The central premise of The Right Nation is that the current Republican ascendence is no accident of electoral politics but part of a larger historical trend. The authors foresee an America that will continue to be more culturally conservative than its European allies and ever more unilateral in its dealings with the rest of the world.
The two British authors report on the US scene for the Economist magazine and they come across as cleared-eyed, disinterested observers of American culture. If they don't worship America, they seem at least bemused by it, and willing to grant us our good points. They back up their opinions with lots of facts and a solid understanding of American history. The book is easy to read, written in the same breezy and knowledgeable style you'll find in the Economist.
Seen from the European perspective, Americans appear both more religious and more heartless than other nations. Many more Americans than Europeans go to church on a regular basis. But Americans are far more willing to let the poor and ill fend for themselves, and our rabid support of the death penalty seems barbaric to almost every other Christian nation. Since America now spends far more on military technology than the rest of the world, we should only get more tone deaf regarding multilateral foreign policy initiatives: with God on our side and more guns than anyone else, will we really care what the French think?
Like diligent anthropologists, the authors track down the tribal structures of American conservatism. From think tanks and foundations that formulate new policy initiatives, to the media outlets that publicize them, down to the foot soldiers out in the sun-kissed suburban precincts, conservative Republicans have assembled a disciplined, well-run political organization. Even though this book was written before the 2004 election, its insights about the Republican machine were amply borne out by the way Republican partisans out-thought, out-worked, and out-organized their Democratic opponents.
Part of the Republican rise can be attributed to demographic trends. The South defected to the Republicans after Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act in the sixties. The new exurban communities of the West have always been more receptive to the Republican message. Blue collar workers in the Midwest defected to the Republicans over cultural issues, even to the point of voting against their economic self interests. This grouping of Americans, combined with the rural Midwest and West, has enough mass under the American electoral system to outweigh the votes of urban liberals on both coasts.
As the authors repeatedly point out, liberals no longer set the intellectual agenda in America. Instead they react to conservative ideas on the economy, the military, the role of religion in American life and how big the federal government should be. But if Republicans are now the party of new ideas, many of these ideas are contradictory. This is a political party that talks about getting government off the backs of the people while racking up record deficits, assaulting basic civil rights and force feeding right wing religious values into the political sphere. The authors wonder whether the Republican Party might split along the fault lines of its competing interest groups: it takes a mighty big tent to encompass grizzled libertarians in the Idaho hills, Arnold Schwarzenegger and right wing evangelicals of the John Ashcroft ilk.
One of the book's more striking insights comes near the end, when the authors compare Democrat Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco congressional district with Republican Dennis Hastert's Illinois district. Pelosi's domain comes across as more class-conscious, politically gridlocked and disorderly than Hastert's. Despite the many charms of San Francisco, "Hastertland" - egalitarian, pro-growth, religious and orderly - seems to be where most Americans would choose to live. Republicans are more successful than Democrats because their message better resonates with the cultural aspirations of the American people - we seem to want a government that allows us to get ahead, and then protects us from people who resemble us before we got respectable.
If you're a conservative Republican, you already know what's in this book - and you'll feel proud of what you've managed to accomplish since the Goldwater debacle of 1964. If you're on the other side, the authors have given you a wake up call - you're beginning to look a lot like those 1960s Republicans: outflanked, outmoded and out of touch.
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