The New Republic

Wow, what a coincidence. I get the New York Times Sunday Book Review in my email inbox every Friday morning, and I just clicked on to your review there a little while ago. I have been busy, so I haven't had time to read it yet, but I will later today. And then I refreshed my TNR window, and here you are linking to the aforementioned review.

- liberalref

January 6, 2012 at 3:35pm

New York Times article. Very nice. Fascinating history. I always thought the Goldwater/John Birch wing of the Republican party was having a resurgence in the Tea-Party.

- AllanL5

January 6, 2012 at 3:38pm

A couple of quibbles. One, social security cannot be responsible for "runaway government spending" unless, of course, payroll taxes are just a scheme to impose a flat tax, a surtax, on those of low to moderate incomes for funding government. While I believe that to be the case (and I have 2.7 billion reasons to believe it), I don't believe TN does (or does he?). Two, "wealthy conservatives like Joseph Coors, John Olin and the Koch brothers were stepping up their contributions to conservative causes" isn't a parenthetical; it is the reason for the "extinction of Republican reasonableness".

- rayward

January 6, 2012 at 4:04pm

Well, trillion, but who's counting.

- rayward

January 6, 2012 at 4:33pm

I had thought the shift to the right happened after the Republicans tasted power in 1994 and focused thereafter on winning. It was around that time that Right Wing Radio Personality Rush Limbaugh appeared to be getting inside House information from Gingrich and using it in his commentaries. The desire for winning blended with the old guard's desire to retaliate for Nixon, and tarring Clinton with impeachment (an act having nothing to do with governing the country) became a priority. Moderates cannot exist if cooperation means success on both sides of the aisle.

- Nusholtz

January 6, 2012 at 8:06pm

Now that I have read the other interesting Sunday book reviews (that are posted Saturday for some reason) in the NYT, I have to ask Noah if he knew Kinsley's review of Frank's new book (Pity the Billionaire) would be side by side with Noah's review. I think not. It's an interesting contrast in book topics: the decline of moderate (i.e., reasonable) Republicans on the one hand, the rise of goofball conservative Republicans (the Beck variety) on the other. And so is the contrast in reviewer writing styles: Kinsley's clever conversational style on the one hand, Noah's more nuanced clever phrasing style on the other ("The story begins at the Eisenhower era’s end."). Both appreciate irony: Kinsley: "I believe that, in fact, the funhouse-mirror class war (in which liberals and poor people are the upper class and billionaires are among the oppressed masses) has been going on longer than that — at least since Nixon’s “silent majority.” (The man was president, but he still felt oppressed.)"; Noah: "On some level, then, the Tea Party is a product of the very welfare-statism that the hard right sought to smother in 1964 and that so many Tea Partiers profess to loathe today". I don't know if their tenures at Slate overlapped, but wouldn't it be a treat to have them both at TNR.

- rayward

January 7, 2012 at 8:12am

The erosion began long ago. Eisenhower had to deal with proto-Tea Partiers like William Knowland and Styles Bridges. His version of moderation--Modern Republicanism--was under assault from day one. Ike even talked about forming a third party as a result.

- propjoe

January 7, 2012 at 1:04pm