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Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic – A Conservative Exposé of Federal Power
A popular columnist for The Weekly Standard , conservative journalist Jay Cost now offers a lively, candid, diligently researched revisionist history of the Democratic Party. In Spoiled Rotten , Cost reveals that the national political organization, first formed by Andrew Jackson in 1824, that has always prided itself as the party of the poor, the working class, the little guy is anything but that—rather, it’s a corrupt tool of special interest groups that feed off of the federal government. A remarkable book that belongs on every politically aware American’s bookshelf next to Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism and The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, Spoiled Rotten exposes the Democratic Party as a modern-day national Tammany Hall and indisputably demonstrates why it can no longer be trusted with the power of government.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
368 pages, Hardcover
First published April 15, 2012
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103 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 3, 2012
I was conflicted about this book going in. I have been a Jay Cost reader for 5+ years, going back to his time with Real Clear Politics (RCP). Initially, I intuited that he was a conservative (as I am), though it was not obvious from his analysis at first; over time, he became increasingly forward about his ideology. He wrote an FAQ on RCP explaining his conception of politics and policy that I found myself agreeing with almost 100 percent, down to notions of uncertainty, epistemological modesty, and a belief in the virtues of the private economy. So I am quite sympathetic to Cost's political views.
With that said, his writing has grown far more partisan since his migration to the conservative Weekly Standard. While I still agree with much of what he writes, he has become extremely forward about his ideological preferences in his writing. It often makes for arguments that convince me but tend to enrage ideological opponents rather than to provoke thought. This is a shame.
So going into this book, I wanted to know which Jay Cost would be writing: the 2008-era RCP blogger? Or the Weekly Standard columnist?
With the exception of the title, I can happily report that this was more RCP than TWS.
Back in late 2009, Cost wrote a very interesting blog post lamenting the process behind the passage of the health care bill. I suspect it was that post which stimulated the research and publication behind this book. (From http://www.realclearpolitics.com/hors...)
From that observation, Cost must have thought: how did we get from Jacksonian populism to THIS?
Cost's argument is extremely neat: essentially, Cost asserts that contingency, structural shifts, and legal shifts in American politics have resulted in a political party that is too bogged down in conflicting priorities to tend to the "public interest." The toughest part of making an argument like that is in defining the "public interest," but Cost is fairly convincing when attempting to discern it. (He views "taming inflation" as the public interest under Carter, "restoring faith that the government could solve big problems that had basically been ignored for twenty years [mostly crime, welfare dependency, and the deficit]" under Clinton, and "jobs" under Obama. I find all of these convincing.)
His conclusion on this is rather sad:
For someone trained in political science, Cost also spends very little time dealing in inscrutable models, and a LOT of time in history. I am all for that approach, provided that the author does his/her diligence with his/her documentation. Cost more than fulfills that responsibility, opting to include 55 pages of footnotes on a 286-page book. I spent a lot of time with the footnotes; the sourcing is really, really good.
All told, it's a provocative, compelling argument--even if you're not persuaded. In applying his framework to current events, he also manages to pose the best critique of the Obama Administration that I have yet read.
I have two minor criticisms that keep me at 4 stars, though:
1. I really dislike the title. In addition to feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable reading it on a train, I don't think it's fully fair, considering that his emphasis is more on institutional failure than individual failure. I'm sure they picked it to sell books, but I still don't really like it. (I probably should have just sprung for the Kindle version rather than taking it out from the library, in retrospect.)
2. I wish Cost had included a little more explaining how the Republican Party is less susceptible to this problem, in his judgment. He notes that the Republicans have a similar problem at times, but if the two parties are equivalent, why write THIS book and not a more even-handed one on the problem of clientelism in general? I suspect he could explain that distinction, and I'd like to hear him try.
Still, on balance, I recommend this heartily, if you're interested in politics, public policy, or history.
