizations of racial groups shift over time; for example, when stereotypes and rhetoric traditionally centered on one racial/ethnic group begin to be applied to other groups. HoSang and Lowndes use racial transposition to explain how once-rigid racial lines in the United States have become blurred.

The first part of the book focuses on how racist tropes around “producers” and “parasites” have been extended from communities of color to also include public service sector unions and poor whites. With respect to the unions, the first substantive chapter of the book explores how public service employees are portrayed as manipulating the system to gain advantages that private workers do not have. The authors argue that characterizations of public employees as being taken care of without working hard were in the past largely limited to Black and Latinx welfare recipients. These racist tropes were subsequently extended to galvanize support for policies that limited the power of public unions.

Although I find much of the book’s argument persuasive, I am skeptical of the authors’ conclusions in this chapter. Instead of the producer/parasite stereotype being transposed from Blacks to public service union employees, it seems to me that this paradigm was merely extended from welfare recipients to public service workers. In particular, attacks on public service workers were often racialized, centering around members of underrepresented groups more so than white public workers. For example, the bill that weakened public service sector unions in Wisconsin in 2011 was not applied to police or firefighters, two professions that are overwhelmingly white and male.

The second chapter examines how the current economic system leaves many people behind. The authors discuss how the lack of investment in the social safety net disproportionately hurts people of color, yet whites are not exempt from feeling the strains produced by these policies. Working-class whites also face limited prospects, including increasing rates of poverty, lower life expectancy, and declining opportunities. The authors then discuss how, despite these systemic factors, some conservatives have attributed poor whites’ economic standing to a culture of poverty similar to what has often been used to explain Blacks’ lower socioeconomic status. The authors argue that this declining social currency for whites leads to an increase in their anger and in their susceptibility to supporting white supremacist organizations and racially biased politicians. There has been much work in recent years exploring the link between economic disenfranchisement, white anger, and the rise of politicians like President Trump. HoSang and Lowndes bring a new perspective to this argument by examining how the racial transposition of the parasite frame may play a significant role in shaping white political behavior.

Chapters 3 and 4 explore the unexpected development that, at the same time as the conservative movement endorses more explicitly racist rhetoric and politicians, there has been an increase in the number of conservatives of color. Unlike Black conservatives in the past who were more focused on giving credibility to racist policies, HoSang and Lowndes argue that the current generation of Black conservatives serves to validate an economic system that leaves so many behind. Through exploring their biographies and speeches, the authors show that Black Republicans advocate economic individualism as the best way to advance the political interests of communities of color.

Chapter 4, one of the strongest chapters in this study, explores people of color in alt-right movements that are often tied to a white supremacist ideology. In this chapter, HoSang and Lowndes profile several activists who embrace the alt-right community and its ideals. Many nonwhite supporters of the alt-right endorse the idea of what HoSang and Lowndes label “racialized nationalism,” which advocates for the deportation of immigrants, border walls, a Muslim ban, and a law-and-order platform for the sake of maintaining a mythicized version of American culture. This allows some alt-right organizations to attract nonwhites around the idea of preserving “Western culture.” This chapter speaks to the complicated racial context in the United States and the transposition of white nationalism from being exclusively supported by whites to appealing to some people of color.

Chapters 3 and 4 address important questions in racial politics in the United States. Moreover, they provide an explanation for why people of color join alt-right and increasingly racist movements despite their racially exclusive goals and ideologies, an otherwise inexplicable decision.

The final substantive chapter of the book explores how myths around white producerism motivated the Malheur occupation’s leadership to push for a return to settler colonialism and an implicit endorsement of violence against Native Americans. It also explores how rank-and-file members of the occupation were influenced in part by declining opportunities and decreasing tax bases in rural communities brought about by neoliberal policies. HoSang and Lowndes provide a unique perspective on why the Malheur occupation occurred and how the leadership was able to tap into growing feelings of abandonment among whites in rural areas.

Producers, Parasites, Patriots is written in such a way that it will lead to important conversations among academics trying to understand changing racial coalitions in the United States. As is true with every important study, however, there are several questions that remain unanswered. First, the book suggests that this moment in history is unique in terms of the racial transposition of identities and ideas, particularly for working-class whites. For example, the second chapter’s assertion that whiteness is losing its protection from poverty and cultural condemnation implies that this form of racialization is novel to the current era. Yet there is a long history of poorer whites being looked down on. Derogatory terms meant to diminish poor whites, such as “white trash,” “hillbilly,” and “trailer trash,” have been in use since the Civil War. Is this form of racial transposition of cultural deficiencies unique to contemporary America?

Along the same lines, the authors argue that cultural attacks by conservative pundits on poor whites diminish the value of whiteness, creating a sense of panic among whites that makes them more supportive of extreme policies. However, I wonder whether whites who ascribe to more conservative politics see themselves as losing their position in society more because of demographic changes that are diversifying the nation than from attacks from ideologically similar commentators. In addition, given that the vast majority of Americans view themselves as being in the middle class, many working-class whites may view claims of their group’s economic stagnation being tied to cultural deficiencies as being directed to underserving others and not themselves.

Third, one issue raised by HoSang and Lowndes’s analysis that deserves further exploration is the role that economic and political considerations play in Black, Latinx, and Asian American conservatives’ willingness to be associated with racially regressive political entities. Chapter 4 details how Diamond and Silk, two black female conservative activists, were paid to be in a commercial supporting a white supremacist candidate challenging Paul Ryan. Some skeptics may therefore suggest that conservatives of color may be motivated by the attention and economic benefits that come with supporting racially conservative movements, rather than by their adherence to these ideologies. Black actress and conservative activist Stacey Dash, in recent statements about her movement away from conservatism, adds fuel to these suspicions.

Finally, the discussion of multiculturalism in racially conservative movements is centered only on a few people. This raises the question of whether these new movements are any more multicultural than previous conservative movements. There have always been a few conservatives of color speaking in support of policies that are generally harmful to their racial group. For example, in the 1990s, Ward Connolly and Clarence Thomas openly worked to end affirmative action programs. As a result, more should be said about whether contemporary racially conservative movements are uniquely more diverse than earlier ones.

Despite these lingering questions, HoSang and Lowndes have started an important conversation about racial politics in the United States. In a period where racial issues are becoming the most significant cleavage in our politics, this book provides important insight as to how and why identity may not always lead to predictable placements along the political spectrum. The book will likely inspire a generation of scholars to further explore the concepts it discusses.