Hard Line PDF Download

Author: Colin Dueck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691141827
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Conservatives and liberals alike are currently debating the probable future of the Republican Party. What direction will conservatives and republicans take on foreign policy in the age of Obama? This book tackles this question.

Author: Tim Alberta
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062896369
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 704

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Book Description
New York Times' Top Books of 2019 Politico Magazine’s chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insider’s look at the making of the modern Republican Party—how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover from the unlikeliest of insurgents: Donald J. Trump. The 2016 election was a watershed for the United States. But, as Tim Alberta explains in American Carnage, to understand Trump’s victory is to view him not as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence. American Carnage is the story of a president’s rise based on a country’s evolution and a party’s collapse. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: They had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party’s base. Yet Obama’s forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nation’s rapidly changing cultural and demographic landscape, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the party’s identity in the post-Bush era. The factions that emerged—one led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell—engaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOP’s internal fissures rendering it legislatively impotent, and that impotence fueling a growing resentment toward the political class and its institutions, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to announce his run in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment. Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the Republican Party—and of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, and technological disruption during that period—can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America’s current turmoil. How did a party obsessed with the national debt vote for trillion-dollar deficits and record-setting spending increases? How did the party of compassionate conservatism become the party of Muslim bans and walls? How did the party of family values elect a thrice-divorced philanderer? And, most important, how long can such a party survive? Loaded with exclusive reporting and based off hundreds of interviews—including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and Reince Priebus, and many others—American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period as we’ve never seen it before and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of this political era.

Author: Leah Wright Rigueur
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691173648
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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The story of black conservatives in the Republican Party from the New Deal to Ronald Reagan Covering more than four decades of American social and political history, The Loneliness of the Black Republican examines the ideas and actions of black Republican activists, officials, and politicians, from the era of the New Deal to Ronald Reagan's presidential ascent in 1980. Their unique stories reveal African Americans fighting for an alternative economic and civil rights movement—even as the Republican Party appeared increasingly hostile to that very idea. Black party members attempted to influence the direction of conservatism—not to destroy it, but rather to expand the ideology to include black needs and interests. As racial minorities in their political party and as political minorities within their community, black Republicans occupied an irreconcilable position—they were shunned by African American communities and subordinated by the GOP. In response, black Republicans vocally, and at times viciously, critiqued members of their race and party, in an effort to shape the attitudes and public images of black citizens and the GOP. And yet, there was also a measure of irony to black Republicans' "loneliness": at various points, factions of the Republican Party, such as the Nixon administration, instituted some of the policies and programs offered by black party members. What's more, black Republican initiatives, such as the fair housing legislation of senator Edward Brooke, sometimes garnered support from outside the Republican Party, especially among the black press, Democratic officials, and constituents of all races. Moving beyond traditional liberalism and conservatism, black Republicans sought to address African American racial experiences in a distinctly Republican way. The Loneliness of the Black Republican provides a new understanding of the interaction between African Americans and the Republican Party, and the seemingly incongruous intersection of civil rights and American conservatism.

Author: Theodore J. Lowi
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806128870
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
In The End of the Republican Era, Theodore J. Lowi predicts not only a collapse of the Republican coalition but also the potential collapse of the United States’ republican experiment at large. Professing that the ideologies of dominant political coalitions contain the seeds of their own destruction, Lowi suggests that the efforts of a new conservative Right to enforce a national, religion-based morality has brought about the demise of the Republican era. A new, in-depth afterword by Lowi brings the text up to date with a discussion of political events since the book’s original publication. Noting the appearance of the new Conservative coalition, whose ideology runs counter to that of the traditional Republican party, Lowi affirms that the Republican era did in fact come to an end during the 1990s, having morphed into a Conservative party.

