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This is the stereotype in the Southwest, and it's what I essentially believed as a Protestant. In the northeast and sprinkled throughout the country, there are a lot of Irish and Italian Catholics; one was my neighbor growing up, with the Saint Francis statue and everything. Another is a business owner and gives a lot of money to local charities, and of course church organizations. In the midwest, there are many German Catholics (alongside many German Lutherans, and historically-united-church Germans, of course), and in those parts of the country historically Catholic towns are often the nice, well-tended areas where people have civic pride, with "Jesus I trust in You" signs and Saint Francis statues in well-kept, green lawns with flower beds.
The SSPX is very loud, but most traditionalist Catholics are much more common than SSPX afficionados -- especially if we look at beliefs rather than strict "Traditionalist Catholic" identification. In Catholicism, traditionalism is something closer to, say, fundamentalism among Protestants: much maligned, often a boo-word, but descriptive of many conservative members in point of fact. Evangelicals are, almost to a man, fundamentalists, because they believe in the "Five Fundamentals," Biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth, atonement for sin, the resurrection of Jesus, historical reality of miracles, even if they wouldn't describe themselves using the word. (And the current strain of neo-evangelicalism emerged essentially as an ecumenical movement among Protestants designed to resist the sepratism inherent in historical fundamentalism while preserving fundamentalist beliefs; many evangelical leaders like Billy Graham were known for warm relations with Catholics, as well as explicit outreach to Black Protestants.) In Catholicism traditionalism is tied up with the Latin mass, such that a guy who attends a Latin mass celebrated by a local priest with permission of the canonical bishop would likely be described as a traditionalist even if he thinks Vatican II is the best thing since sliced bread. Whereas, in fundamentalism... well, liturgy isn't considered as important as "pure Biblical preaching", although I suspect self-identified fundamentalists may be more likely than self-identified evangelicals to prefer old hymns and congregational singing.
"Traditionalism" in Catholicism emerged as a concept during the Catholic version of the same crisis that produced "Fundamentalism" in Protestantism: the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. As secular Bible scholarship and more liberal theologians wanted to "update doctrine to reflect modern concerns," Protestantism responded with polemic, schism, and bitter rhetoric, and Catholicism responded with Pope Pius X (much beloved by the SSPX) declaring a loyalty oath. Vatican II, and some scholars would argue this just as some conservative Catholics would disagree, served as essentially the partial victory of Modernism in Catholicism, although at the level of pure doctrine relatively few things were really changed. The "Fundamentals" remained intact, and it was essentially some elements of moral theology, especially around the rights of man against the state, that were revised, though the level of practice went far further than Modernists in the early 1900s would have ever imagined.
Protestant Fundamentalists and Catholic Traditionalists, are, of course, often bitter enemies, because Protestant and Catholic doctrine is traditionally, fundamentally (heh) opposed to the other. But their concerns, the denominational specifics aside, were very similar: preserve fundamental supernaturalism in the Christian faith against scientism and metaphysical naturalism, preserve the inspired nature of the Biblical text against higher criticism, preserve the objective existence of the historical Jesus-God against Jesusism that attempted to proffer a Jesus not featured in the Gospels.
I take no position on the coherence of "traditional conservative American Catholic nationalism." Such a thing would splinter the religious right into many tiny pieces at the very thought of it.
Yeah, in my experience in the Northeast, the shrine & statue garden decor is absolutely Italian-coded.
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