A New Suburban Politics

ABSTRACT: Amid the pandemic lockdowns and mass protests of 2020, political figures on both the right and left invoked the American suburban ideal. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump made almost desperate appeals to “the suburban housewives of America.” Claiming that Joe Biden would “abolish the suburbs,” Trump tweeted that he would protect the “Suburban Lifestyle Dream” from rising crime and the construction of affordable housing for low-income people of color. During protests following the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also painted a rosy image of suburban life. “People ask me, ‘What does a world where we defund the police look like?’” she said. “I tell them it looks like a suburb.”