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A review by spoko
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
4.0
It’s amazing the extent to which we are still living in the political world created by the paranoid, disaffected, self-righteous Nixon and his enthusiastic supporters. Perlstein does quite a job illuminating the levels of hypocrisy and moral licensing that fed the Nixon campaigns’ corruption and underhanded maneuvering. Not to mention the credulous simplicity that led the media to repeatedly ignore such blatant wrongdoing, and the superior indifference with which the Left fanned the flames.
More impressive still is how clearly this book shows the roots of Trumpism and modern Republican politics. The parallels can’t have been purposeful, as it was published in 2008. But even down to the fine details (e.g., the Nixon campaign drastically—and obviously—inflating their crowd sizes), it’s impressive to see how far back these things really go.
You have to know what you’re signing up for when you start a book like this, obviously. It‘s quite a long read, and certainly dry in parts, but I think it’s one of the best things I’ve read for an understanding of the longer historical trends in modern American conservatism.
More impressive still is how clearly this book shows the roots of Trumpism and modern Republican politics. The parallels can’t have been purposeful, as it was published in 2008. But even down to the fine details (e.g., the Nixon campaign drastically—and obviously—inflating their crowd sizes), it’s impressive to see how far back these things really go.
You have to know what you’re signing up for when you start a book like this, obviously. It‘s quite a long read, and certainly dry in parts, but I think it’s one of the best things I’ve read for an understanding of the longer historical trends in modern American conservatism.