ABSTRACT

Print media has had a profound impact on shaping conservative ideology, political practice, and racial boundary making. While scholarship on US conservatism contributes important elements of its economic, political, and social philosophy by highlighting the role of racialization within the black/white binary, little attention has been historically paid to other forms of racialization within US conservatism. Through a discourse analysis of National Review from 1955 to 1975, I offer a corrective by examining how racial tropes are used to reinforce the conservative political project of anti-communism. These racialized tropes highlight how National Review characterized East Asian nations as uncivilized and savage, and thus poised for communist exploitation. I explain how yellow peril discourse was linked to communist infiltration amongst US conservative writers.