With that said, his writing has grown far more partisan since his migration to the conservative Weekly Standard. While I still agree with much of what he writes, he has become extremely forward about his ideological preferences in his writing. It often makes for arguments that convince me but tend to enrage ideological opponents rather than to provoke thought. This is a shame.
So going into this book, I wanted to know which Jay Cost would be writing: the 2008-era RCP blogger? Or the Weekly Standard columnist?
With the exception of the title, I can happily report that this was more RCP than TWS.
Back in late 2009, Cost wrote a very interesting blog post lamenting the process behind the passage of the health care bill. I suspect it was that post which stimulated the research and publication behind this book. (From http://www.realclearpolitics.com/hors...)
Let's not forget the process that got us here. All year, the Democrats have talked about some form of public option. Besides the Senate Finance Committee bill - which nobody except Max Baucus really liked - the plan was always to link an individual mandate with some sort of public option. Then, in an instant, simply to win the vote of Joe Lieberman, the Senate leadership drops the public option element. There was no talk about whether what was left was perverse, whether this is a compromise in the worst sense of the word. And now, there is a push to get the bill passed before Christmas, not because that's best for the country - but because the startlingly irresponsible 44th President correctly intuits that health care is pushing his numbers down, and he wants to move on to talk about jobs.
[snip]
Welcome to the new gilded age. The original hope behind the 17th Amendment - the direct election of senators - was to get the upper chamber out of the pocket of mega-industries that could buy and sell senators. So much for that, I suppose. This has to be one of the biggest giveaways to corporate interests in the nation's history.
Andrew Jackson must be spinning in his grave this evening. The Democratic Party was founded in opposition to "corrupt bargains" among entrenched interests that Democrats believed were undermining the will of the people. Today, such interests are called "stakeholders." They are to be wooed, bought off, and neutralized. Can't afford a K Street lobbyist? Sorry, you're not a stakeholder. Don't like this bill? Eh...you don't know what's good for you. You're either a tea-bagging moron or a gutless liberal who will fold sooner or later.
Like I said, Jackson must be spinning.
From that observation, Cost must have thought: how did we get from Jacksonian populism to THIS?
Cost's argument is extremely neat: essentially, Cost asserts that contingency, structural shifts, and legal shifts in American politics have resulted in a political party that is too bogged down in conflicting priorities to tend to the "public interest." The toughest part of making an argument like that is in defining the "public interest," but Cost is fairly convincing when attempting to discern it. (He views "taming inflation" as the public interest under Carter, "restoring faith that the government could solve big problems that had basically been ignored for twenty years [mostly crime, welfare dependency, and the deficit]" under Clinton, and "jobs" under Obama. I find all of these convincing.)
His conclusion on this is rather sad:
Today's Democratic leaders talk a lot about equality, but their actions speak louder than their words. As we have seen over the past three chapters, the party has come to play a double game--complaining loudly about inequality in society when enacting policies to advance the interest of its own clients. This has created a void in the body politic--one that the Republican party, which has long been the party of economic expansion rather than the ideal of social equality, is simply not able to fill. (282)
For someone trained in political science, Cost also spends very little time dealing in inscrutable models, and a LOT of time in history. I am all for that approach, provided that the author does his/her diligence with his/her documentation. Cost more than fulfills that responsibility, opting to include 55 pages of footnotes on a 286-page book. I spent a lot of time with the footnotes; the sourcing is really, really good.
All told, it's a provocative, compelling argument--even if you're not persuaded. In applying his framework to current events, he also manages to pose the best critique of the Obama Administration that I have yet read.
I have two minor criticisms that keep me at 4 stars, though:
1. I really dislike the title. In addition to feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable reading it on a train, I don't think it's fully fair, considering that his emphasis is more on institutional failure than individual failure. I'm sure they picked it to sell books, but I still don't really like it. (I probably should have just sprung for the Kindle version rather than taking it out from the library, in retrospect.)
