Professors Gibson and Nelson have been generous, thorough, and insightful in their assessment of our book. In highlighting the extent to which elite–led mobilization is generalizable, they raise a critical question for the book and an important point for understanding democracies in general. In our book, we develop and test elite-led mobilization theory (ELM) to explain the politics of opposition to gay rights both in contemporary politics and over time. Consequently, its generalizability beyond issues relating to the LGBTQ community and the extent to which it is valuable for understanding policy beyond gay rights are important and open questions. To what extent can this theory help us understand opposition to the push for equality by other stigmatized or discriminated against groups?

Although we have not yet seen much research examining ELM in other contexts, we do see significant primary and anecdotal evidence consistent with ELM on issues of immigration, women’s rights, and race, as just three examples. Indeed, with respect to immigration, our own research has shown the theory to be robust (Benjamin G. Bishin, Thomas J. Hayes, Matthew B. Incantalupo, and Charles Anthony Smith. 2022. “Immigration and Public Opinion: Will Backlash Impede Immigrants’ Policy Progress?” Social Science Quarterly 102 [6], 2022). Additionally, as just one example, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is an organization funded by right-wing elites and corporations and exists to coordinate state-level legislation on each of these issues. To what extent is opposition to equality for these groups elite-led, rather than mass-led as ELM suggests? The example of Black civil rights may be especially instructive.

A growing body of research shows that opposition to Black civil rights is driven by elites. Perhaps the most prominent development is the rise of the Tea Party, a right-wing reactionary response to the Obama presidency (Christopher S. Parker and Matt A. Baretto, Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America, 2013). Given the reliance by so many Tea Party supporters on the very social programs against which they rail, its origin as a mass-driven movement seems unlikely; instead, evidence suggests that the movement was elite-driven (Michael A. Bailey, Jonathan Mummolo, and Hans Noel, “Tea Party Influence: A Story of Activists and Elites,” American Politics Research 40 [5], 2012; Anthony DiMaggio, The Rise of the Tea Party: Political Discontent and Corporate Media in the Age of Obama, 2011) and instigated by national activists who then mobilized on the local level around traditional conservative issues, an emphasis on American decline, and opposition to the nation’s first Black president (e.g., Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, 2012). The ongoing support by groups like ALEC of legislation initiated and supported by the Tea Party—for instance, limiting voting rights—further reinforces the role that right-wing elites play in opposing Black civil rights.

More recently, we have seen a relatively obscure line of legal thought, critical race theory (CRT), elevated to a hot-button issue in educational policy. The emergence of CRT as a political lightning rod is a direct consequence of a strategy by conservative elites to galvanize voters (see https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/how-a-conservative-activist-invented-the-conflict-over-critical-race-theory). Even after months of elite discourse and media coverage, many Americans who express concern about the teaching of CRT and topics influenced by the theory in elementary and high schools have a difficult time articulating arguments advanced by CRT scholars. Of course, that this issue has come to the forefront despite the absence of CRT in schools in any meaningful way can be attributed to the persistent elite drumbeat about CRT on Fox News and in other conservative outlets. Once more, we see what appears at first to be a grassroots backlash actually turns out to be the product of an organized and well-funded campaign by political elites to introduce and advance a set of talking points to aid their quest for power.

The evidence for ELM provided here is, by necessity, anecdotal and preliminary. Future research should examine the extent to which the theory of ELM helps us understand opposition to equality for a wide range of social groups.