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Still Seeing Red - How The Cold War Shapes The New American Politics (Paperback, Updated and expanded, pbk. ed)
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Still Seeing Red - How The Cold War Shapes The New American Politics (Paperback, Updated and expanded, pbk. ed)
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A thorough and thoughtful study, but not the one suggested by the
title. White (Politics/Catholic Univ.) provides an excellent
political history of the Cold War era, with painstaking research
supporting a well-written, intelligent presentation of rather
familiar material. Certainly, no one will dispute his assessment of
the Cold War's impact on domestic politics in the 1950s-80s:
Republicans were the primary beneficiaries because they were able
to paint liberals as soft on communism, and Cold War concerns and
rhetoric invaded the discussion of every political issue. But the
focus suggested by the book's subtitle, on the impact of Cold War
politics on the post-Cold War era, is largely absent. White's
examination of this era follows from a foray into the most
picked-over subject of political research, the evolution of
contemporary political parties. His conclusions are sensible and,
again, familiar: A party system with meaningful, programmatic
parties has disappeared; presidential campaigns have come to focus
on character rather than issues; presidential contests are now
fought over the corpse of the Republican rather than the Democratic
party; presidential and congressional elections have become
increasingly separated in their focus and results. These
observations constitute solid historical description, but as
political analysis they fall prey to a common dilemma. While it is
unavoidably the case - and consequently of limited interest - that
an era will shape its successor, determining how it does so
requires identifying causal relationships between the two eras.
White's work is suggestive but ends at a good place to start. An
explanation of how and why we are "still seeing red," rather than a
summary of the ways that we are, would have been more welcome and
original. Talented author, mistargeted effort. (Kirkus Reviews)
In "Still Seeing Red, " John Kenneth White explores how the Cold
War molded the internal politics of the United States. In a
powerful narrative backed by a rich treasure trove of polling data,
White takes the reader through the Cold War years, describing its
effect in redrawing the electoral map as we came to know it after
World War II. The primary beneficiaries of the altered landscape
were reinvigorated Republicans who emerged after five successive
defeats to tar the Democrats with the "soft on communism" epithet.
A new nationalist Republican party--whose Cold War prescription for
winning the White House was copyrighted to Dwight Eisenhower,
Richard M. Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan--attained
primacy in presidential politics because of two contradictory
impulses embedded in the American character: a fanatical
preoccupation with communism and a robust liberalism. From 1952 to
1988 Republicans won the presidency seven times in ten tries. The
rare Democratic victors--John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and
Jimmy Carter--attempted to rearm the Democratic party to fight the
Cold War. Their collective failure says much about the politics of
the period. Even so, the Republican dream of becoming a majority
party became perverted as the Grand Old Party was recast into a
top-down party routinely winning the presidency even as its
electoral base remained relatively stagnant.In the post-Cold War
era, Americans are coming to appreciate how the fifty-year struggle
with the Soviet Union organized thinking in such diverse areas as
civil rights, social welfare, education, and defense policy. At the
same time, Americans are also more aware of how the Cold War shaped
their lives--from the "duck and cover" drills in the classrooms to
the bomb shelters dug in the backyard when most Baby Boomers were
growing up. Like millions of Baby Boomers, Bill Clinton can
truthfully say, "I am a child of the Cold War."With the last gasp
of the Soviet Union, Baby Boomers and others are learning that the
politics of the Cold War are hard to shed. As the electoral maps
are being redrawn once more in the Clinton years, landmarks left
behind by the Cold War provide an important reference point. In the
height of the Cold War, voters divided the world into "us"
noncommunists versus "them" communists and reduced contests for the
presidency into battles of which party would be tougher in dealing
with the Evil Empire. But in a convoluted post-Cold War era,
politics defies such simple characteristics and presidents find it
harder to lead. Recalling how John F. Kennedy could so easily rally
public opinion, an exasperated Bill Clinton once lamented, "Gosh, I
miss the Cold War."
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