AMERICAN GOVERNMENT & POLITICS theories and bizarre panaceas.
He named this
I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved
Me Wrong
 Conservatives had become a scattered and obscure
remnant, vanquished by the New Deal and the
apparent reality that liberalism was “not only the
dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition.”
 The central narrative of America’s political
development was still believed to be the rise of the
liberal state.
Before the Storm – about the rise of Senator Barry
Goldwater, the uncompromising National Review favorite
whose refusal to exploit the violent backlash against civil
rights, and whose bracingly idealistic devotion to the
Constitution as he understood it — he called for Social
Security to be made “voluntary” — led to his crushing defeat
in the 1964 presidential election.
Goldwater’s loss inspired a new generation of conservative
activists to redouble their efforts, paving the way for the
Reagan revolution. Educated whites in the prosperous
metropolises of the New South sublimated the frenetic,
violent anxieties that once marked race relations in their
region into more palatable policy concerns about “stable
housing values” and “quality local education,” back footing
liberals and transforming conservatives into mainstream
champions of a set of positions with enormous appeal to the
white American middle class. These were the factors, many
historians concluded, that made America a “center right”
nation.
Presentism — we are supposed to weigh the evidence of the
past on its own terms but at the same time, the questions we
ask are conditioned by the present.
Alan Brinkley
- Author of The Problem of American Conservatism
and argued that American conservatism had been
something of an orphan in historical scholarship
and that was coming to seem an ever-more-curious
omission. The article inaugurated the boom in
scholarship that brought us the story, now widely
accepted, of conservatism’s triumphant rise.
Richard Hofstadter
- The most influential writer on the subject of the
American right. He called them
“pseudoconservatives” and described as cranks that
salved their “status anxiety” with conspiracy
attitude “the paranoid style in American politics”.
Lisa McGirr
- Author of Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New
American Right. According to her, right are highly
educated and thoroughly modern group of men
and women who built a vibrant and remarkable
political mobilization.
Leo Ribuffo
- Author of The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far
Right From the Great Depression to the Cold War. He
argued that America’s anti-liberal traditions were
far more deeply rooted in the past, and far angrier,
than most historians would acknowledge, citing a
long list of examples from regional suspicions of
various metropolitan centers and the snobs who
lived there to white racism institutionalized in
slavery and segregation.
Hiram Evans
- The decline of Americanism. Evans claimed to speak
for an abused white majority, “the so-called Nordic
race,” which, “with all its faults, has given the world
almost the whole of modern civilization.”
- Have found themselves increasingly uncomfortable,
and finally deeply distressed, watching a moral
breakdown that was destroying a once-great
nation.
- First, there was “confusion in thought and opinion,
a groping and hesitancy about national affairs and
private life alike, in sharp contrast to the clear,
straightforward purposes of our earlier years.”
Next, they found “the control of much of our
industry and commerce taken over by strangers,
who stacked the cards of success and prosperity
against us,” and ultimately these strangers “came
to dominate our government.” The only thing that
would make America great again, as it were, was “a
return of power into the hands of everyday, not
highly cultured, not overly intellectualized, but
entirely unspoiled and not de-Americanized
average citizens of old stock.”
Herrenvolk republicanism – reserved social democracy solely
for the white majority
Richard Steigmann-Gall
- Fascism had a very real presence in the U.S.A.,
comparable to that on continental Europe.
Jefferson Cowie
- The Great Exception. He suggests that what
historians considered the main event in 20th century
American political development — the rise and
consolidation of the “New Deal order” — was in
fact an anomaly, made politically possible by a
convergence of political factors. One of those was
immigration. At the beginning of the 20th century,
millions of impoverished immigrants, mostly Catholic
and Jewish, entered an overwhelmingly Protestant
country. It was only when that demographic
transformation was suspended by the 1924
Immigration Act that majorities of Americans proved
willing to vote for many liberal policies. In 1965,
Congress once more allowed large-scale immigration
to the United States — and it is no accident that this
date coincides with the increasing conservative
backlash against liberalism itself.
- Liberalization of immigration law is an obsession of
the alt-right.
The history of bait-and-switch between conservative
electioneering and conservative governance is another rich
seam that calls out for fresh scholarly excavation: not of how
conservative voters see their leaders, but of the neglected
history of how conservative leaders see their voters.
Joel Rogers & Thomas Ferguson
- Right Turn. They presented public-opinion data
demonstrating that Reagan’s crusade against activist
government, which was widely understood to be the
source of his popularity, was not, in fact, particularly
popular.
Tim Raphael
- The President Electric: Ronald Reagan and the
Politics of Performance. Argues the short leap from
advertising and reality TV to darker forms of
manipulation.
- The producers of The Apprentice carefully crafted a
Trump character that was the quintessence of
steely resolve and all-knowing mastery.
CHAPTER 1
DEMOCRACY
 Central idea is that ordinary people want to rule
themselves and are capable of doing so.
 Best protects human rights because it is the only one
based on a recognition of the intrinsic worth and
equality of human beings.
 Most likely to produce rational policies because it
can count on the pooled knowledge and expertise of
a society’s entire population.
 More stable and long-lasting because their leaders,
elected by and answerable to voters, enjoy a strong
sense of legitimacy among citizens.
 Most conducive to economic growth and material
well-being, a claim with some scholarly support.
 The form of government under which human beings,
because they are free, are best able to develop their
