Conservatism--From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond - Why the Right Went Wrong

Great book explained the obvious, Republicans have been fooling Republicas for 60 years. Last real Republican was Eisenhower and the rest have been bs artists to the present date. I could also recommend The eleven regional nations of north america as an explanation on how poor whites would vote against their own interests. Good work E.J!

Disregarding the book’s title, which of course is meant to be provocative and to give the book a big splash, the premise of the book is straightforward. The right is being driven further right, but is repeatedly being failed by its politicians as they drive harder rhetoric while being unable to follow through. Disregarding rhetoric, and just looking at the book as a self-help diagnostic rather than a excoriation of the right, it provides some useful insight.

Dionne’s book is a history of the right from Goldwater to the present that also parlays into the Clinton and Obama presidencies. The book’s premise is that the conservative movement has stagnated, through a cycle of broken promises since Goldwater. First, the politicians whip up fervor by promising to abolish big government or restore traditional values, but only to fail in those promises over and over again. The end result is a greater self identification of the conservative electorate, as those identifying as “very conservative” has nearly doubled from 1995 to 2015. The book addresses that this shift further right approaches an untenable problem, in that it is a coalition of three groups who serve different ideals: libertarians who want to shrink government, moralists who want “traditional” values and nationalists who want American global power. The punch line: you cannot have small government, big military, and you cannot reverse time on an evolving culture.

The book if full of, if not too full of, historical examples of this pattern throughout recent history. If anything, the book is a bit too long and the over-use of examples are a bit tedious and lend to occasional skimming.

What would be interesting would be to see a similar book as applied to the left, as one can imagine that some similarities exist. Once the premise is established though, the issue of how to remedy the matter is left somewhat undefined. Dionne argues that a reformist spirit needs to be recaptured; how that can be done, and how to remedy the disparate and fractured segments of the right is the bigger issue. Can idealized values, minimal government, and a big military all coexist to bring about a vibrant right?

On the whole, an interesting, if not a bit overdone, read for anyone interested in recent politics

Starts toward the beginning where the story should start - back in the 50s and early 60s. And it moves clearly through the decades. A good followup to Why Americans Hate Politics and They Only Look Dead - in some ways, a counterpart to the latter.

A little heavy on political analysis but still insightful on our current problems. Good history of the current movement and why it is so out of touch with most of America. Lots of issues to consider in light of the upcoming election.

This is an interesting book for people like me who just don't understand what the far right is thinking. I found the last chapter a really good summary. Has an excellent index also, which is important in books like these.

Dionne reviews the destruction wreaked on the country over the past thirty years by the right wing crazies. Why more people cannot see this amazes me. But Fox News set out to destroy the country, and succeeded.

A THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE AND ENLIGHTENING.WORK OF IMMENSE SCOPE BY E.J. DIONNE/ THE AUTHOR IS A MASTER AT USING SECONDARY SOURCES. HIS RESEARCH IS IMPECCABLE. ALL POLITICALLY INVOLVED INDIVIDUALS WOULD BENEFIT FROM READING THIS WELL-DONE BOOK.

Often time there are occurrences of which you are aware but fail to place in reasonable order to make an entire picture. that is the case here where the author takes promises made by Goldwater, believed by his followers, but never brought to fruition because they are impractical and nearly impossible. Dionne's point is even stronger when viewing the GOP primary: Trump's supporters are those who feel neglected because of unkempt promises. It appears to be a never ending cycle.

The last time Republicans won a presidential election it was 2004.

George W. Bush prevailed by trumpeting his ability to keep us safe, despite the 9/11 attacks and the failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while his domestic agenda revolved around supporting “traditional marriage” and immigration reform. Deep in his campaign literature, you’d find he was also proposing privatizing Social Security, but it didn’t figure heavily in the campaign.

Today, twelve years later, thrice-married Donald Trump is the Republican frontrunner. His opposition to immigration reform, in general, and Mexico, Mexicans, and China, in specific, defines his campaign. He touts his opposition to the war in Iraq (after it started) and promises to preserve Social Security and Medicare (though his $11 trillion in proposed tax breaks would likely make that impossible).

