Rule and Ruin

By Geoffrey Kabaservice,

Book cover of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party

Book description

As the 2012 elections approach, the Republican Party is rocketing rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threaten to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mount primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appear to exhibit too much pragmatism orā€¦

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Rule and Ruin as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This history of moderate Republicanism was a long-awaited (especially by me!) analysis of moderate Republicanism written when most historians of the GOP only focused on conservatives. Published in 2012 at the height of the Tea Party Movement, this history is as much a warning to all Americans as it is a methodical accounting of the dismantling of a minority strand of Republicanism.

I find it to be more prescient today than it was the day of publication. Most of the book focuses on the height of what Kabaservice calls the ā€œmoderate movementā€ in the 1960s, but it also accounts forā€¦

From Marsha's list on where the Republican Party might go.

Both major political parties formed much bigger ideological tents during most of the post-World War II period than they do today.

Kabaserviceā€™s book is fascinating because it depicts a time and place in the 1960s when the Republican Party was extremely heterogenous and featured large and politically potent moderate and liberal wings.  Geographically, the Party of Lincoln still held great sway in its original base in New England and the Midwest. As a result, centrists like New Yorkā€™s Nelson Rockefeller, Michiganā€™s George Romney, and Massachusettsā€™ Ed Brooke were power brokers in the GOP of that era.

Kabaservice also shows howā€¦

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The team attempts a new route upā€¦

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