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Studies in Postwar American Political Development
Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party
The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity.
Except this development is not new at all. In Rule and Ruin , Geoffrey Kabaservice reveals that the moderate Republicans' downfall began not with the rise of the Tea Party but about the time of President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address. Even in the 1960s, when left-wing radicalism and right-wing backlash commanded headlines, Republican moderates and progressives formed a powerful movement, supporting pro-civil rights politicians like Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton, battling big-government liberals and conservative extremists alike. But the Republican civil war ended with the overthrow of the moderate ideas, heroes, and causes that had comprised the core of the GOP since its formation. In hindsight, it is today's conservatives who are "Republicans in Name Only."
Writing with passionate sympathy for a bygone tradition of moderation, Kabaservice recaptures a time when fiscal restraint was matched with social engagement; when a cohort of leading Republicans opposed the Vietnam war; when George Romney--father of Mitt Romney--conducted a nationwide tour of American poverty, from Appalachia to Watts, calling on society to "listen to the voices from the ghetto." Rule and Ruin is an epic, deeply researched history that reorients our understanding of our political past and present.
Today, following the Republicans' loss of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential contests, moderates remain marginalized in the GOP and progressives are all but nonexistent. In this insightful and elegantly argued book, Kabaservice contends that their decline has left Republicans less capable of governing responsibly, with dire consequences for all Americans. He has added a new afterword that considers the fallout from the 2012 elections.
Except this development is not new at all. In Rule and Ruin , Geoffrey Kabaservice reveals that the moderate Republicans' downfall began not with the rise of the Tea Party but about the time of President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address. Even in the 1960s, when left-wing radicalism and right-wing backlash commanded headlines, Republican moderates and progressives formed a powerful movement, supporting pro-civil rights politicians like Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton, battling big-government liberals and conservative extremists alike. But the Republican civil war ended with the overthrow of the moderate ideas, heroes, and causes that had comprised the core of the GOP since its formation. In hindsight, it is today's conservatives who are "Republicans in Name Only."
Writing with passionate sympathy for a bygone tradition of moderation, Kabaservice recaptures a time when fiscal restraint was matched with social engagement; when a cohort of leading Republicans opposed the Vietnam war; when George Romney--father of Mitt Romney--conducted a nationwide tour of American poverty, from Appalachia to Watts, calling on society to "listen to the voices from the ghetto." Rule and Ruin is an epic, deeply researched history that reorients our understanding of our political past and present.
Today, following the Republicans' loss of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential contests, moderates remain marginalized in the GOP and progressives are all but nonexistent. In this insightful and elegantly argued book, Kabaservice contends that their decline has left Republicans less capable of governing responsibly, with dire consequences for all Americans. He has added a new afterword that considers the fallout from the 2012 elections.
482 pages, Hardcover
First published December 5, 2011
67 people are currently reading
1315 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey Kabaservice
9 books51 followersGeoffrey Kabaservice has written for numerous national publications and has been an assistant professor of history at Yale University. He lives outside Washington, DC.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
January 3, 2016
Nine of the twelve chapters in this book take place in the sixties, before I was born. I had no idea how dynamic and diverse the Republican party used to be, what with four principle factions: progressives, moderates, stalwarts, and, alas, the conservatives. How sad, then, that the one faction that has never, not one time ever, contributed any policy or a single piece of legislation that has moved this country forward, has now completely usurped the GOP. This book is a meticulous dissection of how the GOP "fell" to its right-most base. It's a tale peopled with politicians of all stripes that you feel like you know after a while, thanks to how often they and their writings are quoted. Also, I had never heard of the Ripon Society before I read this book. I wonder how many GOP voters, especially the GOP lifers, know of this group, one of the primary sources of good (and moderate) ideas the Republican party has ever had. Anyone who's even the least bit curious as to how and why the Republican party has become the shambles it is today would do well to read this incredibly educating tome.
February 10, 2012
This book, which focuses largely on political events in the Sixties, chronicles the 40-year effort of far-right conservatives to marginalize and expel moderates from the Republican party. Beginning with the Rockefeller-Goldwater contest in 1964 and culminating in the Gingrich congress's final destruction of moderates, the author also examines key episodes in the Nixon and Reagan presidencies. The balance, reasonableness, prudence, and common sense that typified the Republican party of the Eisenhower era are now but a distant memory, and the loss of this moderation is to be lamented. Moderates upheld values and positions that are no longer adequately represented in American politics. Many of the moderates' most significant contributions revolved around issues that did not neatly fit into the liberal-conservative dichotomy, and the complete collapse of the moderate wing is a sign of complete and debilitating dysfunction in the Republican party. A fine book, minutely detailed and carefully narrated.
January 9, 2025
Given the ever-rightward march of today’s Republican Party, it can be difficult to recall that there was a time when moderates played a prominent role within its ranks. How they lost this position and became an alienated presence within the GOP is the subject of Geoffrey Kabaservice’s book. In it he tells a dispiriting tale of the rise of extremism within one of the two dominant parties in American politics, one that charts the key moments in the party’s ideological shift and explains the fate of the moderate politicians caught in this process.
Kabaservice dates the origins of this shift to the 1960s. He identifies four distinct factions within the party at the start of the decade: moderates, progressives, conservative “stalwarts”, and reactionaries. With Dwight Eisenhower in the Oval Office the moderates held sway, leaving the stalwarts and the reactionaries frustrated with the direction of events. In the aftermath of the 1960 presidential election, the militant extremists on the right sought to fill the vacuum created by Richard Nixon’s defeat to take over the party infrastructure. Rallying around Barry Goldwater, who had emerged as the right’s leading figure, these activists sought to take over the party at the local and state level by whatever means necessary. Gaining control of these mundane posts, they used their positions to promote Goldwater over Nelson Rockefeller, the liberal New York governor who was the front runner for the party’s presidential nomination in 1964. Benefiting from a backlash against Rockefeller’s divorce and remarriage, they succeeded in winning the nomination for Goldwater, who then lost the subsequent election to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide.
Faced with such an aggressive and self-defeating insurgency, the moderates mobilized to take back control of their party. Kabaservice’s description of their efforts form the heart of his book, and he notes the considerable success they enjoyed both in regaining a degree of control and in electing moderates in the 1966 midterm elections. Yet the extremists proved too well entrenched to dislodge completely, forcing an accommodation between the two sides. Conservatives and reactionaries benefited as well from the broader political trends of the 1960s, as social tensions involving young people and minorities served as easy targets for their rhetoric and convinced moderates to unite with their intraparty rivals. Nevertheless, Kabaservice sees George Romney’s failed presidential bid as the moderates’ last real opportunity to maintain power in the GOP, with their history from the Nixon years onward being one of a slow decline into marginalization and irrelevance.
Kabaservice’s book offers a good account of one of the developments that shaped the modern American political landscape. His description of the internal battles and the personalities involved is particularly useful as he shows that the outcome was not necessarily inevitable, but the product of a series of choices by key individuals and their response to developments that did or did not take place. Yet while Kabaservice provides a valuable description of the activities of the moderate Republican activists, he overstates their importance relative to the activities of the extremists and the broader shifts in the public mood, which downplays the degree to which the moderates were swimming against the political tide. More attention to the takeover by the conservatives of the party organization in the early 1960s, particularly within the previously African-American dominated state and local Republican parties in the South, would have provided a more well-rounded picture of the right-wing entrenchment that moderates faced, one that likely foredoomed them to defeat even before they fully realized that the battle was at hand. As it is, his book provides only a partial portrait of the downfall of moderation within the GOP, albeit one that examines factors that have been understudied for far too long.
Kabaservice dates the origins of this shift to the 1960s. He identifies four distinct factions within the party at the start of the decade: moderates, progressives, conservative “stalwarts”, and reactionaries. With Dwight Eisenhower in the Oval Office the moderates held sway, leaving the stalwarts and the reactionaries frustrated with the direction of events. In the aftermath of the 1960 presidential election, the militant extremists on the right sought to fill the vacuum created by Richard Nixon’s defeat to take over the party infrastructure. Rallying around Barry Goldwater, who had emerged as the right’s leading figure, these activists sought to take over the party at the local and state level by whatever means necessary. Gaining control of these mundane posts, they used their positions to promote Goldwater over Nelson Rockefeller, the liberal New York governor who was the front runner for the party’s presidential nomination in 1964. Benefiting from a backlash against Rockefeller’s divorce and remarriage, they succeeded in winning the nomination for Goldwater, who then lost the subsequent election to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide.
Faced with such an aggressive and self-defeating insurgency, the moderates mobilized to take back control of their party. Kabaservice’s description of their efforts form the heart of his book, and he notes the considerable success they enjoyed both in regaining a degree of control and in electing moderates in the 1966 midterm elections. Yet the extremists proved too well entrenched to dislodge completely, forcing an accommodation between the two sides. Conservatives and reactionaries benefited as well from the broader political trends of the 1960s, as social tensions involving young people and minorities served as easy targets for their rhetoric and convinced moderates to unite with their intraparty rivals. Nevertheless, Kabaservice sees George Romney’s failed presidential bid as the moderates’ last real opportunity to maintain power in the GOP, with their history from the Nixon years onward being one of a slow decline into marginalization and irrelevance.