2. I wish Cost had included a little more explaining how the Republican Party is less susceptible to this problem, in his judgment. He notes that the Republicans have a similar problem at times, but if the two parties are equivalent, why write THIS book and not a more even-handed one on the problem of clientelism in general? I suspect he could explain that distinction, and I'd like to hear him try.
Still, on balance, I recommend this heartily, if you're interested in politics, public policy, or history.
October 16, 2013
The premise of this book is rather simple. In any democratic political system political parties that aspire for the control of the body politic will invariably attract various clients and interest groups with very limited and specific agendas. However, if a politician or a party is aspiring for a broader level of support necessary for a victory in election, that party or politician will need to make a broader appeal based on the sense of general good of the country. This constant tension between special interests and common good is nothing new, and it’s not limited to any particular party or a politician.
Jay Cost takes a closer look at the Democratic Party over the course of roughly the last century and a half, and tries to illustrate how various Democratic leaders have dealt with this tension. The account is very detailed, based on thorough historical research. This books gives one a much more realistic view of the American political history, especially as it pertains to the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, this is not a scathing and cynical account of either the Democratic Party or the American politics in general. Cost aims to give a very neutral and balanced view of politics as it really is.
The book’s true agenda becomes evident at the very end, in the chapters and sections dealing with Barack Obama. Cost paints a very grim picture of the 44th president, not in relation to Republicans or conservatives (who barely feature in this book to begin with), but in comparison to other Democratic presidents. Cost makes a very convincing case that Obama, unlike Clinton and Carter for instance, had no desire to stand up to the Party clients, and had completely built both his political career and his presidency around the unabashed and unrestrained support for all of his Party’s special interests. Obama is truly a transformative political figure, but not in the way that he or his apologists would like you to believe.
Jay Cost takes a closer look at the Democratic Party over the course of roughly the last century and a half, and tries to illustrate how various Democratic leaders have dealt with this tension. The account is very detailed, based on thorough historical research. This books gives one a much more realistic view of the American political history, especially as it pertains to the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, this is not a scathing and cynical account of either the Democratic Party or the American politics in general. Cost aims to give a very neutral and balanced view of politics as it really is.
The book’s true agenda becomes evident at the very end, in the chapters and sections dealing with Barack Obama. Cost paints a very grim picture of the 44th president, not in relation to Republicans or conservatives (who barely feature in this book to begin with), but in comparison to other Democratic presidents. Cost makes a very convincing case that Obama, unlike Clinton and Carter for instance, had no desire to stand up to the Party clients, and had completely built both his political career and his presidency around the unabashed and unrestrained support for all of his Party’s special interests. Obama is truly a transformative political figure, but not in the way that he or his apologists would like you to believe.
November 29, 2012
This is an excellently-written, meticulously-researched history of the Democratic Party. It explains the often confusing history of the party in the twentieth century, and how it gradually, in fits and starts, metamorphosed from the reactionary, agrarian, Southern- and immigrant-dominated party that it was at the close of the Gilded Age, to the socialist-in-theory, fascist-in-practice monstrosity it is today.
The one tie that binds the old party and the new party is clientelism. Then, as now, the Democrats are bound and ruled by special interests. From unions, ethnic and racial groups, and even--particularly in the past 20 years--to corporate interests, the party has forsaken the nation's interests--and those of the "little guy" they still have most of us believing they stand with--in favor of its patchwork alliance of clients.
Cost's case is quite convincing, and his meticulousness is a big part of the reason. Very little about demographic shifts of the last 135+ years escapes his notice. This makes for slow reading at certain points, but it helps his argument.
I would say that he probably pays too little attention to the tectonic ideological shifts that occurred in the Democratic Party in the twentieth century and the role that the radical left-wing (or what used to be considered such) takeover has had in determining the direction the Democrats and our country have taken, but that is not his main point. Any party as beset with clients as the Democrats are is unable to govern functionally.