Author: Earl BLACK
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674020987
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
The transformation of Southern politics over the past fifty years has been one of the most significant developments in American political life. The emergence of formidable Republican strength in the previously solid Democratic South has generated a novel and highly competitive national battle for control of Congress. Tracing the slow and difficult rise of Republicans in the South over five decades, Earl and Merle Black tell the remarkable story of political upheaval. The Rise of Southern Republicans provides a compelling account of growing competitiveness in Southern party politics and elections. Through extraordinary research and analysis, the authors track Southern voters' shifting economic, cultural, and religious loyalties, black/white conflicts and interests during and after federal civil rights intervention, and the struggles and adaptations of congressional candidates and officials. A newly competitive South, the authors argue, means a newly competitive and revitalized America. The story of how the South became a two-party region is ultimately the story of two-party politics in America at the end of the twentieth century. Earl and Merle Black have written a bible for anyone who wants to understand regional and national congressional politics over the past half-century. Because the South is now at the epicenter of Republican and Democratic strategies to control Congress, The Rise of Southern Republicans is essential to understanding the dynamics of current American politics. Table of Contents: 1. The Southern Transformation 2. Confronting the Democratic Juggernaut 3. The Promising Peripheral South 4. The Impenetrable Deep South 5. The Democratic Smother 6. The Democratic Domination 7. Reagan's Realignment of White Southerners 8. A New Party System in the South 9. The Peripheral South Breakthrough 10. The Deep South Challenge 11. The Republican Surge 12. Competitive South, Competitive America Notes Index Reviews of this book: These two leading scholars of Southern politics present a rigorous investigation of how voting in the peripheral South (Florida, Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee) and the Deep South (Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina) was realigned since Ronald Reagan was first elected president in 1980. --Karl Helicher, Library Journal With publication of their latest book, The Rise of Southern Republicans the Blacks, both 60, have produced a trilogy that traces an almost geologic-style evolution in the South's political landscape. They've analyzed the whys and what-fors of a region, that in the past 50 years, has gone from impenetrably Democratic to competitively Republican. Their overarching conclusion: the two-party warfare that defines the South defines the nation...The Blacks' work--a mix of political wonkery and historical perspective, cut with the deliciously illuminating anecdote--is read by academics in various disciplines and political junkies of all stripes. The books are valued for their coolly dissecting insights...Because their writing swells beyond the data-crunching lab work of most political scientists--though new readers beware: The books are littered with scary-looking charts and graphs--it travels beyond academia. Party strategists are steeped in the work. "The Blacks wrote the book on how academic political science can illuminate practical politics," says Republican pollster Whit Ayers. --Drew Jubera, Atlanta Journal-Constitution The South's political identity has been transformed in the last half-century from a region of Democratic hegemony to a region of Republican majority. Earl and Merle Black...sedulously examine this remarkable change...This is a work of serious scholarship that lacks any hint of a partisan purpose. Committed readers will increase their understanding of both Southern and national politics. The Blacks' effort may well be the definitive statement on Southern politics over the 20th century. --Publishers Weekly Not since 1872, Earl Black and Merle Black point out in their third book on Southern politics, had the Republicans constructed majorities from both the North and the South in both houses, and it was the national character of their victory that made the 1994 election such a landmark...In The Rise of Southern Republicans, the Black brothers chronicle the party's history from the 1930s to the present, election by election. They illuminate the economic, racial and political dynamics that gradually moved the South toward the Republican Party, while also warning that the Republicans do not by any means own the region in the way the Democrats once did. --Kevin Sack, New York Times Book Review In The Rise of Southern Republicans brothers Earl and Merle Black explain the partisan realignment that has brought the South into the national political mainstream. The Blacks...focus most of their attention on the congressional arena, where voting patterns reflect long-term partisan loyalty more closely than at the presidential level...[T]he story the authors of The Rise of Southern Republicans tell is a fascinating one, with implications for American politics that are both profound and uncertain. --David Lowe, Weekly Standard The rise of southern Republicans is one of the most consequential stories in modern American politics. For political reporters of a certain generation...the Democratic dominance of Southern congressional politics is barely understood. The Black brothers make it all very clear. --Major Garrett, Washington Monthly This superb analysis of Southern politics by Earl Black...and his brother Merle Black...not only tracks the recent rise of Republicans in the South but explains why party realignment along ideological lines was so long in coming to that region...The Rise of Southern Republicans is already being rightly hailed as a political science classic. Its strength is the thorough and systematic manner in which it examines the changing ways a wide variety of factors have affected Southern voting patterns over the past four decades. The data and the rigor of the analysis are truly impressive. --James D. Fairbanks, Houston Chronicle This extraordinary book by the country's two leading scholarly experts on the politics of the American South could accurately have been titled "Everything you wanted to know about Southern politics, as well as everything you could ever imagine asking about it"...Their knowledge of the intricacies of particular congressional districts across the region is amazing, and their analysis of the larger partisan trends in the region makes this the most important book on Southern politics. --Stephen J. Farnsworth, Richmond Times-Dispatch The Black brothers have done it again. The Rise of Southern Republicans is without question the most important book ever written on the role of the South in Congress and the partisan consequences for our national legislature. Far and away the most comprehensive updating of the V.O. Key classic Southern Politics. This is a major work by extremely talented scholars. --Charles S. Bullock, University of Georgia The dramatic rise of the Republican Party in the South is the single most important factor in the transformation of American politics since the 1960s. Earl and Merle Black have described this process in a book that is witty, always filled with insight, and readable to the last page. The Rise of Southern Republicans is indispensable reading for anyone interested in American politics - past, present or future. --Dan T. Carter, author of The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics This marvelous book captures - with authority and readability - the big story of post-New Deal party politics in the United States. It is a surefire classic of political science and politics. --Richard F. Fenno, Jr., author of Congress at the Grassroots: Representational Change in the South, 1970-1998

