» Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream

Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: No Respect
Comment: This is 2 books in one. I like the first book--a fine review of how Goldwater's Conservatives revitalized the GOP at the very moment in history that major economic and demographic changes gave a unique opportunity to build a political majority. I knew this stuff, but it's great to see it in one place.

The 2nd book by these partners from The Atlantic, well, not so much. This is a pragmatist's wish list from a blue collar focus group, ungrounded in principal or purpose beyond the next election. Products of the blog-era, these twenty-somethings seem to have no respect for the intellectual legacy of the Reagan era. At least they can write well.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Caring about the working class
Comment: When reading this book, it was so nice to see that there are conservatives who care about the needs of the working class. I like all books that offer solutions to problems and/or better alternatives to the status quo.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fundamentally unserious
Comment: This book has all the depth of a junior high civics paper. The authors are brimming with schoolboy enthusiasm, yet it's clear that they have no understanding of the most elementary economics. For instance, they propose that the federal government should give wage subsidies to those hard working people in low end jobs, therefore helping them out of poverty, yet they never consider what this effect would have on prices, which would only inflate, leaving the purchasing power of these workers the same. And they even justify the plan by saying that it "follows the wise libertarian maxim that the only the only thing government can be counted on is to write checks." Apparently they didn't realize that libertarians meant that as a criticism of government. Indeed, they keep repeating that their plans would appeal to progressives and free marketeers alike: progressives because they are helping the working class and free marketeers because their plans encourage competition and personal responsibility. But government enforced competition is not what Smith or Mises had in mind, and "personal responsibility" in this case means that you do what the government says because you know that you can be fined or jailed for non-compliance--which is the same as saying I am responsible because I give a mugger my wallet instead of letting him shoot me.

This book is just as flawed for the questions it fails to address as for those it addresses and butchers. The Constitution is never once mentioned--in the entire book. It would be interesting to see what constitutional grounds the authors could conjure up for such an expansion of federal power, but they don't even try. Perhaps they realize there aren't any.

Also, the only mentions of the Iraq War are a couple of side notes about how it has tarnished the Republican name. But this is an issue that directly impacts the so-called "Sam's Club" voters, who are paying for it with their lives. And that's not to mention the effect that the trillion dollar war is playing by bringing down the economy and ruining the financial prospects of these voters. It would be hard to justify how bringing elections to Umm Qasr is a good use of the Burger King cashier with five children's tax money.

Douthat and Salam have bought--hook, line, and sinker--the progressive myth that only the federal government knows what's best for the people. They say they only want government to work well and let the people do the rest, but who can believe that when the authors note with shocked approval, that even without a federally sponsored repopulation plan, people having been moving from expensive, congested cities like Boston to places like Reno, where the cost of living is lower? You mean people can naturally understand what is in their own self-interest? Preposterous!

This book attempts to take the New Deal and make it conservative, yet that is an impossible task. Family values can't be promoted by some distant bureaucracy; they are promoted by families, acting free of state compulsion.

Thus, the one thing this book does well is to succeed as an indication of just how unconservative and intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become. Reviewers have lauded Douthat and Salam as two of the brightest Republican intellectuals out there. Sadly, I have to agree.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful and Completely Non-Bogged Down by Partisan Hackery
Comment: Due to some time constraints this past summer, I only recently got to read Grand New Party. I was extremely impressed with both the quality of the writing and the quality of the ideas. We've heard populist language from conservatives before, but in this book the authors take the time to largely strip away the rhetoric and come up with many ideas for how one party might realign itself to actually stand up for the people upon which its success has always depended. Some of the ideas I thought were great, some I thought were awful, but I found virtually all of the ideas challenging and worthy of dicussion.

The historical portions of the book are written with grace and with an eye towards, if not neutrality, certainly an intellectual honesty sorely missing in most political writing. I have never been a consumer of political books and I doubt I will start being so now, but Grand New Party is full of innovative thinking and quality writing. Most political books are full of arguments (and poorly made ones), this one is full of ideas. I typically only read science and the occasional novel, but this is one of my top books of the year and I recommend without reservation.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Must Read No Matter Elephant or Donkey
Comment: The book is a smooth read that is brainy yet down to earth at the same time. Lots of facts, plus some stats and demographics, but they don't overwhelm the reader. It is noted that working class voters comprise the "battleground" where most electoral campaigns are fought and decided, and the authors point out that GOP'ers must address the key issue of economic insecurity for this constituency that has been taken for granted by the Bushies since 9/11. Of course, addressing "economic insecurity" or the feeling the working class has "lost the future" is the challenge for both parties. The suggested approaches in the book are not terribly novel or surprising, but require a willingness of party power brokers to be open to changing the status quo. Dems, you may get more out of it than Repubs.

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