Donald Trump has a new personal mascot he's parading around in a desperate attempt to fuel his re-election campaign: the suburban housewife. "The 'suburban housewife' will be voting for me," he Tweeted on Tuesday, shortly after the Biden campaign announced Kamala Harris as VP. "They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long-running program where low-income housing would invade their neighborhood." Over the last few months, Trump has continually invoked the "Suburban Housewife Dream," to describe a way of life he claims is under attack.
Much like elves or trolls that live under a bridge, the suburban housewife is a myth, based loosely on a past stereotype resurrected to make the suburbs seem like a utopia for upper and middle-class whites. Trump, who has long enjoyed gesturing towardwhite supremacists, is digging up this old dog whistle from his backyard in a series of tweets intended to stoke fears of a more diverse suburban-life ruiningthe American dream. What Trump seems to have missed is that suburbs are not a magical safe haven for white people looking to get away from gritty urban areasfilled with *gasp* different groups of people.
The suburban housewife, an offshoot of the soccer mom, is cast as a demure white woman with at least 2.5 children and a white husband with a white-collar job. She herself does not have a job, whichwould take away from keeping her suburban home super clean and participating in suburban neighborhood activities, like lemonade stands and a cul-de-sac wide barbecue. Depending on her level of expertise she's also the head of the PTA and knows to never bring snacks that contain nuts to events at her kids' school. This is the woman Trump is talking about when he talks about the "suburban housewife" that will be voting for him in November.
Much like elves or trolls that live under a bridge, the suburban housewife is a myth
But this woman is a specter of white supremacist's imagination-a relic of the past, rekindled to give the far-right a vulnerable woman in need of protection. This idea also doesn't take into account that housewives, in general, are slowly beginning to disappear as higher costs of living make it impossible in some states to own a home on a single income and dual-income couples become the norm.
Though suburban populations across the country are still 68 percent white, their demographics have been steadily shifting. A 2018 study from Pew Research found that beginning in 2000 suburban and small metro counties "gained 11.7 million new residents by drawing former residents of U.S. urban and rural areas, as well as immigrants from abroad."
And the thing that's making the suburbs more diverse has little to do with policy programs launched by Democrats: Trump's reference to Corey Booker and low-income housing is another racist flag waving high in the sky. HUD, AFFH, and low-income housing initiatives, in general, are often conflated with helping people of color get better housing. But according to a 2019 report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 49 percent of whites are living in Section 8 housing and 32% are living in public housing. White American households making below $20,000 annually account for 95 percent of Section 8 housing.
So when we talk about the suburban housewife of 2020, we're not talking about some I Love Lucy adjacent caricature of a white woman in West Hartford, Connecticut. The reality is that the "suburban housewife" is Trump's way of sending a subtle signal to racists who long for a return to a version of America that never existed outside of the film Pleasantville.
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