Kabaservice’s book offers a good account of one of the developments that shaped the modern American political landscape. His description of the internal battles and the personalities involved is particularly useful as he shows that the outcome was not necessarily inevitable, but the product of a series of choices by key individuals and their response to developments that did or did not take place. Yet while Kabaservice provides a valuable description of the activities of the moderate Republican activists, he overstates their importance relative to the activities of the extremists and the broader shifts in the public mood, which downplays the degree to which the moderates were swimming against the political tide. More attention to the takeover by the conservatives of the party organization in the early 1960s, particularly within the previously African-American dominated state and local Republican parties in the South, would have provided a more well-rounded picture of the right-wing entrenchment that moderates faced, one that likely foredoomed them to defeat even before they fully realized that the battle was at hand. As it is, his book provides only a partial portrait of the downfall of moderation within the GOP, albeit one that examines factors that have been understudied for far too long.
May 30, 2012
A really fascinating book, I've learned so much about the history of the Republican party and the development of the party as it exists today. Kabaservice clearly has a bias - he believes the loss of the moderate/liberal elements of the Republican party is a bad thing and does not attempt to hide this - but that doesn't stop the book from being fairly fact-based and educational. And try as I might, I cannot find any Republican reviewers of the book who disagree with the majority of his facts (mostly, they say he's terribly biased. Which the reader should probably have known from the title!). It was also quite interesting to see how some of the Republican party's most famous folks (Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular) started out as quite moderate, balanced politicians who cared about many of the same issues moderates in both parties care about - and how their political outlooks changed over time. Extremely interesting book!
August 17, 2012
Ever asked yourself how did the GOP become so insane? This book is the answer. It's really a shame what happened to the Party of Lincoln, civil rights, LaFollette, and Eisenhower. Know your history.
December 7, 2012
If you are interested in how the GOP became the GOP of today, then this is a book for you. The last chapter which covers the last ten years feels a little rushed, but overall, this is good political history. His conclusions mirror exactly what the GOP is facing since the 2012 election loss.
July 25, 2012
This book is a brilliant, deeply researched and well-written recapitulation of the mostly forgotten history of moderation in the Republican Party. Emerging from the Eisenhower era, moderation flourished only briefly in the mid- to late-1960s in the wake of Goldwater's massive defeat in 1964 and through the early part of the Nixon administration until Nixon turned more conservative to preserve his Southern electoral strategy. At that point, it began a long decline until its virtual disappearance in the present day. In their heyday, moderates were a key element in the passage of civil rights legislation, as opponents of the Vietnam war and as advocates of effective and efficient government. Many well-known Republican figures including Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, Dick Cheney, Spiro Agnew and Donald Rumsfeld began their careers as moderates and even liberals on many issues as the book recounts. The ultimate demise of Republican moderation can be traced to their confounding inability to institutionalize their principles in the way that conservatives, despite many initial setbacks, were able to. In reading this history, one cannot help but conclude that the loss of this movement on the national stage has directly led to the corrosive polarization of today's politics.
April 3, 2021
Covers the history of the Republican Party in the 1960s and 1970s, with the last chapter summarizing the subsequent history from 1980 to the Tea Party. The book is at once a celebration of moderate Republicans and a jeremiad and lament at their downfall and marginalization within the party, as the GOP became an ideologically aligned conservative (and more radical right-wing) party. Reading this book in the post(?)-Trump era one can see the trend towards a more radical version of the party having gone even further since the Tea Party years. The book is written from a moderate and sympathetic perspective (I can't quite tell if the author is an independent, a moderate Democrat, or a moderate Republican). A must read for understanding the history and trajectory of the Republican Party today and a call for a more moderate, realistic, and grounded politics.
The Republican Party of the 1960s was an entirely different place from today-it was a party aligned around interest groups more than ideology, encompassing a broad tent of conservatives, moderates, and progressives. In the early 1960s the old school conservatism of Robert Taft, the moderate influence of Eisenhower, and the progressivism of Nelson Rockefeller co-existed. In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, conservatism grew to dominate the party, at the expense of the moderates and the progressives. This started abruptly with the 1964 nomination of Barry Goldwater as the Republican presidential candidate. Despite losing the election by a significant margin, seemingly giving moderates an advantage, the Goldwater moment became an inflection point for conservatism, eventually leading to the otherwise centrist Nixon leaning further towards the conservative wing of he party, and more to the point, to the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President. Since Reagan, the party has gone through at least three further moves to the right: the Gingrich mid-1990s period, the 2010+ Tea Party period, and the 2016+ Trumpist era.
Kabaservice covers this history in great detail, discussing the people and politics involved on both the conservative and moderate sides, and focusing primarily on electoral politics, but also including some discussions of policy ideas. He also critiques the Democrat Party under Lyndon B. Johnson for its Vietnam war policies as well as its political overreach with the further expansion of the welfare state opening the way for conservativism. Importantly, the author shows how Republicans often led out in civil rights policies, voting for the Civil Rights acts by higher margins than did Democrats. Unfortunately, the party was unable to achieve electoral advantages with African Americans due to the racist white backlash (and turn to the South) encouraged by some conservatives.
As an LDS reader, one of my favorite parts of the book was his treatment of moderate Republican George Romney and his lament that, had Romney instead of Nixon won the Republican nomination (and therefore almost certainly the Presidency), the place of moderate Republicans within the GOP would have been solidified. One can't help but see somewhat of a parallel in the 2010s: if George Romney's son Mitt Romney had won the Presidency in 2012, he could have influenced the GOP towards moderation and we could have avoided Trumpism.
The Republican Party of the 1960s was an entirely different place from today-it was a party aligned around interest groups more than ideology, encompassing a broad tent of conservatives, moderates, and progressives. In the early 1960s the old school conservatism of Robert Taft, the moderate influence of Eisenhower, and the progressivism of Nelson Rockefeller co-existed. In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, conservatism grew to dominate the party, at the expense of the moderates and the progressives. This started abruptly with the 1964 nomination of Barry Goldwater as the Republican presidential candidate. Despite losing the election by a significant margin, seemingly giving moderates an advantage, the Goldwater moment became an inflection point for conservatism, eventually leading to the otherwise centrist Nixon leaning further towards the conservative wing of he party, and more to the point, to the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as President. Since Reagan, the party has gone through at least three further moves to the right: the Gingrich mid-1990s period, the 2010+ Tea Party period, and the 2016+ Trumpist era.
Kabaservice covers this history in great detail, discussing the people and politics involved on both the conservative and moderate sides, and focusing primarily on electoral politics, but also including some discussions of policy ideas. He also critiques the Democrat Party under Lyndon B. Johnson for its Vietnam war policies as well as its political overreach with the further expansion of the welfare state opening the way for conservativism. Importantly, the author shows how Republicans often led out in civil rights policies, voting for the Civil Rights acts by higher margins than did Democrats. Unfortunately, the party was unable to achieve electoral advantages with African Americans due to the racist white backlash (and turn to the South) encouraged by some conservatives.
As an LDS reader, one of my favorite parts of the book was his treatment of moderate Republican George Romney and his lament that, had Romney instead of Nixon won the Republican nomination (and therefore almost certainly the Presidency), the place of moderate Republicans within the GOP would have been solidified. One can't help but see somewhat of a parallel in the 2010s: if George Romney's son Mitt Romney had won the Presidency in 2012, he could have influenced the GOP towards moderation and we could have avoided Trumpism.
November 20, 2014
Rule and Ruin is an extremely comprehensive history of the GOP that is written unpretentiously, cited extensively, and well organized for future reference. I chose this book seeking to place the exact role of the party in historical policy decisions, and found this book informative on the many platforms taken by Republicans on issues from civil rights to challenging the procedure of congressional appointments. Rule and Ruin was also elaborated in great detail the role of youth political and activism groups in grooming many of the modern key figures of American politics, including the the former Ripon Society supporter and Goldwater girl Hillary Clinton and the reasons for her defection. While taking a distinctly negative slant against conservative encroachment upon the once larger-tented GOP, the author demonstrates the potential appeal of the moderate position even during the swell of a "silent majority" and in demographics of projected conservatism. My only complaint with this read is that it claims to cover Republican history up to the Tea Party, but the meat of the book reaches only the first Bush presidency. I would welcome an updated edition with a few added chapters to the end!
December 3, 2012
Fascinating analysis of the GOP's rightward slide, through the perspective of centrist/liberal Republicans. Kabaservice disputes recent historians (Rick Perlstein, Fred Schneider) who see a clear line from Barry Goldwater's disastrous Presidential run to Tea Party intransigence. Instead, he shows the '60s and '70s driven by heated interparty rivalry between the liberal "Establishment" wing of Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller and Goldwater/Reagan conservatives. Most pointedly he deflates the efforts of modern conservatives to claim Civil Rights as their own legacy, showing that only the long-banished liberal Republicans supported it. Kabaservice blames the moderates' failures on their inability to arouse enthusiasm or coalesce around a strong candidate (Rockefeller is roundly castigated); he also praises Ronald Reagan for comparative inclusiveness and pragmatism. The nearer Kabaservice gets to the present the more critical he becomes: he argues the GOP does itself (and the country) a disservice being doctrinaire and intolerant. As a disaffected conservative I can't help but agree.