How did conservatives end up with a candidate who is almost an exact negative image of its last winning standard-bearer?

Sure, the utter collapse of George W. Bush in his second term provides much of the answer. But E.J. Dionne’s new book Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism — From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond makes the case that some sort of crackup on the right was inevitable — the culmination of decades of the rise of a movement that transformed American politics while failing to live up to its most fundamental promise to shrink government.

In many ways, Dionne argues, 2004 was the peak and the breaking point of the Goldwaterism Republicans first embraced in 1964.

The polarities of the party had completely switched, with Republicans sweeping the South and Democrats dominating the old GOP stronghold of New England. Even more remarkably, working class Americans who’d thrived under New Deal policies had completely embraced the right-wing ethos of gutting government in favor of an economy guided by the infallible wisdom of the market/your boss’ boss’ boss.

The GOP bought the message, but the messengers kept letting them down, Dionne explains:

Again and again, conservatives were promised that this election victory, and then the next, and then the next, would finally rout the statists and return the nation to the smaller government they were certain our Founders had in mind. And again and again, conservatives were disappointed. Neither Nixon nor Reagan nor either President Bush could fulfill a promise that, in truth, most Americans did not want kept.
After the victory of 2004 was followed by the resounding defeats of 2006 and 2008, the party abandoned many, if not all, of its pretensions to the middle and became the party Barry Goldwater conservatives had always hoped it would be. The robust infrastructure and savvy machinations of the big business-financed right-wing conspiracy had built a party that could dominate Congress and state legislatures but begins each presidential election with two guns pointed at its feet.

Dionne’s book is both piercing narrative and an artful warning about how how the inability of the right to evolve threatens our democracy. He traces far right’s climb from the siren’s call of Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative to dog-whistled appeals of Nixon and Reagan to the modern battle between “Reformicons” and the nativist/ authoritarian urges that are testing the bounds of the party.

The book ends by asking the crucial question of our time: What’s so conservative about a party of radicals who want to shred the advances of the last century?

The great reckoning long predicted for the Republican Party now seems more possible than ever, given the demographic walls that are being built around its ideology.

But Dionne also slips in a subtle warning for liberals.

The frustration that threatens the alliance of the conservative and libertarian strains who built the modern Republican ideology is finding its voice in a candidate who seems to be parody of a modern conservatism with his pretensions to piety layered over his bellicose, authoritarian lust to stomp on enemies.

Much has been made of the theory that “missing white votes” cost Mitt Romney the 2012 election. Ted Cruz seems to think the solution to finding them is running a candidacy that matches everything liberals hate about the right. But the theory’s author, Sean Trende, makes the case that the right needs to find new ways to win over white voters a traditional Republican could never avow.

Dionne quotes Trende, “The GOP would have to be more ‘America first’ on trade, immigration and foreign policy; less pro-Wall Street and big business in its rhetoric; more Main Street/populist on economics.”

And it would have to be all these things without losing evangelicals and the Chamber of Commerce backing that has made the modern GOP possible. And there’s a simple way to do that — pretend to love a Bible that you’ve obviously never read and promise massive tax breaks.

“When Donald Trump ran for president, he campaigned as if he had read Trende’s analysis,” Dionne writes.

While conservatism is a true religion for many, Trump is helping to reveal that Republicanism is a reluctant marriage of those who care about projecting their religious vision onto others, those who think tax cuts are a religion, and those who just want to dominate losers.

The question is are there are still enough white voters — and black voters who’d vote for a birther — to make it work.

The last time Republicans won a presidential election it was 2004.

George W. Bush prevailed by trumpeting his ability to keep us safe, despite the 9/11 attacks and the failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while his domestic agenda revolved around supporting “traditional marriage” and immigration reform. Deep in his campaign literature, you’d find he was also proposing privatizing Social Security, but it didn’t figure heavily in the campaign.

