Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The history of contemporary American conservatism is a story of disappointment and betrayal. For half a century conservative politicians have offered oratory incommensurate with what was possible, describing a small government utopia that was impractical and dominated by ideology. (Also a world humbly dominated by aggressive U.S. foreign policy and more military spending.) After carefully examining the reasons behind Bush II's loss of the popular vote in 2000, Karl Rove concluded that moderation was a less effective political tactic than rallying the conservative faithful. Previously he had planned to bring more and more middle-of-the-road voters into the Republican tent through compassionate conservatism applied to social problems. Two disastrous wars followed, as well as a budget-busting tax cut and the Great Recession. Conservatives defined Bush as an advocate of 'big government' whose failures resulted from refusal to be conservative enough on spending, immigration, education, and Medicare. The result, per Dionne, was the Tea Party. The rise of cultural and religious conservatism has led to middle-of-the-road and progressive Republicans fleeing the party - including me. As a precinct chairman years ago, I sat about three feet in front of Goldwater during one of his presentations - I left scared to death that he and his ilk would start a nuclear war, possibly two. Republicans' vacuous opposition to China and Iran, actions to reduce global warming, gun limits (even blocking federal research on the topic), legalizing drugs, reducing the damage done by Free Trade, opposition to Common Care, regulating healthcare like every other developed nation (our costs are about 2X those of our closest competitors), government involvement in the economy (eg. encouraging critical industries), repeated tax cuts for the rich - despite growing deficits, and constantly badgering/threatening other nations is idiotic. Between 1/95 and 1/15, the proportion of Republicans calling themselves 'very conservative' went from 19% to 33%. This radicalization of American conservatism has caused the breakdown in American government. Obama's achievements in his final years were usually achieved unilaterally - measures against climate change, normalization of relations with Cuba, and the nuclear deal with Iran. (Dionne also lists 'immigration reform' - however, that subject is now before the Supreme Court and Obama's actions may be undone.) Today's conservatism is the product of a long march that began with a wrong turn - Goldwater's 1964 campaign for president. That, in turn, was rooted in the visceral reaction of large numbers of conservatives to the New Deal. The road not taken - the path laid out by Dwight Eisenhower and like-minded Republicans of his time. For America to move forward, conservatives must revisit and reverse the wrong turn taken 50 years ago. Will that happen - I doubt it. Conservatism has come to operate almost exclusively on behalf of older, culturally conservative whites and wealthy Americans who see any impositions upon them by government as the work of a 'taker' class intent on taking down capitalism. That view is reinforced by an increasingly closed right-wing media that disciplines those who depart from orthodoxy, and by an increasingly powerful donor class - the 'radical rich.' Compromise has become impossible when those suggesting such are immediately equated with selling out principles. 'Moderation' has been seen as a bad word since Goldwater demonized it in 1964. Thus, the GOP has become committed, on principle, to preventing its adversaries from governing successfully. Thus, we have Republicans opposing ideas they once advance (eg. Romneycare in Massachusetts, and Heritage's ideas on universal health care). Over recent decades, however, more openness about sexuality, racial and religious tolerance, environmentalism, and gender equality have prevailed, especially among those under age 35. A Pew Research Center survey of conservatives in 1987 found only 39% were over 50, 53% in 2014. Republicans are currently advantaged because of the concentration of Democratic voters in urban districts, which Democrats win by landslide majorities, 'wasting' votes the party would prefer be cast in more competitive districts. Obama received 5 million more votes than Romney in 2012, but only carried 209 House districts vs. Romney's 226. Republicans won in 2010 and 2014 because 40 million fewer voted, and a substantial majority of those were inclined towards Democrats. In the 2000 election, Bush II carried 30 of the 50 states while losing the popular vote. In principle, senators representing about 11% of the nation's population can produce the 41 votes needed to black action. Romney carried 59% of the white vote and a majority of independents in 2012. In 2004 this would have elected him president, and in 2000 brought him an Electoral College landslide. In 2012 - only 2nd place. To win control of the Senate, Democrats need to secure more seats in conservative states via nominating moderate and moderately conservative candidates. This, however, complicates their task of governing, even with a majority. Meanwhile, Republican senators from the most conservative parts of the country are pushed further to the right because they have more reason to fear primary losses than general election defeats. (Dionne neglects to point out that a similar phenomena affects Democrats, and that they are burdened by failing to credibly address falling real incomes - except in the latter years of the Clinton administration, while constantly pandering to minorities and educators.) As for the House, Republicans are advantaged there via Gerrymandering. A 2013 Pew survey found 59% of Democrats preferred compromise-seekers, only 36% of Republicans. Republicans' share of minorities is falling - Eisenhower took about 40% of the non-white vote in 1956, Nixon got one-third in 1960, Romney 27% in 2012. The South is now the dominant force in Abraham Lincoln's party. Until 1980, there was no identifiable gender gap - now women vote consistently more Democratic - creating another threat to continued Republican strength, while also undermining moderation. Even when Republicans won the presidency, the right-wing boiled over purported apostasies. Nixon signed a large stack of regulatory and environmental legislation that conservatives would rebel and rail against, his opening to Communist China and having the IRS investigate private schools' tax-exempt status if they had few/no minority pupils infuriated large parts of the right as well. On the other hand, he also brought the party's 'Southern Strategy' to fruition. Reagan expanded government, gave amnesty to illegals, refused to send troops to Nicaragua, bailed out of Beirut after the Marine barracks bombing, slept through Iran-Contra, and reduced our nuclear arsenal - yet, is repeatedly evoked by conservatives today ('What would Reagan do?'), Bush I raised taxes, and Bush II bailed out Wall Street. Soaring deficits created by the Great Recession (corporate bailouts, stimulus program, lower tax receipts, higher welfare expenditures) and the expansion of government via ObamaCare are credited by many for the sudden surge of the Tea Party. Others add the election of the nation's first African-American president, as well as the rising number of illegals. The Tea Party's rising also reflected long-term change in influence activism by the 0.1%, the end of the Fairness Doctrine during the Reagan administration, and expansion of conservative broadcast media. (Progressive broadcasters never reached the loyalty or impact of their conservative counterparts.) Fox News passed CNN as the #1 cable news network in January of 2002 and has stayed #1 since then. While declining somewhat during Obama's later years, it hit a record 24 million viewers 8/15/15 during the Republican presidential debate - the highest non-sports cable program and cable news program ever. Fox News Republican viewers are far more likely to view themselves as Tea Partiers (35%) than non-Fox Republicans (15%). The 1970s saw the birth of the Heritage Foundation, revitalization of the AEI, founding of the Cato Institute (1977 - via Koch money), and a leap in business lobbying. Citizens United came out of the Supreme Court in 2010. The new conservative religious movement was a reaction against the gains of social liberals in the 1960s - ending prayer in the public schools, a new tolerance for pornography, Roe v. Wade (especially Catholics). About 52% of Tea Party loyalists responding to a survey by agreeing that too much is made of problems facing blacks; they also oppose illegals, have aligned with the religious right, and support supply-side economics/unending tax cuts. Bottom-Line: Dionne's book is well-thought out. However, per one of the individuals he cites, the idea of transcending partisan differences works only when there is some basic agreement on the ends. And that we lack.