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Loading... The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America (2004)by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. An interesting study of the power of conservatism in America. The book tries to explain why America has swung to the Right but I think it is more to do with how Republicans have become ascendant over the once powerful Democrats. Did you know that the entire South was staunchly Democratic. It is only when they started leaning to the left and become more liberal that they started losing ground to the GOP. So in a sense, the country at large has always been a right leaning nation. The left and liberals were always a minority or confined to minorities like the minorities, intellectuals and urban elite. The American definition of the Right and for that matter Liberalism is different from how one would view the same from an European standpoint. For this you have to read this snippet from pg 314 The US was designed from ground up to be a true democracy with the values of liberty and freedom enshrined in the constitution. Not like the parliamentary system of Europe which were retrofitted and re jiggered to into some sort of quasi democratic, socialistic humbug. Here I quote "The rebels didn't just kick out the british; they kicked out the legal trappings of the feudal social order - primo-geniture, entail, titles of nobility, the established church and the rest of it". An interesting study of the power of conservatism in America. The book tries to explain why America has swung to the Right but I think it is more to do with how Republicans have become ascendant over the once powerful Democrats. Did you know that the entire South was staunchly Democratic. It is only when they started leaning to the left and become more liberal that they started losing ground to the GOP. So in a sense, the country at large has always been a right leaning nation. The left and liberals were always a minority or confined to minorities like the minorities, intellectuals and urban elite. The American definition of the Right and for that matter Liberalism is different from how one would view the same from an European standpoint. For this you have to read this snippet from pg 314 The US was designed from ground up to be a true democracy with the values of liberty and freedom enshrined in the constitution. Not like the parliamentary system of Europe which were retrofitted and re jiggered to into some sort of quasi democratic, socialistic humbug. Here I quote "The rebels didn't just kick out the british; they kicked out the legal trappings of the feudal social order - primo-geniture, entail, titles of nobility, the established church and the rest of it". no reviews | add a review
The Right Nation is the definitive portrait of the America that few outsiders understand: the America that votes for George Bush, that supports the death penalty and gun rights, that believes in minimal government and long prison sentences, that pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol. America, argue John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, award winning journalists at The Economist, has always been a conservative country; but over the past 50 years it has built up a radical conservative movement unlike any other country. The authors tell the story of how these radicals took over the Republican Party, and they deconstruct the Bush White House, examining the many influences from neo-conservatism to sun belt entrepreneurialism. This quest takes the authors from young churchgoers in Colorado Springs to gay gun clubs in Massachusetts to black supporters of school vouchers in Milwaukee. And they drive to the heart of a question that is relevant to us all: why does America seem so different? No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)320.52097309045Social sciences Political Science Political Science Political ideologies Conservatism Biography And History North America United StatesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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'The Right Nation', published in 2004, in the middle of the George W.Bush presidency, concludes by suggesting that the Republican Party will be in control for the foreseeable future, as the American left has capitulated to the better organised right. Remembering when this was published (so, excuses), none of the following are mentioned in this book: Obama, Biden, Trump, Palin, Pence. Nor of course is there any discussion of QAnon, or insurrections, or the power of Twitter (X). Curiously, post Bush, Democrats have been in the White House for 12 of the next 16 years.
As an outsider who has only become interested in US politics in recent years, it was interesting to learn that the distrust, and at times hatred, between the two major parties has been around for a long time; political rhetoric has been toxic for ever - it's not a modern phenomenon.
The book made for interesting reading, as it provides an excellent discussion of post-Cold War politics in the USA.
It does reinforce the fact that for all the surface similarities, the USA is definitely different to the rest of the "western" world. ( )