March 9, 2012
well written and without pretentiousness Kabaservice documents the foibles of the GOP since the era of Eisenhower administration. A "devils' pact" with former Dixiecrats (politely called "Southern Democrats" in this book) and a take no prisoners approach to politics (ideological foundations, as opposed to issues) has reinvented the party as the "party of the common man" (ironic as it may seem). Kabaservice doesn't promote the Dems or Independents, he just parses out the direction a parties about face over a 60-year period.
February 2, 2013
Gather 'round children, and hear of a time when the Republican party ran the spectrum from conservative to progressive, and they did not think as a reactionary monolith, arguing over who is more conservative. From the days of Eisenhower, and going all the way back to its origins in the 1850s, Republicans were all types, from the very progressive Theodore Roosevelt to the conservative Robert Taft. But today, the moderate Republican is about as plentiful as the ivory-billed woodpecker. Gregory Kabaservice, in his well-researched if a little starchy Rule and Ruin, writes that this has been the undoing of the party.
Kabaservice, I take it, longs for the days of moderate Republicans--perhaps he is one himself. He doesn't hide his disdain for the dilemma the G.O.P. faces: "While there are many possible reasons to explain the present American political dysfunction, the leading suspect is the transformation of the Republican Party over the past half-century into a monolithically conservative organization." He argues that, unlike Democrats, who have a diversity that includes Joe Manchin to Barney Frank, Republicans have squelched any dissent, especially as evidenced by the recent primary purge of any Republican who would dare show pragmatism, thus nominating "bug-eyed zealots" who go down to defeat in general elections.
Kabaservice starts his history with a brief summary of Republican politics up through the Roosevelt years, then slows down when Eisenhower, who today would be considered a moderate-to-liberal Republican, left office. After losing to Kennedy, the conservatives of the party gathered around Barry Goldwater, the right-wing senator from Arizona, who famously said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." What may seem surprising to learn in this day and age is that a large wing of the party fought tooth and nail to stop him. Moderate Republicans were represented largely by a group called the Ripon Society (which I was surprised to learn still exists today), that tried to coalesce around a single candidate--namely Nelson Rockefeller, the plutocratic governor of New York. Rockefeller, though, dithered as a candidate, and had recently divorced and remarried a much younger woman.
Goldwater lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson, and moderate Republicans saw doom: "In the wake of the 1964 election, the surviving Republicans took stock of the disaster, like shivering survivors of a flood surveying the hideous transformation of a once-familiar landscape." But, despite these signs of obsolescence, four years later a seemingly centrist Republican, Richard Nixon, took office (though perhaps helped largely by the fracturing Democrats). As the years went by, moderate Republicans faded away, and with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, almost ceased to be.
So what is a moderate Republican, and what happened to them? Kabaservice describes them as fiscally conservative and socially progressive. They included men like Rockefeller, Henry Cabot Lodge, Leverett Saltonstall, George Romney, Thomas Kuchel, William Steiger, and William Scranton. Largely they were remnants of old blue-blooded families of New England, Midwestern stalwarts (including Gerald Ford), and Jewish progressives such as Jacob Javits. They were for civil rights, and occasionally against the Vietnam War, but against unnecessary spending. When Reagan came into office, he subverted the meaning of conservatism, at least fiscally: "defense spending increased by over one-third between 1981 and 1985, and totaled $2 trillion over Reagan's eight years in office. The federal deficit tripled under Reagan, while the federal debt jumped from $900 billion to close to $3 trillion dollars. The United States went from being the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor."
How did this happen? Kabaservice blames much of it on the famed "Southern strategy" employed by Nixon, who sought to stoke fears of black power by focusing on white Southern voters, who for generations had been Democrats. This repulsed many Republicans, who switched parties. Indeed, the members of today's Ripon Society are a third Democrat and a third Independent. In a topsy-turvy example of the changing demographics of today's voter, the deep south is predominantly Republican, while the one time Republican sronghold of New England had zero G.O.P. congressmen after the 2008 election.
Kabaservice speeds things up after the Nixon years; the period from 1970 to today is covered in only two chapters, perhaps because there almost was no impact by moderate Republicans. Lowell Weicker was the last progressive Republican senator. He holds special contempt for the Tea Party, and notes the aphorism that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, by detailing the Republican race for Senate to replace Joe Biden in Delaware. Mike Castle, a two-term governor and nine-term congressman, was a pragmatic Republican, but daring to reach across the aisle, and suggest that Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen, caused an insurgent Tea Party response, with Christine O'Donnell, a comically unqualified candidate, taking the nomination, turning a sure-fire Republican win into a defeat. He could have written the same about Sharron Angle in Nevada, or Richard Mourdock in Indiana--the Tea Party has cost Republicans at least five senate seats.
Kabaservice really puts venom in his pen for the extremists. It took a long time for Republicans to weed out crazies like the John Birch Society, whom even William F. Buckley called "kooks": "Now tea-tinged conservative entertainers like Glenn Beck peddled the crackpot theories of Birch theoreticians like W. Cleon Skousen to a television audience of millions, and books of the sort that once had been viewed as the political equivalent of hardcore pornography soared brazenly up the bestseller lists."
The book was written just before the 2012 election, and Kabaservice, like a Cassandra, sees the writing on the wall, with Mitt Romney running from his moderate past to out-flank the other candidates, only to lose in November. Throughout the book, the Democrats are outsiders to the story, like the small and insignificant mammals in the last day of the mighty dinosaurs. But those mammals had the last laugh, while the dinosaurs became extinct. Kabaservice sees the same future for Republicans, unless they expand their way of thinking to a more diverse body. It's hard to imagine that happening.
Kabaservice, I take it, longs for the days of moderate Republicans--perhaps he is one himself. He doesn't hide his disdain for the dilemma the G.O.P. faces: "While there are many possible reasons to explain the present American political dysfunction, the leading suspect is the transformation of the Republican Party over the past half-century into a monolithically conservative organization." He argues that, unlike Democrats, who have a diversity that includes Joe Manchin to Barney Frank, Republicans have squelched any dissent, especially as evidenced by the recent primary purge of any Republican who would dare show pragmatism, thus nominating "bug-eyed zealots" who go down to defeat in general elections.
Kabaservice starts his history with a brief summary of Republican politics up through the Roosevelt years, then slows down when Eisenhower, who today would be considered a moderate-to-liberal Republican, left office. After losing to Kennedy, the conservatives of the party gathered around Barry Goldwater, the right-wing senator from Arizona, who famously said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." What may seem surprising to learn in this day and age is that a large wing of the party fought tooth and nail to stop him. Moderate Republicans were represented largely by a group called the Ripon Society (which I was surprised to learn still exists today), that tried to coalesce around a single candidate--namely Nelson Rockefeller, the plutocratic governor of New York. Rockefeller, though, dithered as a candidate, and had recently divorced and remarried a much younger woman.
Goldwater lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson, and moderate Republicans saw doom: "In the wake of the 1964 election, the surviving Republicans took stock of the disaster, like shivering survivors of a flood surveying the hideous transformation of a once-familiar landscape." But, despite these signs of obsolescence, four years later a seemingly centrist Republican, Richard Nixon, took office (though perhaps helped largely by the fracturing Democrats). As the years went by, moderate Republicans faded away, and with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, almost ceased to be.
So what is a moderate Republican, and what happened to them? Kabaservice describes them as fiscally conservative and socially progressive. They included men like Rockefeller, Henry Cabot Lodge, Leverett Saltonstall, George Romney, Thomas Kuchel, William Steiger, and William Scranton. Largely they were remnants of old blue-blooded families of New England, Midwestern stalwarts (including Gerald Ford), and Jewish progressives such as Jacob Javits. They were for civil rights, and occasionally against the Vietnam War, but against unnecessary spending. When Reagan came into office, he subverted the meaning of conservatism, at least fiscally: "defense spending increased by over one-third between 1981 and 1985, and totaled $2 trillion over Reagan's eight years in office. The federal deficit tripled under Reagan, while the federal debt jumped from $900 billion to close to $3 trillion dollars. The United States went from being the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor."
How did this happen? Kabaservice blames much of it on the famed "Southern strategy" employed by Nixon, who sought to stoke fears of black power by focusing on white Southern voters, who for generations had been Democrats. This repulsed many Republicans, who switched parties. Indeed, the members of today's Ripon Society are a third Democrat and a third Independent. In a topsy-turvy example of the changing demographics of today's voter, the deep south is predominantly Republican, while the one time Republican sronghold of New England had zero G.O.P. congressmen after the 2008 election.
