To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party by Heather Cox Richardson is a book I picked up in response to an article by the author. This is part of my effort to understand how Trump was elected and, so, once more into the breech.
Started: 2/24/2017
Completed: 5/21/2017
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Words for which I sought help:
primogeniture -- the right of succession being given to the first born child and inheritance especially in the form of real estate being provided entire.
Review:
It is hard not to agree with the Pulitzer Prize Winners who comment on the back of the dust cover about what a great book this is. It is remarkably well written and tries hard to understand the threads of continuity in the Republican Party in light of the current manifestation. The central argument is that Lincoln's party was perverted from a position that all men should be able to rise, to a position that the financial aristocracy should be protected (embodied by the slogan, "Greed is Good").
I liked this book because it tied together the dramatic influence of Roger Ailes in the current Republican party in ways that are probably clear to any historian, but were stunning to me. It is truly a small group of people who have controlled the Republican party and the return of those same individuals to power under Trump is rather scary.
These leaders of the Republican party--Ailes, Chaney, Gingrich, and, peripherally, Limbaugh--are all pushing a strong pro-business agenda based on image rather than facts. They truly believe that their approach will work in the absence of evidence that it will and with plenty of evidence that it simply does not work. They believe this because they live in an alternate world of their own making (hence the reference to things like "alternate facts"). In this world of simplicity (good vs. evil--Reagan wore a white hat) there is no room for the nuances of reality. This simplified world has simplified "facts" that have no necessity to agree with reality (reference Trump's claims that attendance at his inauguration was a record despite clear photographic evidence that it was much smaller than President Obama's). Working on the basis of this simplified world (an ideology), Republicans have pursued their agenda and their appeal to voters is based on emotion, not reality.
It is hard not to agree with the Pulitzer Prize Winners who comment on the back of the dust cover about what a great book this is. It is remarkably well written and tries hard to understand the threads of continuity in the Republican Party in light of the current manifestation. The central argument is that Lincoln's party was perverted from a position that all men should be able to rise, to a position that the financial aristocracy should be protected (embodied by the slogan, "Greed is Good").
I liked this book because it tied together the dramatic influence of Roger Ailes in the current Republican party in ways that are probably clear to any historian, but were stunning to me. It is truly a small group of people who have controlled the Republican party and the return of those same individuals to power under Trump is rather scary.
These leaders of the Republican party--Ailes, Chaney, Gingrich, and, peripherally, Limbaugh--are all pushing a strong pro-business agenda based on image rather than facts. They truly believe that their approach will work in the absence of evidence that it will and with plenty of evidence that it simply does not work. They believe this because they live in an alternate world of their own making (hence the reference to things like "alternate facts"). In this world of simplicity (good vs. evil--Reagan wore a white hat) there is no room for the nuances of reality. This simplified world has simplified "facts" that have no necessity to agree with reality (reference Trump's claims that attendance at his inauguration was a record despite clear photographic evidence that it was much smaller than President Obama's). Working on the basis of this simplified world (an ideology), Republicans have pursued their agenda and their appeal to voters is based on emotion, not reality.
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