Rule and Ruin

The best explanation for today's American "political dysfunction," writes Kabaservice, "is the transformation of the Republican Party over the past half-century into a monolithically conservative organization." He focuses on the decade after 1960, contrasting the organization building, leadership, and passion of the party's conservative wing with that of moderate Republicans, whose movement was essentially "finished" by 1970. He also looks at institutions seldom heard from today, such as the Ripon Society, or defunct, such as Advance magazine. Moderates such as Charles Percy, John Lindsay, George Romney, and especially Nelson Rockefeller are called forward here for missteps that squandered a pragmatic and enlightened legacy on issues from civil rights to health care. Richard Nixon, while enacting much of the moderate agenda, essentially killed off the moderates with polarizing rhetoric, followed by the Watergate scandal. Kabaservice goes on to assess today's all but "uniformly ideological" party.