Summary of Why the Right Went Wrong: by E.J. Dionne | Includes Analysis

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Summary of Why the Right Went Wrong by E.J. Dionne | Includes Analysis

 

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Why the Right Went Wrong by E.J. Dionne Jr. is a history and analysis of the conservative movement from the early 1960s to 2015. Conservative polarization and radicalization did not happen in res

• Language: English
• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Release date: May 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683781080

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Overview

Why the Right Went Wrong by E.J. Dionne Jr. is a history and analysis of the conservative movement from the early 1960s to 2015. Conservative polarization and radicalization did not happen in response to the election of President Barack Obama in 2008. Instead, the roots of the radical conservative Tea Party movement of 2010, and the violently nativist 2016 campaign of Donald Trump, stretch back to Barry Goldwater's unsuccessful 1964 Republican campaign.

Goldwater’s conservatism was based on two central themes. The first was a libertarian ideology that saw government intervention as a threat to freedom and a dangerous path to socialism. The second was a distrust of cultural change, including the civil rights movement. Goldwater lost the 1964 election badly, but his stance against civil rights legislation began to break Southern states away from the Democratic Party, transforming the GOP into a Southern-dominated party built around white voters. So it remains into the twenty-first century, as it became demographically ever more white and male in the 2008 and 2012 elections.

Conservative politicians after Goldwater were both helped and constrained by the energy he unleashed. This was the case for nearly every national Republican leader, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Reagan remains an idol of conservatives; Bush is often regarded as a big-government traitor. Both had