Kabaservice speeds things up after the Nixon years; the period from 1970 to today is covered in only two chapters, perhaps because there almost was no impact by moderate Republicans. Lowell Weicker was the last progressive Republican senator. He holds special contempt for the Tea Party, and notes the aphorism that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce, by detailing the Republican race for Senate to replace Joe Biden in Delaware. Mike Castle, a two-term governor and nine-term congressman, was a pragmatic Republican, but daring to reach across the aisle, and suggest that Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen, caused an insurgent Tea Party response, with Christine O'Donnell, a comically unqualified candidate, taking the nomination, turning a sure-fire Republican win into a defeat. He could have written the same about Sharron Angle in Nevada, or Richard Mourdock in Indiana--the Tea Party has cost Republicans at least five senate seats.
Kabaservice really puts venom in his pen for the extremists. It took a long time for Republicans to weed out crazies like the John Birch Society, whom even William F. Buckley called "kooks": "Now tea-tinged conservative entertainers like Glenn Beck peddled the crackpot theories of Birch theoreticians like W. Cleon Skousen to a television audience of millions, and books of the sort that once had been viewed as the political equivalent of hardcore pornography soared brazenly up the bestseller lists."
The book was written just before the 2012 election, and Kabaservice, like a Cassandra, sees the writing on the wall, with Mitt Romney running from his moderate past to out-flank the other candidates, only to lose in November. Throughout the book, the Democrats are outsiders to the story, like the small and insignificant mammals in the last day of the mighty dinosaurs. But those mammals had the last laugh, while the dinosaurs became extinct. Kabaservice sees the same future for Republicans, unless they expand their way of thinking to a more diverse body. It's hard to imagine that happening.
April 5, 2017
This would have been a very difficult book for me to get through before the 2016 election, but after having watched the GOP upheaval it became a thriller to me. Completed in 2012, this book is riddled with lessons from the past that apply to today, and is thought provoking for what happens next for both major parties.
August 29, 2016
An optional subtitle for this book could be: "Or: How We Got to Donald Trump." Geoffrey Kabaservice has written a thorough, fairly readable account of how the Republican Party went from the party of Eisenhower to the party of Bush, and although written before the 2012 election, by extension the party of Trump. I really enjoyed it, but the weeds get deep in places; if you're not a political junkie, it could be a slog. I also disagreed with some editorial decisions – Kabaservice focuses overly much on the 1960s to the detriment of the 1980s and '90s. Granted, the '60s were a key decade, and there were many more moderates in the GOP then, so it definitely deserves more space. But better editing and/or organization could have avoided cramming 30 years of history into the final chapter.
Kabaservice also points out that moderates played a role in the ascendancy of supply-side economics within the party, but he punts on adjudicating whether the theory actually works as intended. That seemed like too much of a cop-out, given Kabaservice's willingness to hold forth on the rightness of moderate positions (and wrongness of liberal ones) on things like welfare reform, universal basic income and capital-gains taxes. I didn't agree with all of Kabaservice's positions, which is fine, but in a book about Republican moderation, he needs to be able to assess whether moderate complicity in supply-side economics was ultimately beneficial for either the party or the country (he does seem to agree that regardless of the merits, conservatives inappropriately turned the theory into practically a religion that justified opposing all tax cuts at all times).
Although Kabaservice clearly considers himself a moderate Republican (this isn't a case of a liberal tut-tutting his way through all the problems caused by the other side's extremism), he avoids falling into the trap of false equivalency in which both sides are to blame for partisan polarization. Rather, he clearly lays out the fact that conservatives as early as 1964 sought to realign the parties along ideological, rather than geographic and class, grounds – and that it was widely recognized that such a move would increase gridlock and pose a danger to effective governance. And Kabaservice clearly lays out that once that realignment was effected in 1980, moderate Republicans felt more at home in the Democratic Party; the sides, in other words, did not polarize identically, even if some level of polarization had occurred in each. Today's problem, while the result of decisions made within both parties, is nevertheless primarily a Republican one.
In his conclusion, written during the 2012 presidential campaign, Kabaservice notes that Mitt Romney was running away from his record as a moderate Massachusetts governor – and far, far away from the legacy of his father, former Michigan governor and almost-nominee George Romney. Kabaservice's comments on this show how much the rise of Donald Trump can be lain at the feet of the movement that started with Joseph McCarthy, burst onto the national scene with the candidacy of Barry Goldwater, and reached its apex with the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush:
"Much of the current conservative movement is characterized by this sort of historical amnesia and symbolic patricide, which seeks to under key aspects of the Republican legacy such as Reagan's elimination of corporate tax loopholes, Nixon's environmental and labor safety programs, and a variety of GOP achievements in civil rights, civil liberties, and good-government reforms. In the long view of history, it is really today's conservatives who are 'Repubublicans in name only.'"
Not surprising, then, that Republicans have finally gone all the way, actually nominating someone who says what conservatives have primed their voters to hear, even as he has shown no actual loyalty to the party. By jettisoning the historical values – both ideological and temperamental – of the Party of Lincoln, the conservatives that have run the GOP for more than 30 years have indeed turned it into the Party of Trump.
Kabaservice also points out that moderates played a role in the ascendancy of supply-side economics within the party, but he punts on adjudicating whether the theory actually works as intended. That seemed like too much of a cop-out, given Kabaservice's willingness to hold forth on the rightness of moderate positions (and wrongness of liberal ones) on things like welfare reform, universal basic income and capital-gains taxes. I didn't agree with all of Kabaservice's positions, which is fine, but in a book about Republican moderation, he needs to be able to assess whether moderate complicity in supply-side economics was ultimately beneficial for either the party or the country (he does seem to agree that regardless of the merits, conservatives inappropriately turned the theory into practically a religion that justified opposing all tax cuts at all times).
Although Kabaservice clearly considers himself a moderate Republican (this isn't a case of a liberal tut-tutting his way through all the problems caused by the other side's extremism), he avoids falling into the trap of false equivalency in which both sides are to blame for partisan polarization. Rather, he clearly lays out the fact that conservatives as early as 1964 sought to realign the parties along ideological, rather than geographic and class, grounds – and that it was widely recognized that such a move would increase gridlock and pose a danger to effective governance. And Kabaservice clearly lays out that once that realignment was effected in 1980, moderate Republicans felt more at home in the Democratic Party; the sides, in other words, did not polarize identically, even if some level of polarization had occurred in each. Today's problem, while the result of decisions made within both parties, is nevertheless primarily a Republican one.
In his conclusion, written during the 2012 presidential campaign, Kabaservice notes that Mitt Romney was running away from his record as a moderate Massachusetts governor – and far, far away from the legacy of his father, former Michigan governor and almost-nominee George Romney. Kabaservice's comments on this show how much the rise of Donald Trump can be lain at the feet of the movement that started with Joseph McCarthy, burst onto the national scene with the candidacy of Barry Goldwater, and reached its apex with the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush:
"Much of the current conservative movement is characterized by this sort of historical amnesia and symbolic patricide, which seeks to under key aspects of the Republican legacy such as Reagan's elimination of corporate tax loopholes, Nixon's environmental and labor safety programs, and a variety of GOP achievements in civil rights, civil liberties, and good-government reforms. In the long view of history, it is really today's conservatives who are 'Repubublicans in name only.'"
Not surprising, then, that Republicans have finally gone all the way, actually nominating someone who says what conservatives have primed their voters to hear, even as he has shown no actual loyalty to the party. By jettisoning the historical values – both ideological and temperamental – of the Party of Lincoln, the conservatives that have run the GOP for more than 30 years have indeed turned it into the Party of Trump.
February 12, 2013
Geoffrey Kabaservice's "Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party" is an authoritative account of how far-right conservatives hijacked the Republican party after Nixon's defeat to Kennedy in 1960. This is no partisan screed: Kabaservice's work is the result of considerable scholarship and research, and historians owe him a debt of gratitude for this significant work of political excavation.
The bulk of his story takes place during the 60's. While conservatives had always been a constituency within the Republican party, their influence was checked by the Eastern establishment which prefered moderation to orthodoxy. Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower derided the far right as being hopeless out of touch with the needs of the country. One of the best kept secrets of movement conservatism is that it arose not in response to any perceived Democratic threat, but out of dissatisfaction with the moderate leadership of Eisenhower. After Nixon's defeat to Kennedy in 1960, political zealots like National Review co-founder William Rusher and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) activist Clifton White staged a coup of party operations. Starting with the youth organizations like YAF and the Young Republicans, Clifton and White consciously emulated tactics they had observed in the Communist party which allowed a determined minority to seize control of a larger organization. They succeeded in purging these groups of their moderates and created a rank-and-file of true believers dedicated to the singular cause of nominating Barry Goldwater as the party's presidential nominee in 1964.
Clifton and White applied these same black arts to take over the 1964 Republican National Convention, where progressives like New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller decried their influence from the rostrum. One of the striking themes that emerges from "Rule and Ruin" is the tragedy of Nelson Rockefeller, whose scandalous second marriage deprived the country of a truly progressive Republican prepared to go to war against the Birchers and McCarthyites and reclaim the mantle of progressivism with which the party of Lincoln was founded. Despite Goldwater's resounding defeat to Lyndon Johnson, the conservatives played the long game and retooled their strategy behind Ronald Reagan, whose deft ability to put a friendly face on Goldwater-style Republicanism convinced them of his electability. Meanwhile, the threshing of moderate and progressive Republicans continued, with the sad, if inevitable outcome being a party where only extremists were left standing.
Kabaservice is at his best recounting the conservative takeover of the Republican party during the 1960's. Although he offers a brief historical explanation of the role of Robert Taft and Theodore Roosevelt in shaping the early divide between the progressive and conservative wings, he truly hits his stride once the curtain opens on Ike's first term as Commander in Chief in 1952. A noble attempt is made to explain the events of later years-- the effect of Watergate upon the Republican party, the tumult of the Ford and Carter administrations, and the legacies of Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama --but these are packed into only two concluding chapters. This leaves the reader feeling somewhat cheated by not bringing him with sufficient care to the doorstep of his morning's newspaper, but one cannot quarrel with the author's mastery of the most formative period in the rise of the New Right.
Republicans looking for a way out of the political wilderness following their 2012 electoral defeat would do well to study this remarkable account of their party's true history. It reveals in painful detail how the once-great party of Abraham Lincoln degenerated into the party of Rush Limbaugh.
The bulk of his story takes place during the 60's. While conservatives had always been a constituency within the Republican party, their influence was checked by the Eastern establishment which prefered moderation to orthodoxy. Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower derided the far right as being hopeless out of touch with the needs of the country. One of the best kept secrets of movement conservatism is that it arose not in response to any perceived Democratic threat, but out of dissatisfaction with the moderate leadership of Eisenhower. After Nixon's defeat to Kennedy in 1960, political zealots like National Review co-founder William Rusher and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) activist Clifton White staged a coup of party operations. Starting with the youth organizations like YAF and the Young Republicans, Clifton and White consciously emulated tactics they had observed in the Communist party which allowed a determined minority to seize control of a larger organization. They succeeded in purging these groups of their moderates and created a rank-and-file of true believers dedicated to the singular cause of nominating Barry Goldwater as the party's presidential nominee in 1964.
Clifton and White applied these same black arts to take over the 1964 Republican National Convention, where progressives like New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller decried their influence from the rostrum. One of the striking themes that emerges from "Rule and Ruin" is the tragedy of Nelson Rockefeller, whose scandalous second marriage deprived the country of a truly progressive Republican prepared to go to war against the Birchers and McCarthyites and reclaim the mantle of progressivism with which the party of Lincoln was founded. Despite Goldwater's resounding defeat to Lyndon Johnson, the conservatives played the long game and retooled their strategy behind Ronald Reagan, whose deft ability to put a friendly face on Goldwater-style Republicanism convinced them of his electability. Meanwhile, the threshing of moderate and progressive Republicans continued, with the sad, if inevitable outcome being a party where only extremists were left standing.
Kabaservice is at his best recounting the conservative takeover of the Republican party during the 1960's. Although he offers a brief historical explanation of the role of Robert Taft and Theodore Roosevelt in shaping the early divide between the progressive and conservative wings, he truly hits his stride once the curtain opens on Ike's first term as Commander in Chief in 1952. A noble attempt is made to explain the events of later years-- the effect of Watergate upon the Republican party, the tumult of the Ford and Carter administrations, and the legacies of Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama --but these are packed into only two concluding chapters. This leaves the reader feeling somewhat cheated by not bringing him with sufficient care to the doorstep of his morning's newspaper, but one cannot quarrel with the author's mastery of the most formative period in the rise of the New Right.
Republicans looking for a way out of the political wilderness following their 2012 electoral defeat would do well to study this remarkable account of their party's true history. It reveals in painful detail how the once-great party of Abraham Lincoln degenerated into the party of Rush Limbaugh.
August 7, 2015
Fairly in-depth (though somewhat misleading title) book outlining the right's complete takeover of the Republican party. As hard as it is to believe, the GOP used to have moderate and liberal wings, as represented by the Nelson Rockefellers and similar ilk. However, these wings have essentially been decimated in the past several decades, which ultimately began with the far-right's hijacking of the party in 1964 with the nomination of Goldwater and the party's plank that year.
The book adopts a personal-narrative style, outlining various important figures in the GOP's moderate wings, particularly those involved in the now-defunct Ripon Society. Many later prominent (and quite conservative) GOP stalwarts were heavy hitters in the GOP moderate movement in the 1960s and '70s, including Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, and Newt Gingrich. These men read the tea leaves with Reagan's election, and adjusted their ideological makeups accordingly to better fit into the new rightist party.
I enjoyed it quite a bit, although the author adopts an annoying false equivalency in stating that the GOP is full of conservatives while the Democrats are full of liberals with no room for moderates, when in reality the GOP is the conservative party with Democrats serving moderates. The group without a party is liberals.
The book adopts a personal-narrative style, outlining various important figures in the GOP's moderate wings, particularly those involved in the now-defunct Ripon Society. Many later prominent (and quite conservative) GOP stalwarts were heavy hitters in the GOP moderate movement in the 1960s and '70s, including Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell, and Newt Gingrich. These men read the tea leaves with Reagan's election, and adjusted their ideological makeups accordingly to better fit into the new rightist party.
I enjoyed it quite a bit, although the author adopts an annoying false equivalency in stating that the GOP is full of conservatives while the Democrats are full of liberals with no room for moderates, when in reality the GOP is the conservative party with Democrats serving moderates. The group without a party is liberals.
September 21, 2022
Writers about the mid- to late-20th Century Republican Party tend to expose their bias in one of two ways. For some, the modern GOP has always been the bad force in American politics, but lamenting the loss of once-reasonable historical Republicans is a useful tool to deride present-day Republicans by comparison. While others favorably disposed to a conservative-led GOP weave an origin myth where Goldwater was a Mosaic figure fighting the liberal establishment Philistines in the wilderness until Reagan, like Joshua, led the party to the Promised Land.
Geoffrey Kabaservice comes from a different point of view. He presents a rigorously researched and documented history from the vantage of the liberal and progressive wing of the GOP. This faction enjoyed a resurgence in the 1950s rivaling the conservative wing for control of the party, but by the 1970s had wilted to a minority faction, and whose adherents by the 1980s had either left the GOP or mostly been subsumed into the big tent Reagan coalition.
In that sense, Kabaservice might find common cause with Republican critics lamenting the direction the GOP took, but would herald the GOP’s rich heritage at the vital center of American politics (see, e.g., the indispensable votes of Congressional Republicans on civil rights, voting rights, and fair housing). Likewise, he would dash the conservative myth that Reagan and his GOP successors were movement conservative idealogues, when in reality they were far more pragmatic, and had no trouble populating their administrations with moderates of all varieties, including some liberal/progressive Republicans.
Read properly, this book isn’t really a slow-motion obituary for Republican moderation, as the subtitle suggests. For starters, there are at least three different flavors of moderate Republican, which often overlap: (1) Liberal and progressive Republicans that formed the once-vibrant faction Kabaservice explores in this book, but which is essentially extinct as a driving force within the party today; (2) Republicans whose politics highly prioritizes forging policy agreements and deal-making over adherence to ideology; and (3) centrists who define their politics in relative equipoise between political extremes. Released in 2012, the structure of the book indicates that publishers wanted to shoehorn the then-newsy Tea Party movement into the narrative. Thus, the book awkwardly crams thirty years of Republican electoral success in the 80s, 90s and Aughts into a single chapter to unconvincingly thread that narrative. Those three decades are interesting in their own right but they don’t belong here. Internal party politics starting with Reagan was less about liberal versus conservative and more about establishment versus outsider, which continues to playout to this day. That quibble aside, this book is fantastic.
Why was Republican liberalism important? Because it was district from liberalism that developed in the Democratic party. It lacked a populist dimension. Indeed, its roots date back to Lincoln and found purchase among the WASPy and well-heeled in the East and Midwest. Furthermore, it was untethered from the bloated excesses of the New Deal and the Great Society. Ultimately, it was a movement which believed in the use of government for progressive purposes, but was still influenced by other traditional Republican virtues like free enterprise, stability, fiscal restraint, and humility.
So why did liberal and progressive Republicans sort of fade away as a dominate governing force within the Republican Party? The passage of the civil rights bills which Republicans had been working on for ages zapped their raison d’etre. They couldn’t agree about what to rally around. Also, they were too closely tied to Nelson Rockefeller (and too reliant on his money). Rockefeller’s multi-cycle obsession with seeking the presidency long after he was already a spent national force eclipsed other liberals who could credibly seek the office. Also, for many liberal Republicans, their opinion about Reagan changed over time. Where once they were mortified by his stumping for Goldwater and seeking high executive office as a neophyte, many eventually noticed his pragmatism as Governor of California. Finally, the center of political gravity moved west and south, and liberal Republicans were concentrated in the East and Midwest.
Who, if anyone, had the most promise to keep the liberal/progressive flame alive? George Romney. He enjoyed Eisenhower levels of popularity in the run up to 1968. He wasn’t tied to the Eastern Establishment as Governor of Michigan, he had cultural ties to the west, there was a clear moral, almost religious, edge to his politics before that became fashionable in the GOP, meaning he could have been a bridge to the coming Christian element of Republican politics. But, his “brain washing” gaffe guaranteed Nixon the nomination by leaving only Rockefeller to run with the liberal mantel again.
Richard Nixon, as ever, is a pivotal person in this history. Nixon is the last Republican nominee who had to worry about a credible challenge from the liberal/progressive wing. His innate ability to find the center of the GOP functionally blocked liberals from winning the nomination, but he wasn’t from the conservative wing either. Both were skeptical of him, but party stalwarts loved him. Today we think of his vice president, Spiro Agnew, as a conservative bomb thrower, but it’s important to remember that he was an early Rockefeller supporter in 1968 and was meant to balance the ticket by shoring up Nixon's left flank! Nixon and Agnew, like most Republicans of the era, became more conservative in the face of the unrest on campuses and in the streets over Vietnam. But looking past the “silent majority” rhetoric, you find many liberal accomplishments that Nixon championed. The creation of the EPA and OSHA, signing the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, ESA, NEPA, enacting revenue sharing, opening to China, détente, proposals for universal health care. Nixon’s was the last liberal Republican presidency.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand midcentury American politics at a deeper level. Where focused on the 50s, 60s, and 70s tracing the rise and fall of liberals and progressives as a governing faction of the GOP, this book is superb.
Geoffrey Kabaservice comes from a different point of view. He presents a rigorously researched and documented history from the vantage of the liberal and progressive wing of the GOP. This faction enjoyed a resurgence in the 1950s rivaling the conservative wing for control of the party, but by the 1970s had wilted to a minority faction, and whose adherents by the 1980s had either left the GOP or mostly been subsumed into the big tent Reagan coalition.
In that sense, Kabaservice might find common cause with Republican critics lamenting the direction the GOP took, but would herald the GOP’s rich heritage at the vital center of American politics (see, e.g., the indispensable votes of Congressional Republicans on civil rights, voting rights, and fair housing). Likewise, he would dash the conservative myth that Reagan and his GOP successors were movement conservative idealogues, when in reality they were far more pragmatic, and had no trouble populating their administrations with moderates of all varieties, including some liberal/progressive Republicans.
Read properly, this book isn’t really a slow-motion obituary for Republican moderation, as the subtitle suggests. For starters, there are at least three different flavors of moderate Republican, which often overlap: (1) Liberal and progressive Republicans that formed the once-vibrant faction Kabaservice explores in this book, but which is essentially extinct as a driving force within the party today; (2) Republicans whose politics highly prioritizes forging policy agreements and deal-making over adherence to ideology; and (3) centrists who define their politics in relative equipoise between political extremes. Released in 2012, the structure of the book indicates that publishers wanted to shoehorn the then-newsy Tea Party movement into the narrative. Thus, the book awkwardly crams thirty years of Republican electoral success in the 80s, 90s and Aughts into a single chapter to unconvincingly thread that narrative. Those three decades are interesting in their own right but they don’t belong here. Internal party politics starting with Reagan was less about liberal versus conservative and more about establishment versus outsider, which continues to playout to this day. That quibble aside, this book is fantastic.
Why was Republican liberalism important? Because it was district from liberalism that developed in the Democratic party. It lacked a populist dimension. Indeed, its roots date back to Lincoln and found purchase among the WASPy and well-heeled in the East and Midwest. Furthermore, it was untethered from the bloated excesses of the New Deal and the Great Society. Ultimately, it was a movement which believed in the use of government for progressive purposes, but was still influenced by other traditional Republican virtues like free enterprise, stability, fiscal restraint, and humility.
So why did liberal and progressive Republicans sort of fade away as a dominate governing force within the Republican Party? The passage of the civil rights bills which Republicans had been working on for ages zapped their raison d’etre. They couldn’t agree about what to rally around. Also, they were too closely tied to Nelson Rockefeller (and too reliant on his money). Rockefeller’s multi-cycle obsession with seeking the presidency long after he was already a spent national force eclipsed other liberals who could credibly seek the office. Also, for many liberal Republicans, their opinion about Reagan changed over time. Where once they were mortified by his stumping for Goldwater and seeking high executive office as a neophyte, many eventually noticed his pragmatism as Governor of California. Finally, the center of political gravity moved west and south, and liberal Republicans were concentrated in the East and Midwest.
Who, if anyone, had the most promise to keep the liberal/progressive flame alive? George Romney. He enjoyed Eisenhower levels of popularity in the run up to 1968. He wasn’t tied to the Eastern Establishment as Governor of Michigan, he had cultural ties to the west, there was a clear moral, almost religious, edge to his politics before that became fashionable in the GOP, meaning he could have been a bridge to the coming Christian element of Republican politics. But, his “brain washing” gaffe guaranteed Nixon the nomination by leaving only Rockefeller to run with the liberal mantel again.
Richard Nixon, as ever, is a pivotal person in this history. Nixon is the last Republican nominee who had to worry about a credible challenge from the liberal/progressive wing. His innate ability to find the center of the GOP functionally blocked liberals from winning the nomination, but he wasn’t from the conservative wing either. Both were skeptical of him, but party stalwarts loved him. Today we think of his vice president, Spiro Agnew, as a conservative bomb thrower, but it’s important to remember that he was an early Rockefeller supporter in 1968 and was meant to balance the ticket by shoring up Nixon's left flank! Nixon and Agnew, like most Republicans of the era, became more conservative in the face of the unrest on campuses and in the streets over Vietnam. But looking past the “silent majority” rhetoric, you find many liberal accomplishments that Nixon championed. The creation of the EPA and OSHA, signing the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, ESA, NEPA, enacting revenue sharing, opening to China, détente, proposals for universal health care. Nixon’s was the last liberal Republican presidency.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand midcentury American politics at a deeper level. Where focused on the 50s, 60s, and 70s tracing the rise and fall of liberals and progressives as a governing faction of the GOP, this book is superb.
Read
June 24, 2013'The writing is lively, the story compelling, and the attention to detail impressive. But the political activist in me is irritated by the author’s bias—his book both explains and exemplifies the progressive Republican perspective—and concerned that the resulting lopsidedness may mislead those less informed. From a scholarly point of view, I’m both excited and disappointed by Rule and Ruin.'
Read the full review, "Where did the Moderates Go?" on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
Read the full review, "Where did the Moderates Go?" on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...
March 26, 2012
An interesting review of the path the Republican Party took from "big tent" to "big mess", this book is a must-read for anyone who's curious about conservatism. One can learn much about John Boehner's current struggles with Barack Obama by reading Kabaservice's account of the Rockefeller-Goldwater conflict in 1964. Although heavy on the details, Rule and Ruin has a strong point of view and a dry wit that at times made me smile or even laugh out loud.
March 17, 2013
3.5
It's well written and researched better than the average non-fiction. However, the presentation dragged on in parts, making reading the book a chore. I felt like I didn't need to know people's backgrounds in such depth when they were just bit players to the overarching narrative. Furthermore, the author's coverage is odd. He's fairy neutral, but tends to languish over some parts of Republican Party history while rushing through other moments (ie the last two chapters).
It's well written and researched better than the average non-fiction. However, the presentation dragged on in parts, making reading the book a chore. I felt like I didn't need to know people's backgrounds in such depth when they were just bit players to the overarching narrative. Furthermore, the author's coverage is odd. He's fairy neutral, but tends to languish over some parts of Republican Party history while rushing through other moments (ie the last two chapters).
April 28, 2012
This books is a must read for our current political times. I always wondered why each party seemed to ignore the middle, and this gave me some solid ideas, at least on behalf of the Republican party. Fascinating!
October 13, 2016
Many thanks to Josh Tait for this recommendation. This is an eye-opening and extremely timely book (or audiobook) about the transformation of the GOP from the 60's to the 80's. It really makes me think about modern American politics in a different way, especially the narrative about the party revolution of the 1960's. There's so much to wrestle with in this book that I'll just make a few points in this review:
1. This time period witnessed the birth of parties as primarily ideological vehicles rather than coalitions of interest groups. Granted, the GOP and the Dems had ideological differences going way back, but for the most part they were both big tent parties with ideological diversity. The GOP had a strong moderate wing (especially in the educated middle class in places like New England) a conservative ideological faction, big and small business types, and African-Americans. This may sound hard to believe, but the GOP was not a conservative-dominated party until the 60's at the very earliest. The moderates were not just ideas people (conservatives had ideas too, but were bigger on ideology) but solutions people. They tended to take issues on their own merit and evidence rather than evaluating things on an ideological rubric. Their removal/flight from the party in this time period left the GOP more as a party of ideology than ideas, and this process has only accelerated in the 90's, naughts, and 20-10's as the GOP continues to define itself as counter-cultural, counter-gov't, and counter-Democrats rather than really governing well or proposing workable ideas.