natural capacities and talents.
Democratic Origins
 Came from the word demos, meaning “the people,”
and kratein, meaning “to rule.”
Democracy – a system of government in which the people
rule; rule by the many.
Oligarchy – rule by the few, where a minority holds power
over a majority, as in an aristocracy or a clerical
establishment.
Monarchy – rule by the one, such as where power rests in the
hands of a king or queen.
DIRECT VS REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
Direct democracy – form of political decision making in which
policies are decided by the people themselves, rather than by
their representatives, acting either in small face-to-face
assemblies or through the electoral process as in initiatives
and referenda in the American states.
Representative democracy – indirect democracy, in which
the people rule through elected representatives.
BENCHMARKS OF REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
 These benchmarks are popular sovereignty, political
equality, and political liberty.
 A society in which all three flourish, we argue, is a
healthy representative democracy. A society in
 which any of the three is absent or impaired falls
short of the representative democratic ideal.
1. Popular sovereignty – the basic principle of democracy
that the people are the ultimate source of government
authority and of the policies that government leaders make.
How can we recognize popular sovereignty when we see it?
a. Government leaders are selected in competitive elections.
For the direction of influence to flow from the people to the
leadership, some mechanism must exist for forcing leaders to
be responsive to the people’s wishes and to be responsible to
them for their actions.
b. Elections are free and fair.
No coercion of voters or election officials and that virtually all
citizens are able to run for office and vote in elections. Also,
election rules do not favor some over others and that ballots
are accurately counted.
c. People participate in the political process.
Widespread participation in politics—including voting in
elections, contacting public officials, working with others to
bring matters to public attention, joining associations that
work to shape government actions, and more—is necessary
to ensure not only that responsive representatives will be
chosen
d. High-quality information is available.
If false or biased information is provided, if policies are not
challenged and debated, or if misleading interpretations of
the political world (or none at all) are offered, the people
cannot form opinions in accordance with their values and
interests, and popular sovereignty cannot be said to exist.
e. The majority rules.
Government adopts the policy that the most people want.
f. Government policies reflect the wishes of the people.
Existence of a close correspondence between what
government does and what the people want it to do.
g. Government policies are effective.
Policies must be carried out as intended and must effectively
address the problems or concerns that led to the formation
of these policies in the first place. Government policies must
be turned into government actions that work.
2. Political equality – the principle that each person carries
equal weight in the conduct of the public business.
 Political equality and equal treatment are sometimes
called civil rights,.
 Great inequalities in economic circumstances are
almost always translated into political inequality.
3. Political liberty – the principle that citizens in a democracy
are protected from government interference in the exercise
of a range of basic freedoms, such as the freedoms of speech,
association, and conscience.
John Locke – individual rights and liberties were so
fundamental to the good society that their preservation was
the central responsibility of any legitimate government and
that their protection was the very reason people agreed to
enter into a social contract to form government in the first
place.
Democracy and liberty are inseparable. The concept of self-
government implies not only the right to vote and to run for
public office, but also the right to speak one’s mind; to
petition the government; and to join with others in political
parties, interest groups, or social movements.
OBJECTIONS TO LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Liberal democracy – representative democracy characterized
by popular sovereignty, liberty, and political equality.
1. “Majority tyranny” threatens liberty.
James Madison and the other Founders of the American
republic feared that majority rule was bound to undermine
freedom and threaten the rights of the individual. Majority
tyranny is the suppression of the rights and liberties of a
minority by the majority
2. The people are irrational and incompetent.
Individual Americans do not care a great deal about politics
and are rather poorly informed, unstable in their views, and
not much interested in participating in the political process.
3. Majoritarian democracy threatens minorities.
The position of minorities is protected in a fully developed
liberal democracy, in our view, by the requirements of equal
citizenship and access to the full range of civil liberties What
prevents majority tyranny over a minority in most policy
decisions in a democracy is that the composition of the
majority and the minority is always shifting, depending on the
issue.
ORGANIZING THE MAIN FACTORS OF POLITICAL LIFE

1. Structure – factors enduring features of American life that

play key roles in determining what issues become important
in politics and government, how political power is distributed
in the population, and what attitudes and beliefs guide the
behavior of citizens and public officials. It includes the
economy and society, the constitutional rules, the political
culture, and the international system.

2. Political linkage – all of those political actors, institutions,

and processes that transmit the wants and demands of
people and groups in our society to government officials and
that together help shape what government officials do and
what policies they adopt. These include public opinion,
political parties, interest groups, the news media, and
elections.

3. Government – include all public officials and institutions

that have formal, legal responsibilities for making public
policy for the United States.

4. Government action – includes the wide range of actions

carried out by government: making laws, issuing rules and
regulations, waging war and providing national defense,
settling civil disputes, providing order, and more.