Today, twelve years later, thrice-married Donald Trump is the Republican frontrunner. His opposition to immigration reform, in general, and Mexico, Mexicans, and China, in specific, defines his campaign. He touts his opposition to the war in Iraq (after it started) and promises to preserve Social Security and Medicare (though his $11 trillion in proposed tax breaks would likely make that impossible).

How did conservatives end up with a candidate who is almost an exact negative image of its last winning standard-bearer?

Sure, the utter collapse of George W. Bush in his second term provides much of the answer. But E.J. Dionne’s new book Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism — From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond makes the case that some sort of crackup on the right was inevitable — the culmination of decades of the rise of a movement that transformed American politics while failing to live up to its most fundamental promise to shrink government.

In many ways, Dionne argues, 2004 was the peak and the breaking point of the Goldwaterism Republicans first embraced in 1964.

The polarities of the party had completely switched, with Republicans sweeping the South and Democrats dominating the old GOP stronghold of New England. Even more remarkably, working class Americans who’d thrived under New Deal policies had completely embraced the right-wing ethos of gutting government in favor of an economy guided by the infallible wisdom of the market/your boss’ boss’ boss.

The GOP bought the message, but the messengers kept letting them down, Dionne explains:

Again and again, conservatives were promised that this election victory, and then the next, and then the next, would finally rout the statists and return the nation to the smaller government they were certain our Founders had in mind. And again and again, conservatives were disappointed. Neither Nixon nor Reagan nor either President Bush could fulfill a promise that, in truth, most Americans did not want kept.
After the victory of 2004 was followed by the resounding defeats of 2006 and 2008, the party abandoned many, if not all, of its pretensions to the middle and became the party Barry Goldwater conservatives had always hoped it would be. The robust infrastructure and savvy machinations of the big business-financed right-wing conspiracy had built a party that could dominate Congress and state legislatures but begins each presidential election with two guns pointed at its feet.

Dionne’s book is both piercing narrative and an artful warning about how how the inability of the right to evolve threatens our democracy. He traces far right’s climb from the siren’s call of Goldwater’s Conscience of a Conservative to dog-whistled appeals of Nixon and Reagan to the modern battle between “Reformicons” and the nativist/ authoritarian urges that are testing the bounds of the party.

The book ends by asking the crucial question of our time: What’s so conservative about a party of radicals who want to shred the advances of the last century?

The great reckoning long predicted for the Republican Party now seems more possible than ever, given the demographic walls that are being built around its ideology.

But Dionne also slips in a subtle warning for liberals.

The frustration that threatens the alliance of the conservative and libertarian strains who built the modern Republican ideology is finding its voice in a candidate who seems to be parody of a modern conservatism with his pretensions to piety layered over his bellicose, authoritarian lust to stomp on enemies.

Much has been made of the theory that “missing white votes” cost Mitt Romney the 2012 election. Ted Cruz seems to think the solution to finding them is running a candidacy that matches everything liberals hate about the right. But the theory’s author, Sean Trende, makes the case that the right needs to find new ways to win over white voters a traditional Republican could never avow.

Dionne quotes Trende, “The GOP would have to be more ‘America first’ on trade, immigration and foreign policy; less pro-Wall Street and big business in its rhetoric; more Main Street/populist on economics.”

And it would have to be all these things without losing evangelicals and the Chamber of Commerce backing that has made the modern GOP possible. And there’s a simple way to do that — pretend to love a Bible that you’ve obviously never read and promise massive tax breaks.

“When Donald Trump ran for president, he campaigned as if he had read Trende’s analysis,” Dionne writes.

While conservatism is a true religion for many, Trump is helping to reveal that Republicanism is a reluctant marriage of those who care about projecting their religious vision onto others, those who think tax cuts are a religion, and those who just want to dominate losers.

The question is are there are still enough white voters — and black voters who’d vote for a birther — to make it work.

The author attempts to study "conservative" politics and explain why they when wrong. The author's starting premise is that being a conservative and having conservative political beliefs is just unacceptable. That the party can never be successful until it begins to adopt a progressive agenda and govern as the partners of democrats rather than their opponents. To the author, an acceptable politics of the "right" is something like the politics of Clintons or Obama or perhaps George W. Bush. At best, what the author wants is for the republican party to be turned into something that would look like a party of Lyndon Johnson Democrats or mark a return to the politics of Nelson Rockefeller.

The problem with those ideas is that would turn the Republican party into the Democratic Party "lite". Rather than representing political ideas, they would be reduced to a party that could do nothing more than suggest alternative ways of implementing the agenda of the Democratic party. That would not believe in anything itself and have no program of its own.

At core, the author's ideas are a rejection of a conservative republican party as a party of ideas and a majority party. Progressive Democrats are to him the natural leaders, the natural majority and the only acceptable set of ideas in politics. Its not *just* a rejection of what Trump to represent, but a rejection of most republican politics going back to the great depression. Reagan or Goldwater are really no more acceptable the author than Trump. The only acceptable republican to him appears to have been Eisenhower but he seems to look at those years through rose-colored glasses. Back in the day, Eisenhower was portrayed as a moron elected by advertising men and John Kennedy ran in 1960 on the idea that Eisenhower had neglected the military. The "good old days" Dionne looks back to really never existed.

The problem with the author's ideas is that turning the republican party into "democrats lite" would alienate most of the party's current voters and not attract any new ones. When voters are presented with a choice of a two progressives who only differ in the means by which they intend to implement the same agenda, the progressive democrats always win. .

Beyond that, the question many republicans would ask of the author is "what is the value of a more powerful republican party if that party doesn't believe or support the ideas I believe in". Many would rather see the party lose than see the party become something that doesn't represent them. In that sense, the author represents a sort of "amoral" politics often associated with the Clintons where power is all that matters. That a political party has no obligation to the people that support it. That the goal of a party should be to represent whatever set of ideas will give it the biggest majority possible.

The question becomes one of the goal of politics. Is politics a matter of ideas or simply one of tactics. The author is all-out in favor of the latter. Typical of a Washington insider, he doesn't really believe in anything and doesn't understand at all those who do. There is no value in a republican party that doesn't represent the ideas of the people who vote for it. If the voters decide they want something else, let the question be decided at the ballot box.
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Donald Trump’s amazing surge in the 2016 GOP primaries had many people scratching their heads, and then, wonder of wonders, he went on to win the election. While there’s a tendency to see Trump’s win as a tectonic shift in American politics, in Why the Right Went Wrong, columnist and author, E.J. Dionne, Jr., posits that the changes in conservatism and GOP politics really dates as far back as the Republican Party and southern whites’ reaction to FDR’s New Deal. But it was Barry Goldwater’s sharp tilt toward this demographic (as well as certain of the wealthy who resented government controls that threatened their profits), and a shift away from urban populations, including immigrants and African-Americans, that has so changed the way the GOP approaches campaigning.
Dionne traces the actions of GOP luminaries such as Goldwater, who in the 1964 election campaign (which, by the way, was coincidentally the 45th presidential election in the country’s history) espoused extremism, which he described as ‘no vice,’ and eschewed moderation, which for his was ‘no virtue.’ He looks at the birth of the Tea Party Movement, which was hijacked by right-wing politicians, conservative media, and a segment of the 1%.
This extreme rightward shift has changed the tenor of politics in this country. No longer is it acceptable to the GOP base or GOP extremists to make peace with the ‘other side.’ Republicans who do often find themselves targeted by their own party for retribution.
While having opposing viewpoints in politics ordinarily helps keep the country on an even keel, preventing rash change that can be destabilizing, while preserving worthwhile traditions, the current situation is an example of the dysfunction that can result when one side decides to adopt a scorched-earth approach to politics. A prime example of this has been the GOP reaction to the Affordable Care Act, which is, in fact, almost identical to the health plan they themselves had previously proposed and supported. Now, because it is the product of the’ ‘enemy,’ they want nothing more than to completely dismantle it. They would rather see the government shut down, or in default, rather than compromise.
Until this situation changes, American politics will continue to be dysfunctional, and we will see a continuation of chaotic and aimless leadership such as we have in #45.
I received this book as a gift.,

E. J. Dionne, the long-time political commentator, provides a masterful history of Republican conservatism from the Goldwater movement in the 1960s to the Reagan era and then to the Tea Party movement in Obama's first term and concludes with the early Republican presidential primary campaign for the 2016 nomination. Although he traces the ideas advocated by Tea Party elements and the currently dominant right-wing forces in the GOP to similar ideas in the Goldwater movement, his historical and political narrative shows an increasing right-ward shift in the Republican Party so that the Republican Party today is truly a purely conservative party. It wasn't many decades ago that the party had many moderates and a fair number of liberals, and that a higher proportion of Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act than did Democrats. Of course, all those old southern segregationists and their progeny have since joined the Republican Party while northern and western Republican moderates and liberals have transitioned to the Democratic Party over the years. Dionne's narrative suggests, correctly I believe, that the southern base with its pronounced conservative inclination is today the true heart of the party of Lincoln. (While its adherents prefer the "conservative" label, they're definitely not conservative in the Edmund Burke sense. In fact, Richard Hofstadter called the McCarthyites and Goldwaterites of the 1950s and 1960s "reactionary radicals" for their total rejection of the modern world and industrial era policies. I have not heard a lot of Burkean conservatism in the current 2015-2016 Republican primary debates.)

It should be noted that Dionne is a political liberal but he covers the conservative movement from the inside; he has interviewed at some length scores of conservative politicians and intellectuals who have given him their honest appraisal of their movement. It also should be noted that Dionne acknowledges the important presence of well-meaning conservative forces in a modern polity. They help: (1) to preserve traditions when traditions deserve preservation, (2) to modify liberal / progressive proposals to ensure more organic, incremental change and prevent more destabilizing radical upheavals, and (3) to preserve a strong role for non-state civil institutions, e.g., family, church, affinity groups, in addressing social issues (although Dionne reminds us that progressives also view these civil institutions as useful elements of an organic society.) Dionne's concern is that the increasing reliance on ideological purity in the Republican Party (of the right-wing variety) is making it more and more immoderate and rigid, so much so that "moderate" or even insufficiently conservative Republicans, are targeted in primary campaigns as "RINOs", or Republicans in name only. These legislators would have been viewed as "conservatives" only 30 or 40 years ago. Dionne indicates that many Republican Congressmen and even some Senators are much more concerned about a challenge on their right in a primary than the general election, and such concerns tilt the party further rightward. The upshot is that we have a national party that won't compromise on its "principles" and thus we have dysfunctional government. Dionne compares this unfavorably to Eisenhower Republicanism, a center-right, moderate form of conservative governance, that accepted much of the 20th century's social legislation and preferred to deal with the Soviets rather than roll back the Iron Curtain, much to the dismay of William Buckley's "National Review" and representing just another "dime store New Deal" to Barry Goldwater. But Eisenhower Republicanism resulted in effective governance through compromise, splitting differences, and moderation.

Not only is the Republican Party a more purely "conservative" party, but it's also a more "white" party, indeed a more "older white" party, which is not a recipe for electoral success in the years ahead. Before Democrats get too giddy with hopeful expectations, Dionne notes that the Republicans may have a stronghold in the House for a number of years, and they currently control most governorships and state legislatures (he notes they have two-thirds of all state legislators!). Some of these strengths emanate from the Constitution's protection of small states (much of the party is concentrated in less populous, more rural states), some from the more active electoral participation, especially in off-year elections, of its older white base, and some from simple gerrymandering. Dionne notes that winning big in the 2010 off-year, census-year, election really helped the GOP gain control of state legislatures thus allowing them to draw district lines so that Democratic voters were concentrated in heavily Democratic urban areas. An example of the results: in 2012, my own state of Pennsylvania had 51% of the total congressional votes cast go to Democratic candidates, but Democrats won only 5 of the 18 congressional seats.

On the other hand, the current composition and ideological tilt of the Republican Party makes the Presidency an increasingly difficult objective. Presidential elections generate a larger, more diverse turnout that helps the Democratic candidate, and the Electoral College, with its "winner-take-all" method, seems to favor large states with Democratic leanings. Dionne's concern is that we may be looking at divided government for some time, and that it's likely to be dysfunctional government as well, i.e., nothing gets done, since the current right-wing orientation of the Republican Party brooks no compromise (I remember a newly elected Tea Party congressman, by only some 500 votes in 2010, saying he was elected to Congress to "go to war"). In contrast, divided government in the 1950s did not result in dysfunctional government as compromises were often reached and effective governance was sustained.

Greetings the storeian,

I read E.J. Dionne’s “Why the Right Went Wrong” which provides a history of conservatism from Eisenhower to just before the election of President Donald J. Trump. The work is polemic and Dionne actually argues that the biggest problem in the American political system is the political conservatives. The book was at many points annoying and obviously driven by a profound bias which the author seems to be entirely unaware of despite the suggestion that he is a former conservative, etc, etc.
I will provide just one example: “….the cost of the nation’s permissive firearms laws was brought home….at Sandy Hook Elementary…” (pg. 387). No mention of unsecured “Gun Free Zones” which is in fact the real problem.
Basically every complaint Dionne has about conservatives has a corresponding phenomenon on the left which is just as ideological and unwilling to compromise. Dionne is living in denial on this point.
There is a good bit of information in this book and I did enjoy much of it despite the obvious bias.

Enjoy.

American politics are in a mess. This is no less true in the GOP, the focus of E.J. Dionne's new book, its tendency over the last 25 years to overpromise social conservatism and economic libertarianism and underdeliver on those promises. Republican insurgents campaign on such goals, but have a disconcerting way, once in office, to align with conservative elites and lost interest in their promises. (This may account for Donald Trump's swift rise to the top, because he campaigns as an anti-elitist outsider, a trend which Dionne astutely noticed during the writing of this book.) WHY THE RIGHT WENT WRONG is a long and well-researched book, though by and large I prefer Dionne's earlier book WHY AMERICANS HATE POLITICS, both its 1991 original edition and the 2004 paperback revision. There are two reasons for this: the earlier book discusses both major parties, and (perhaps having the yin-yang tension of two parties to discuss) it just reads better. WHY THE RIGHT WENT WRONG is a good book to read during the 2016 election campaign, but there are better. Perhaps what we really need right now is a book about HOW both major parties went wrong, the ongoing tendency for them to crack ever further apart ideologically and abandon the middle-of-the-road positions that most Americans say they prefer.

Political punditry is a dangerous game that is often played with confidence and a short shelf life. E.J. Dionne, Jr. selected what he thought was a perfect time for presenting his version of the story of conservatism in a book titled, Why the Right Went Wrong. I read this book before the completion of the 2016 election and am writing this review after Donald J. Trump was elected. Dionne offers readers a clear presentation of his interpretation of the past fifty years. Chances are, in light of the 2016 results, he might want to reconsider the “beyond” portion of his book. Readers interested in politics and open to multiple points of view are those most likely to enjoy reading this book.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

This is required reading for anyone interested in learning in a concise format why the modern Republican party finds itself in it's current condition. Instead of taking a condescending tone and implying throughout that conservatism is a detractor, EJ starts out by saying that in fact a strong and reasonable conservative party is an immensely important component to our government and builds from there.

A solid book, but nothing fantastic here, and not a lot new. Something like "What's the Matter with Kansas" will provide more depth on a subject like this. Also, I think Dionne is a bit charitable to the likes of Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat. "Reformicons" is more about lipstick on the pig than a toad being kissed to become a prince.

As E.J.Dionne acknowledges himself, he is "an unapologetic liberal of social-democratic inclinations", and he is one of the pundits of politics in the USA. But these characteristics lead him to miss two important points.
The grass-root movement which supports the new right has not been borne in the Republican Party. It came in reaction against the liberal domination in ideology (the politicaly correctedness) and power (the Congress has been controled by the Democrats for most of the XX° centruy), which came with FDR and was intensified with LBJ. People harassed by invasive regulations, shocked by affirmative action, felt threatened by a rampant criminality, revolted by frauds in the welfare systems, found their place in the Republican Party. And this is quite a feat for the Party of Lincoln, of Big business and the elite of the North East to become the dominant force in the South, popular with farmers and blue collars. This is a raucus bunch, the Party keeps (with difficulty) its traditional agenda of low taxes and free trade, but now it is no longer the party of the establshment, but a party with strong popular roots whith which it has to cope. And it would have been necessary to have a look at the transformation which occured simultaneously in the Democrat Party supported by the millionaires of Hollywood and the Silicon Valey, stuffed by professional politicians, leaders of communities, union bosses and representatives of concerned interests. It could have been the natural receptacle of angry people but it has not, and for good reasons.
E.J.Dionne does not consider the facts that happened (wars, economic conditions, criminality,...) and focus almost uniquely on what the polticians said, and what the media said of their discourses. Politics is sumed up in the game played by the spin doctors : what is said is more important than the impact of what is done. Appearance is the name of the game. It can be efficient in the short term, but it leads to empty the democratic debate about the policies. As some readers, I bought the book with the hope to understand the Trump phenomenon. There is no answer on this point, or rather the answer is simple : Donald uses the oldest trick in the game :"whatever you think and does not dare to tell, I will tell it for you". Actually Trump is the son of the spin doctors, who should be doubly shameful : Donal beats them on their turf.

I really get tired of hearing liberals trying to define conservatism. Look in the mirror folks and how the left has changed. The world changes and you can define a ideology from 1964 until today. The right today is simply a product of a too moderate George Bush (both of them) to a too far left Obama. This is why we need more than 2 political parties.

One of the most partisan liberals of his generation, E.J. Dionne (Using his initials "E.J" invokes a sense of entitlement known to the lefty New York wine and cheese crowd) has no credibility on this subject. E.J. looks at politics through the prism that says Democrats good, Republicans bad. No one with any serious consideration would find this a fair read.

Dionne is intelligent and skilled (thus the two stars) at weaving ideas and events into a story, unfortunately it's the same old stale story we've been hearing from the left for decades; full of the usual misinformed tropes about how the right is "ideologically extreme," lacks "moderation," and is "scornful of compromise," as if compromising with progressive schemes that undermine (i.e., "fundamentally transform") America's founding principles could somehow be a good thing.

The book's title is the tipoff: It starts with a conclusion - that the right is wrong - and then builds an argument to support it.

Books like this say much more about the left's near total lack of empathy ( which, according to Merriam-Webster, is "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this") toward the ideas and people of people who think differently from them than they do about what those people actually think, say, or do.

If one desires a more true and accurate understand of the right AND the left one would be much better served reading The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by liberal social scientist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt is a true liberal in the best sense of the word. He is open to new ideas, and he follows the evidence wherever it leads, even if it leads to conclusions that are contrary to his own innate sensibilities.

Haidt's book explains Dionne's.

Ideologies and moralities differ in the degree to which they employ six psychological mechanisms of social perception, awareness, and reasoning that evolved in the human mind as we became The Social Animal, with brains that are "Wired to Connect" with other brains. The conservative brain uses all of these "moral foundations," and the liberal brain uses about half of them.

R. R. Reno succinctly summed Haidt's findings, and the political scene in general, when he reviewed Haidt's book in the magazine "First Things" in an article entitled "Our One-Eyed Friends," saying, "Thus the profound problem we face. Liberalism is blind in one eye yet it insists on the superiority of its vision and its supreme right to rule. It cannot see half the things a governing philosophy must see, and claims that those who see both halves are thereby unqualified to govern."

Dionne's polemics exemplify the "profound problem" Reno describes.