2. The extinction of the Republican moderates is one of the greatest losses in modern American politics. Kabaservice may be biased towards this type, but he offers a lot of evidence that GOP moderates were a vital third way between New Deal liberals and conservatives like Buckley. They preferred local and state solutions to ever-expanding federal bureaucracies like those of the Great Society, seeing how those solutions could rob communities and individuals of their unity and agency. Still, they had a moderate sensibility toward change. For example, undoing the New Deal safety net and protections for labor (as the conservatives wanted) would really be revolutionary and disruptive to people's lives, so it couldn't just be done away with in its totality. In fact, like Ike, the moderates were okay with most of the New Deal and some of the Great Society because of their sympathy for the dispossessed and marginalized in American society. They were also passionate civil rights advocates. They were much more important in passing Civil Rights legislation than I ever understood, providing key balancing votes against Southern democratic opposition. They reached out to minority communities and expressed disdain at "Southern strategy" attempts from people like Nixon to As governors, GOP moderates like Romney and Rockefeller were bipartisan and solution-oriented. They were progressive in terms of women's rights, and probably would have come around on issues like gay marriage as well. Many of them took principled and practical stances against the Vietnam War despite vicious attacks from conservative Cold Warriors. Moderate think-tanks/advocacy groups like the Ripon Society were a unique balance between the culture warring, race-baiting, anti-government right and the boss-dominated, a bit too okay with big government Democrats. The loss of this group has allowed the GOP to become a conservative vehicle and certainly contributed to the partisan and ideological polarization of American politics we are enduring today.
3. This book raises some vital points for something I take quite seriously in American politics: the vital center idea, or at a minimum the concept of passionate moderation. How can one be a passionate moderate? For conservatives in this book, moderation was a waffle, a mewling fence-sitting in an age of crisis. Ideologues on the left would say much the same. Moderates in this book lost largely because they were neither as driven nor as dead-certain as the right, who organized better, worked harder, and came to dominate party institutions through means fair and foul. They didn't create an intellectual/political infrastructure like the Right did under figures like Buckley and Rusher, a fault that Kabaservice lays at the feet of Rockefeller.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that a passionate moderate embodies the following traits, traits that the GOP moderates in this story also embodied. They appreciate that they probably lack all the answers, that they have flaws, that they may be wrong about 20% of all they think. They therefore are willing to look and relook at the evidence, to listen to countervailing views, to not demonize opponents who may be sharing part of the truth. Even if they are liberal or conservative by ideology/identity, they see the richness of the other side's political and intellectual tradition and they know its usefulness in providing a yin to their yang. They are sensitive to the fact that the world is not a permanent crisis demanding radical solutions and the purging of doubters and moderates (think Hofstadter's paranoid style here). They believe that change is usually necessary but that we need to also follow Kennedy's first rule of fences: don't tear a fence down unless you know why it was there in the first place. They appreciate that the American political tradition is founded on the idea that human beings are flawed and can't be trusted with absolute power, which means that we have to be deeply skeptical of all schemes and plans that work against the inner demons of human nature. A good moderate sees that there are as many of these schemes and ideas on the Right as on the Left and that the political poles are equally likely to justify or use violence to bring their visions into reality, visions that usually involve transforming human nature in some way or destroying human freedom and dignity. A passionate moderate knows that agreeing on the rules by which politics operates and sustaining those rules, treating them as sacred, is just as important as agreeing upon content. A passionate moderate can see that veering to the Left or Right tends to make politics more violent, heated, ideological, and compromise-averse, usually leading to poor governance and the destruction of rights. I think this tradition still lives in the liberal (as opposed to left) wing of the Democratic Party, but recent events strongly suggest it has been expunged from the GOP.
This book suggests two problems to me with passionate moderation. One is that moderates are often not aware of the ideas and traditions that underpin their moderation. It's often a mood or sensibility and it doesn't lend itself well to platforms and rubrics. However, Kabaservice shows that being evidence-driven in a system dominated by warring ideologies is itself a sort of ideology. The other is that moderates have a tough time during tough times. Their solutions and temperaments didn't seem like enough to people on both sides during the tumultuous 60's, which only fed the partisans and ideologues on both sides. In this regard, moderates must be capable of bold action, but they must be "preservative progressives" like FDR or Progressive Reformers who are willing to endorse sweeping changes in order to save what was best about existing systems and traditions. For example, the gay marriage movement didn't require transforming the best aspects of the idea of marriage (stable families, the pair-bond, the joys of love and intimacy, the importance of public commitment). It merely asked for an excluded group to be allowed into the slightly altered institution. I'm going to work on this concept a bit.
There's a lot that I'm leaving out in this review because this is such a rich book. I didn't really know about this group, and I used to think that the GOP had been an ideologically conservative party since the New Deal. This book has introduced me to a political and intellectual tradition I knew little about and would like to play a part in bringing back. Recommended for anyone who wants to know what the hell is going on in the GOP right now. As I've said before, the Trump was only able to hijack the GOP because it became a party that cared more about winning than governing and ideology than evidence. This book explains how.
1. This time period witnessed the birth of parties as primarily ideological vehicles rather than coalitions of interest groups. Granted, the GOP and the Dems had ideological differences going way back, but for the most part they were both big tent parties with ideological diversity. The GOP had a strong moderate wing (especially in the educated middle class in places like New England) a conservative ideological faction, big and small business types, and African-Americans. This may sound hard to believe, but the GOP was not a conservative-dominated party until the 60's at the very earliest. The moderates were not just ideas people (conservatives had ideas too, but were bigger on ideology) but solutions people. They tended to take issues on their own merit and evidence rather than evaluating things on an ideological rubric. Their removal/flight from the party in this time period left the GOP more as a party of ideology than ideas, and this process has only accelerated in the 90's, naughts, and 20-10's as the GOP continues to define itself as counter-cultural, counter-gov't, and counter-Democrats rather than really governing well or proposing workable ideas.
2. The extinction of the Republican moderates is one of the greatest losses in modern American politics. Kabaservice may be biased towards this type, but he offers a lot of evidence that GOP moderates were a vital third way between New Deal liberals and conservatives like Buckley. They preferred local and state solutions to ever-expanding federal bureaucracies like those of the Great Society, seeing how those solutions could rob communities and individuals of their unity and agency. Still, they had a moderate sensibility toward change. For example, undoing the New Deal safety net and protections for labor (as the conservatives wanted) would really be revolutionary and disruptive to people's lives, so it couldn't just be done away with in its totality. In fact, like Ike, the moderates were okay with most of the New Deal and some of the Great Society because of their sympathy for the dispossessed and marginalized in American society. They were also passionate civil rights advocates. They were much more important in passing Civil Rights legislation than I ever understood, providing key balancing votes against Southern democratic opposition. They reached out to minority communities and expressed disdain at "Southern strategy" attempts from people like Nixon to As governors, GOP moderates like Romney and Rockefeller were bipartisan and solution-oriented. They were progressive in terms of women's rights, and probably would have come around on issues like gay marriage as well. Many of them took principled and practical stances against the Vietnam War despite vicious attacks from conservative Cold Warriors. Moderate think-tanks/advocacy groups like the Ripon Society were a unique balance between the culture warring, race-baiting, anti-government right and the boss-dominated, a bit too okay with big government Democrats. The loss of this group has allowed the GOP to become a conservative vehicle and certainly contributed to the partisan and ideological polarization of American politics we are enduring today.
3. This book raises some vital points for something I take quite seriously in American politics: the vital center idea, or at a minimum the concept of passionate moderation. How can one be a passionate moderate? For conservatives in this book, moderation was a waffle, a mewling fence-sitting in an age of crisis. Ideologues on the left would say much the same. Moderates in this book lost largely because they were neither as driven nor as dead-certain as the right, who organized better, worked harder, and came to dominate party institutions through means fair and foul. They didn't create an intellectual/political infrastructure like the Right did under figures like Buckley and Rusher, a fault that Kabaservice lays at the feet of Rockefeller.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that a passionate moderate embodies the following traits, traits that the GOP moderates in this story also embodied. They appreciate that they probably lack all the answers, that they have flaws, that they may be wrong about 20% of all they think. They therefore are willing to look and relook at the evidence, to listen to countervailing views, to not demonize opponents who may be sharing part of the truth. Even if they are liberal or conservative by ideology/identity, they see the richness of the other side's political and intellectual tradition and they know its usefulness in providing a yin to their yang. They are sensitive to the fact that the world is not a permanent crisis demanding radical solutions and the purging of doubters and moderates (think Hofstadter's paranoid style here). They believe that change is usually necessary but that we need to also follow Kennedy's first rule of fences: don't tear a fence down unless you know why it was there in the first place. They appreciate that the American political tradition is founded on the idea that human beings are flawed and can't be trusted with absolute power, which means that we have to be deeply skeptical of all schemes and plans that work against the inner demons of human nature. A good moderate sees that there are as many of these schemes and ideas on the Right as on the Left and that the political poles are equally likely to justify or use violence to bring their visions into reality, visions that usually involve transforming human nature in some way or destroying human freedom and dignity. A passionate moderate knows that agreeing on the rules by which politics operates and sustaining those rules, treating them as sacred, is just as important as agreeing upon content. A passionate moderate can see that veering to the Left or Right tends to make politics more violent, heated, ideological, and compromise-averse, usually leading to poor governance and the destruction of rights. I think this tradition still lives in the liberal (as opposed to left) wing of the Democratic Party, but recent events strongly suggest it has been expunged from the GOP.
This book suggests two problems to me with passionate moderation. One is that moderates are often not aware of the ideas and traditions that underpin their moderation. It's often a mood or sensibility and it doesn't lend itself well to platforms and rubrics. However, Kabaservice shows that being evidence-driven in a system dominated by warring ideologies is itself a sort of ideology. The other is that moderates have a tough time during tough times. Their solutions and temperaments didn't seem like enough to people on both sides during the tumultuous 60's, which only fed the partisans and ideologues on both sides. In this regard, moderates must be capable of bold action, but they must be "preservative progressives" like FDR or Progressive Reformers who are willing to endorse sweeping changes in order to save what was best about existing systems and traditions. For example, the gay marriage movement didn't require transforming the best aspects of the idea of marriage (stable families, the pair-bond, the joys of love and intimacy, the importance of public commitment). It merely asked for an excluded group to be allowed into the slightly altered institution. I'm going to work on this concept a bit.
There's a lot that I'm leaving out in this review because this is such a rich book. I didn't really know about this group, and I used to think that the GOP had been an ideologically conservative party since the New Deal. This book has introduced me to a political and intellectual tradition I knew little about and would like to play a part in bringing back. Recommended for anyone who wants to know what the hell is going on in the GOP right now. As I've said before, the Trump was only able to hijack the GOP because it became a party that cared more about winning than governing and ideology than evidence. This book explains how.
October 7, 2018
I am glad I have read a lot of books about the rise of the religious right and other books on conservatism and conservative leaders because it gave me much needed context to fill in the gaps in this book. The gaps however, are necessary because the scope and historical arch of this book are perfectly focused where they should be. This is a LONG book and covers a swath of history where change was swift and dramatic. For a while now I've been wondering how is it possible I ever looked seriously at any Republican candidate in the past based on current events? Like...who was younger me that would think any of this is OK? OH!!!!!! WAIT! Once upon a time there was such thing as a Republican that wasn't a conservative ....there were even ...gasp...PROGRESSIVE Republicans! And they too did not think racism, environmental degradation, corporate cronyism and unfettered campaign financing were good things. They too did not think that the Party should cede the tent to religious extremists....and they too didn't think all government was evil but instead fought for "good government" principles and did not believe in tax cuts combined with unfettered spending in any area, domestic or international was a good idea.
I am reminded how, once upon a time, I had the luxury of being an independent voter with valid options from both parties. I want that world back. Screw you conservative and religious extremists.
I am reminded how, once upon a time, I had the luxury of being an independent voter with valid options from both parties. I want that world back. Screw you conservative and religious extremists.
September 8, 2019
Kabaservice writes an odd-angled history of the modern GOP, which is powerful and useful because it is so off-kilter. Most histories of the period focus on the rise of the conservatives, the story of Barry Goldwater, National Review, and ultimately Ronald Reagan. This book says, what if the other side of that internal fight is not just the backdrop of the story, the "other guys," but the heart of the narrative? In the process, Kabaservice shows that the moderates really did have an argument and a point of view. The historical narrative has accepted conservatives' characterizations of their opponents too easily.
It's worth recalling and rescuing the memory of their approaches to the big issues of the day, especially civil rights for African Americans. It's worth reconsidering why they lost, and how they lost so badly that even their alternative answers are mostly forgotten now. Some readers will likely say good riddance. Others will mourn that failure. Historians, at a minimum, should try and hang on to the complexity of the period and remember these moderates were part of the story of the transformation of the '50s, '60s, and '70s.
Rule and Ruin tries to do too much. It should have focused more narrowly and made more selective editorial choices, but the book is a real contribution to the history of our contemporary political landscape.
It's worth recalling and rescuing the memory of their approaches to the big issues of the day, especially civil rights for African Americans. It's worth reconsidering why they lost, and how they lost so badly that even their alternative answers are mostly forgotten now. Some readers will likely say good riddance. Others will mourn that failure. Historians, at a minimum, should try and hang on to the complexity of the period and remember these moderates were part of the story of the transformation of the '50s, '60s, and '70s.
Rule and Ruin tries to do too much. It should have focused more narrowly and made more selective editorial choices, but the book is a real contribution to the history of our contemporary political landscape.
November 15, 2021
In “Rule and Ruin” Geoffrey Kabaservice, Assistant Professor of History at Yale and VP of Political Studies at the Niskanen Center, brings us a comprehensive history of the transformation of the Republican Party. He meticulously traces the people and events that led the GOP’s shift from a diverse group dominated by Progressive and Moderate Republicans, to an ideologically homogeneous organization centered around conservatism and the far right. Beginning with the final years of Eisenhower’s Presidency, the grassroots conservative primary campaign for Barry Goldwater in 1964, Progressive and Moderate Republicans inability to coalesce around a strong candidate, and Nixon’s courting of segregationist conservatives through his ”southern strategy”; Kabaservice lays out the slow decades long loss of power by the Progressive Republican Establishment. Leading to the eventual takeover of party machinery by Conservatives, marked by the election of Ronald Reagan, and the embrace of the far right with the rise of the Tea Party in the late 2000’s. This comprehensive history of the modern GOP helps us understand the state of the party in its current form as a National Populist Party. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in modern GOP politics, especially Republicans that feel lost or discontented with the current state of the party.
4.5/5
4.5/5
April 11, 2022
This book was a real eye-opener for me. I finally got a historical perspective on why I have been become more disenchanted with the GOP over the last few decades, feeling like neither party represents what I know now is moderate to progressive conservatism. The Democratic party is a little liberal for me, and the party I belonged to all my life didn't reflect what I had thought were very conservative viewpoints.
What I really like is that Kabaservice is very scholarly and meticulous, not relying heavily on media quotes and references. You won't read this and think it's just a regurgitation of what's already been hashed over in MSM.
I kept my husband apprised as I read, which amused him greatly. He's older than I am and used to be politically active, so he has memory of a lot more of the people and events. I'd tell him "I'm 35% done and it isn't even 1965 yet!" "Oh look, I'm finally to the Nixon era!" It concludes with some eerily prescient statements about where the GOP would likely head in the coming years.
I recommend this book for anyone, liberal or conservative, struggling to figure out what happened to the Republican party.
What I really like is that Kabaservice is very scholarly and meticulous, not relying heavily on media quotes and references. You won't read this and think it's just a regurgitation of what's already been hashed over in MSM.
I kept my husband apprised as I read, which amused him greatly. He's older than I am and used to be politically active, so he has memory of a lot more of the people and events. I'd tell him "I'm 35% done and it isn't even 1965 yet!" "Oh look, I'm finally to the Nixon era!" It concludes with some eerily prescient statements about where the GOP would likely head in the coming years.
I recommend this book for anyone, liberal or conservative, struggling to figure out what happened to the Republican party.
August 5, 2023
The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity.
Today, following the Republicans' loss of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential contests, moderates remain marginalized in the GOP and progressives are all but nonexistent. In this insightful and elegantly argued book, Kabaservice contends that their decline has left Republicans less capable of governing responsibly, with dire consequences for all Americans. He has added a new afterword that considers the fallout from the 2012 elections.
Today, following the Republicans' loss of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential contests, moderates remain marginalized in the GOP and progressives are all but nonexistent. In this insightful and elegantly argued book, Kabaservice contends that their decline has left Republicans less capable of governing responsibly, with dire consequences for all Americans. He has added a new afterword that considers the fallout from the 2012 elections.
July 29, 2018
The writing style is dry and works rather well as an unbiased description of historical events that underpin some of what we are seeing today in politics. Aside from that, once the history is laid bare, the author permits themselves in the conclusion to make some predictions based on the established facts and if you are currently paying any kind of attention you will feel every bit as frustrated and outraged as I feel.
This is a great collection of important information, thoroughly researched and presented without judgement. If you are trying to figure out how the party went from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump, this is the book you have been looking for.
This is a great collection of important information, thoroughly researched and presented without judgement. If you are trying to figure out how the party went from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump, this is the book you have been looking for.
January 30, 2020
This is a really enlightening investigation of the devolution of the Republican from a robust party that included a breadth of voices to a hardcore cult of extreme conservatism. Kabaservice makes a compelling case for the value of moderate thinkers to the big picture, long-term benefit of the entire nation, regardless - actually and importantly IN SPITE OF - party affiliation. By purging and scaring away all its members who resisted its increasingly rightward pitch, the Republican Party has become a rock throwing cult of cannibalistic conformism, one that prefers “honorable death” to any achievement that requires compromise. But whose death?
September 2, 2022
A detailed look at the evolution of the Republican Party from Eisenhower on. I picked this up to understand what I missed before the Johnson administration. I'm old enough to remember "supporting" Adlai Stevenson although I did "like Ike!" Ah well, to be seven again.
I found this wonderful for the history up through the Nixon years but felt like Kabaservice's story was pretty much in place by then so I skimmed the rest. This is a "may re-read in a year or so" book for me.
I found this wonderful for the history up through the Nixon years but felt like Kabaservice's story was pretty much in place by then so I skimmed the rest. This is a "may re-read in a year or so" book for me.
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