America's Right Turn Revisited

William C. Berman. America's Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton (second edition). Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. xii + 192 pp. $44.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8018-5871-0.

Reviewed by Michael W. Flamm

Published on H-Pol (January, 1999)

When Bill Clinton frst ran for president in alienated struggling white workers, who defected 1992, he portrayed himself as a "New Democrat," in droves to the Republican Party. The rise of con‐ a supporter of the death penalty and welfare re‐ servative thinktanks like the American Enterprise form. But he would eventually focus ("like a laser Institute and the Heritage Foundation challenged beam" in his own words) on the economic insecu‐ the primacy of their liberal counterparts like the rity felt by millions of Americans, promising a tax Brookings Institution and the Ford Foundation. cut for the middle class and public investment in Meanwhile the Christian Right mobilized religious worker retraining to stimulate economic growth. voters in the South and the Sunbelt with a moral A slogan coined by advisor James Carville epito‐ agenda. mized the campaign's message: "It's the economy These factors were signifcant. But for stupid!" Berman two long-term economic developments, That slogan could also serve as the subtheme both of which reached critical mass in the 1970s, of William C. Berman's clear and concise survey were most important. One was the emergence of of national politics since 1964. When it frst ap‐ the "politics of infation," which eroded the ability peared fve years ago, it ofered a nuanced ac‐ of liberals to practice the "politics of growth" and count of the rise of the right, which culminated in distribute ever-larger slices of the economic pie to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. That tri‐ their constituents at little cost in terms of higher umph, according to Berman, was due to a host of taxes. Infation rather than unemployment (the political and cultural factors. During the late traditional enemy of the Democrats since the New 1960s and early 1970s the "politics of race" led Deal) soon became the chief fear of most middle- many disenchanted whites to associate rampant class white Americans, the critical voting bloc for disorder and high taxes with the social programs both parties. The other major development was of the Democratic Party. The "rights revolution" the globalization of the American economy, which championed by successful white professionals transformed the political landscape as well. In the H-Net Reviews face of increasing competition and costs as well as emphasis for the ultimate collapse of the Demo‐ decreasing productivity and profts, American cratic coalition on the stagfation of the 1970s. But corporations formed powerful PACs, resisted fed‐ his narrative chronology begins with Goldwater, eral regulation, aligned themselves with the right, indicating that Berman essentially accepts the and repudiated their post-war compact with orga‐ conventional wisdom that the "liberal consensus" nized labor, whose infuence waned dramatically. remained intact to that point. Now Berman has prepared a second edition. It may well have. But Thomas Sugrue has of‐ It is largely identical to the frst save for a new fered an alternative explanation in his important concluding chapter on "The Clinton Center," work, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and which describes his frst term as president. Based Inequality in Postwar Detroit, which Berman ap‐ heavily and unavoidably on journalistic accounts parently never consulted. According to Sugrue, and administration memoirs, it will prove quite the "liberal consensus" had eroded well before familiar to regular readers of The New York 1964 if indeed it ever truly existed. He documents Times, The Washington Post, and the New York persuasively show how urban antiliberalism pre‐ Review of Books. Events have also, to a certain ex‐ dated Lyndon Johnson and determined the "poli‐ tent, inevitably overtaken it. Nonetheless, the tics of race and neighborhood" in the North in the chapter succinctly describes Clinton's retreat to 1940s and 1950s. Thus the white backlash of the the right after the electoral disaster of 1994, when 1960s was perhaps less a rejection of the Great So‐ the Republicans, led by then-Speaker Newt Gin‐ ciety (as Edsall and Sleeper would contend) and grich, took control of the House of Representa‐ more a culmination of long-standing racial anxi‐ tives. By the start of his second term the President eties efectively exploited by conservative individ‐ had abandoned health reform and spending mea‐ uals and organizations on the local and national sures in favor of welfare reform and balanced level. And therefore the New Deal order was in‐ budgets. The author evidently decries this shift, herently unstable, making the later developments for he concludes that by 1996 Clinton "was mired cited by Berman perhaps less signifcant than he in the empty politics of the 'vital center,' and only maintains. a dynamic economy kept him aloft in the opinion That said, his failure to engage with the argu‐ polls (p. 187)." ment advanced by Sugrue hardly constitutes a fa‐ Because the second edition breaks little new tal faw. Berman's book remains, with the possible ground, the strengths and weaknesses of the origi‐ exception of E.J. Dionne's Why Americans Hate nal edition largely remain. Perhaps Berman's Politics, the most readable analysis of the emer‐ most signifcant omission is his failure to engage gence of the conservative movement in American with recent scholarship on the origins of the politics. It also provides an engaging narrative of breakdown of the New Deal order. Like Thomas recent presidential elections and will stimulate Edsall and Jim Sleeper (among others), the author rather than end discussion of this important issue. identifes the critical moment as the late 1960s Despite a few minor errors (the otherwise strong and the main cause as the conservative reaction bibliographical essay, for example, lists Jonathan against the Great Society and the excesses of the Rider rather than Rieder as the author of an im‐ black power movement, abetted by a national portant essay on "The Rise of the Silent Majority") Democratic Party that responded to the griev‐ this balanced and breezy account is ideal for un‐ ances and demands of a militant minority but ig‐ dergraduate as well as graduate courses. nored the fears and desires of a "silent majority." This review was commissioned for H-Pol by Unlike Edsall and Sleeper, Berman places primary Lex Renda

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Citation: Michael W. Flamm. Review of Berman, William C. America's Right Turn: From Nixon to Clinton (second edition). H-Pol, H-Net Reviews. January, 1999.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2690

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