Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

[Joanne98]

Greetings, FDL book salon members, and welcome to Rick Perlstein's Nixonland. It's a bleak place, an America broken into pieces, cracked apart by disagreement over war and the method of prosecuting war; over race and racism; over whether you can dissent from official opinion and still count truly as an American citizen. It's not at all like the country we live in, thank goodness. Rick's written a powerful narrative here about how those cracks appeared in the American landscape, and about who started and widened them, and to what purpose. It's a great read, rich in vivid, often chilling illustrations of the era.

Metaphors aside, in the late 1960s, something did break apart in the American political landscape. That something was the New Deal coalition: an agglomeration of voters who'd assembled to support Franklin Roosevelt and who stuck with the Democratic Party -- with some notable exceptions -- until sometime around 1964. The New Deal coalition included, broadly speaking, working-class white Americans, especially those in unions; black Americans; a substantial portion of the farm vote; immigrant and ethnic Americans, particularly Jews; Catholics; and southern whites. And you can throw in a few thousand university-educated middle-class liberals if you like.

Just looking at that list, you might well wonder what could possibly hold that coalition together. Because really, blacks and southern whites? Farmers and union labor? Getting those groups together took first of all a Great Depression, which persuaded them they shouldn't be backing the Republican talk of endless prosperity for all (but later for some than for others) and second of all the political deftness of Franklin Roosevelt and other Democrats who managed to do some small (though real) things for African Americans without alienating southern whites.

That latter trick was the tougher one. Every time the Democratic Party took a few halting steps in the direction of racial or ethnic minorities, the white South defected from the Democratic national electorate. It happened in 1928, when the Democrats ran Al Smith, a Catholic; it happened in 1948, when Harry Truman supported civil rights, however tepidly; it happened in 1960, when the Democrats ran John Kennedy, a Catholic who supported civil rights, however tepidly. And it happened in 1964, when the Democrats ran with Lyndon Johnson at the head of the ticket as the party of civil rights.

Race split apart this coalition. But it wasn't the only thing. Remember I mentioned the necessity of persuading Americans to stop buying the idea of endless prosperity for all (but later for some than for others)? As the Depression receded in memory, Americans had less and less reason to remember the insupportability of that view. Particularly, as white southerners grew richer -- ironically, in large measure because of New Deal programs to modernize the South -- they began to wonder whether they needed the Democratic Party quite so much anymore. As they had more money, they chafed at the idea the federal government might take it away -- especially if the federal government took it away to give to black people.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/04/25/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-rick-perlstein-nixonland-the-rise-of-a-president-and-the-fracturing-of-america/

[mix]

1. plan to read soon! thanks for posting n/t