The one tie that binds the old party and the new party is clientelism. Then, as now, the Democrats are bound and ruled by special interests. From unions, ethnic and racial groups, and even--particularly in the past 20 years--to corporate interests, the party has forsaken the nation's interests--and those of the "little guy" they still have most of us believing they stand with--in favor of its patchwork alliance of clients.
Cost's case is quite convincing, and his meticulousness is a big part of the reason. Very little about demographic shifts of the last 135+ years escapes his notice. This makes for slow reading at certain points, but it helps his argument.
I would say that he probably pays too little attention to the tectonic ideological shifts that occurred in the Democratic Party in the twentieth century and the role that the radical left-wing (or what used to be considered such) takeover has had in determining the direction the Democrats and our country have taken, but that is not his main point. Any party as beset with clients as the Democrats are is unable to govern functionally.
June 24, 2012
This book never disapoints. Being old enough to remember the FDR/Hoover election I had a clear concept of the differences between the two parties and the reasons one made a choice until I had reached middle age in the 60-70s. At that point politics no longer made sense to me.
Spoiled Rotten was worth reading if only for it's lucid discription of the events and their influences which were strong enough to affect a dramatic change in the priorities of the Democratic Party.
In addition, it's a fascinating read as it takes the reader, step by step, through the attempts of each succeeding administration to deal with that change. Without overt partisanship, Jay Cost makes clear the methods used,the reasons a few were successful and more failed, bringing us to the point we find ourselves today.
Spoiled Rotten was worth reading if only for it's lucid discription of the events and their influences which were strong enough to affect a dramatic change in the priorities of the Democratic Party.
In addition, it's a fascinating read as it takes the reader, step by step, through the attempts of each succeeding administration to deal with that change. Without overt partisanship, Jay Cost makes clear the methods used,the reasons a few were successful and more failed, bringing us to the point we find ourselves today.
Read
August 31, 2012Tought provoking. If the Democrat party really is pure clientilism - and Mr Cost convincingly demonstrates this to be so - then his conclusion is difficult to avoid: That today's Democrat Party is unable to govern for the national interest as it meets its obligations to its clients, and may be unable to do so for the foreseeable future. This conclusion is supported by swtiches by notable pols from the Dem to the GOP - Zell Miller, Artur Davis, etc.
April 29, 2013
Really enjoyed this. Destroys the liberal/media narrative that the Democratic party is "for the people, the underdog, the normal American," instead its focus is on specific, targeted client groups (lobbyists, special interests, welfare recipients) that receive benefits from the party at the expense of the entire American public and country. This focus drives the policy of the party, not national interests.
August 26, 2019
The ebook was provided free, as part of my scribd subscription. I am glad I stumbled into it. The book provides a history of the Democratic Party up to the 2012, near the end of Obama's first term. Most of the reviews at amazon and goodreads are six years old. Nevertheless, in hindsight from 2019, the diagnosis of the predicament of the Democratic Party up to year 2012 looks brilliant. What transpired after 2012, though not explicitly predicted in the book, could certainly be anticipated. The predicament for the Democratic Party is not easily remedied.
As other reviewers have pointed out: don't be put off by the title and cover of the book. The content of the book is a meticulous political history, filling in gaps in my knowledge of American history.
As other reviewers have pointed out: don't be put off by the title and cover of the book. The content of the book is a meticulous political history, filling in gaps in my knowledge of American history.
July 27, 2012
Excellent well researched analysis of the Democratic Party evolved from the party of the working man to the party of privileged special interest and client group. A scary read for lovers of a true representative republic.
July 8, 2013
I was dismayed and disgusted by the book's descriptions of greed and deceit of people in power - who use public office for private gain...sadly, it seems to be just the way things are...I marvel that our country has survived as long as it has
June 30, 2013
Good history of Democratic party, but a little unfocused. Jumped around a bit, repeated a bit. Still worthwhile.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews