Review of
Why
the Right Went Wrong Conservatism— From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond
by E.J. Dionne Jr. Instaread summary
Four out of five stars
While this
summary is well written and organized, it also makes it clear that there is
little that is new in the book by Dionne. The only point of potential
historical dispute is when Dionne states that the modern conservative movement
began with the presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater in 1964. Although you
must acknowledge that Dionne must begin somewhere, the conservative movement is
much older than that, witness the presidential candidacy of Strom Thurmond in
the 1940’s. The primary difference was that before Goldwater and the civil
rights legislation of the 1960’s, the hard conservatives were in the Democratic
party in the south.
From that
point, all is historically accurate, from the strong conservative rhetoric of
Ronald Reagan and both Bush presidents that was largely ignored when they were
forced to govern to Bill Clinton’s triangulation tactics.
When reading
this summary, it became clear that people that have been following politics
well will find little, if anything new in the book. For others with an interest
in how this point in our political history was reached, this summary will
convince them that it is a valuable book to read.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes
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