Author: Colin Dueck
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836751
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
Republican foreign policy and the conservative leaders who shaped it Hard Line traces the history of Republican Party foreign policy since World War II by focusing on the conservative leaders who shaped it. Colin Dueck closely examines the political careers and foreign-policy legacies of Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He shows how Republicans shifted away from isolationism in the years leading up to World War II and oscillated between realism and idealism during and after the cold war. Yet despite these changes, Dueck argues, conservative foreign policy has been characterized by a hawkish and intense American nationalism, and presidential leadership has been the driving force behind it. What does the future hold for Republican foreign policy? Hard Line demonstrates that the answer depends on who becomes the next Republican president. Dueck challenges the popular notion that Republican foreign policy today is beholden to economic interests or neoconservative intellectuals. He shows how Republican presidents have been granted remarkably wide leeway to define their party's foreign policy in the past, and how the future of conservative foreign policy will depend on whether the next Republican president exercises the prudence, pragmatism, and care needed to implement hawkish foreign policies skillfully and successfully. Hard Line reveals how most Republican presidents since World War II have done just that, and how their accomplishments can help guide future conservative presidents.

Author: Will Hurd
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982160772
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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From former US Congressman and CIA Officer Will Hurd, a “how-to guide with a prescription for getting the nation on the right footing” (Politico) and “a clarion call for a major political pivot” (San Antonio Report) rooted in the timeless ideals of bipartisanship, inclusivity, and democratic values. “Hurd has the biography and the charisma and the God-given political chops to put the Republican Party—and the rest of the country—on notice.” —THE ATLANTIC It’s getting harder to get big things done in America. The gears of our democracy have been mucked up by political nonsense. To meet the era-defining challenges of the 21st century, our country needs a reboot. In American Reboot, Hurd, called “the future of the GOP” by Politico, provides a “detailed blueprint” (Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense, 2006–2011) for America grounded by what Hurd calls pragmatic idealism—a concept forged from enduring American values to achieve what is actually achievable. Hurd takes on five seismic problems facing a country in crisis: the Republican Party’s failure to present a principled vision for the future; the lack of honest leadership in Washington, DC; income inequality that threatens the livelihood of millions of Americans; US economic and military dominance that is no longer guaranteed; and how technological change in the next thirty years will make the advancements of the last thirty years look trivial. Hurd has seen these challenges up close. A child of interracial parents in South Texas, Hurd survived the back alleys of dangerous places as a CIA officer. He carried that experience into three terms in Congress, where he was, for a time, the House’s only Black Republican, representing a seventy-one percent Latino swing district in Texas that runs along 820 miles of the US-Mexico border. As a cyber security executive and innovation crusader, Hurd has worked with entrepreneurs on the cutting edge of technology to anticipate the shockwaves of the future. Hurd, who the Houston Chronicles calls “a refreshing contract to the panderers, petty demagogues, and political provocateurs who reign these days,” draws on his remarkable experience to present “a call to Americans to consider the most contentious issues of our times more holistically” (The Atlantic). He outlines how the Republican party can look like America by appealing to the middle, not the edges. He maps out how leaders should inspire rather than fearmonger. He forges a domestic policy based on the idea that prosperity should be a product of empowering people, not the government. He articulates a foreign policy where our enemies fear us and our friends love us. And lastly, he charts a forceful path forward for America’s technological future. We all know we can do better. It’s time to hit “ctrl alt del” and start the American Reboot.

Author: Tanya Melich
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0307573893
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
In 1980, Republicans used appeals to sexist and racist bigotry to win the Presidency. The party adopted an electoral strategy that included getting votes by playing on the fear and uncertainty engendered by the civil rights and women's political movements, and continued to use this strategy in the campaigns of 1984, 1988, and 1992. Under the Reagan and Bush administrations, this strategy became a crucial part of the party's governing policies. This book is not a political science treatise nor a description of political campaigns; it is a documented account of a grab for power that, as the years pass, continues to intensify antagonism between the sexes and to sow unnecessary division among the American people. As a longtime Republican activist and a delegate to the 1992 convention, Tanya Melich has observed these actions from within; and documents this takeover and the Party's ongoing practices (such as embracing the Christian right) in a devastating, factual, and often hair-raising report. A combination of history, exposÄ, reasoned polemic, and call to arms, this book has now been enriched by two completely new chapters that assesses the outcome of the 1996 election in terms of the book's thesis and realistically lays out the future: both in terms of what it will be if the right-wing elements of the Republican party continue to set the agenda, and how it can be changed if centrist women (and men) take charge of that agenda. The heart of such change lies with Independents, who now constitute a startling 39 percent of Americans (31 percent identify themselves as Democrats and 30 percent as Republicans). We are not a country of strong party loyalties, and the enormous growth of independents is the signal that change is not only possible but achievable. As a superb political pro, the author offers hardheaded strategies for such change.

Author: Tova Andrea Wang
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801466032
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The Politics of Voter Suppression arrives in time to assess actual practices at the polls this fall and to reengage with debates about voter suppression tactics such as requiring specific forms of identification. Tova Andrea Wang examines the history of how U.S. election reforms have been manipulated for partisan advantage and establishes a new framework for analyzing current laws and policies. The tactics that have been employed to suppress voting in recent elections are not novel, she finds, but rather build upon the strategies used by a variety of actors going back nearly a century and a half. This continuity, along with the shift to a Republican domination of voter suppression efforts for the past fifty years, should inform what we think about reform policy today. Wang argues that activities that suppress voting are almost always illegitimate, while reforms that increase participation are nearly always legitimate. In short, use and abuse of election laws and policies to suppress votes has obvious detrimental impacts on democracy itself. Such activities are also harmful because of their direct impacts on actual election outcomes. Wang regards as beneficial any legal effort to increase the number of Americans involved in the electoral system. This includes efforts that are focused on improving voter turnout among certain populations typically regarded as supporting one party, as long as the methods and means for boosting participation are open to all. Wang identifies and describes a number of specific legitimate and positive reforms that will increase voter turnout.

Author: Lewis L. Gould
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199943478
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 633

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Book Description
This highly readable narrative history of the Republican Party profiles the G.O.P. from its emergence as an antislavery party during the 1850s to its current place as champion of political conservatism.