The Strange Death of Liberal America

(Hardback)

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Ralph Brauer defines Liberal America as a place where government exists to keep the playing field level. The success of the American experiment, he argues, depends on how well we maintain this equity and its four cornerstones: economic justice, educational equity, voting rights, and media fairness. His book is both a political and intellectual history examining the various threats to these cornerstones, and a social and cultural chronicle. Touching on music, television, movies, and sports, Brauer's thesis is underscored by a historical discussion that begins with the New Deal and works its way to the present, ending with Global Warming and the Iraq War. Arguing that the patient is in intensive care, Brauer identifies three reasons for the decline of the level playing field: 1) a Republican counterrevolution dedicated to rolling back the values of the New Deal, 2) an inability of both parties to answer questions raised by decades of Civil Rights revolutions, and 3) the transformation of suburban America from a place of opportunity created by government programs to a battleground. These three ideas form the basis for the book's three sections. Part One follows the development of the Counterrevolutionary Coalition, beginning with the Southern Strategy and ending with a chapter on America's politicized media. Part Two focuses on questions that have been raised by people of color and by women, and treats the Democratic Party's failure to answer those questions as illustrated by events like the Nader-LaDuke campaign and the 1964 Atlantic City convention. Part Three details the impact of suburban America on the cornerstones.

Reviews

Seeking to understand contemporary U.S. political culture and the political divisions within the country, Brauer offers an analysis with a liberal slant. * Library Journal *
The Strange Death of Liberal America is an important book, both as cultural artifact and impassioned historical paean. It's an enlightening and highly-recommended read for lefties and historians alike. * Progressive Historians *
[T]he book is insightful and passionate. Some important primary materials get close attention, such as the voting rights-ear Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files and the more recent Internal Revenue Service documents concerning the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund and its links to the Brooks Brothers riot. Most citations are to journalistic sources. There is also a useful internet bibliography. * Political Science Quarterly *
This is a book that belongs on the shelf next to George Lakoffs Whose Freedom Although the title sounds dark, Brauer argues that Liberal America not dead, but appears to be in the ICU after decades of relentless assault by an alliance of opposing forces. He goes on to offer the hopeful message that even this appearance is deceiving. Ralph Brauer makes a convincing case that the American people are still capable of waking up and demanding a return to the principles they have always stood for, if only someone offers coherent leadership with integrity.This is an important book clear in its thought, well organized, written in a conversational style that flows well. Like Al Gores film An Inconvenient Truth, this is material that could have been dry, but instead is passionate. I only wish there were some way to make sure the people running the Democratic party would read this book and take its points to heart. * Bring it On (blog) *
Liberal America, in the formulation of Brauer, consisted of a commitment to the idea that government exists to keep the playing field level in the areas of economic and social justice, educational equity, voting rights, and media fairness. He believes that this commitment has declined in recent years and identifies the reason for the decline as a combination of a Republic counterrevolution dedicated to rolling back the ideals of the New Deal, the inability of Republicans or Democrats to answer questions raised by the civil rights and feminist movements, and the shift of suburban America from a place of opportunity to a battleground of economic and cultural conflict. * Reference & Research Book News *
[A] fascinating examination of how American attitudes shifted sharply to the political right in recent times. Part modern political history, part lamentation for the abandonment of the liberal ideal in which government exists to keep the playing field level, part cautionary tale of the social ills promoted by policies that increasingly favor the rich, the powerful, and the corporations over struggling ordinary citizens, The Strange Death of Liberal America is fascinating and slightly unnerving in its grim survey of the past and dark predictions for the future. From suburban obsession with minutia rather than the broad picture, to subtle rollbacks in civil rights, to the drumbeat of fear that the so-called Counterrevolution plays to scare voters into falling in line with its social agenda, The Strange Death of Liberal America exposes all in no-nonsense, clear and charged language. * Midwest Book Review *

Author Bio

Ralph Brauer is Executive Director of the Transforming Schools Consortium, a national group of school districts dedicated to public education, one of the liberal four cornerstones that make up the meat of his analysis in this book. He has also worked as a consultant, designing leadership programs for legislators, and with the American Association of Higher Education, among other organizations. An award-winning writer, he has seen his work published in the New York Times Magazine, the Nation, Newsweek, and other periodicals.