Voting to Kill: How 9/11 Launched the Era of Republican Leadership

by Jim Geraghty

A National Review blog journalist evaluates the ways in which the September 11 attacks changed voting patterns in the United States and offers insight into ongoing conservative power in the country, arguing that the primary difference between Democrats and Republicans is the prioritization that each side appears to place on American safety. Original. 50,000 first printing.

Genres: Politics

366 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 2006

About the author

Jim Geraghty is National Review's senior political correspondent. In 2019, he made presentations about foreign disinformation campaigns on social media and tools to counter propaganda to the Austrian National Defense Academy, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the University of Vienna, and the U.S. Embassy to Austria.

Jim was named CPAC's "Journalist of the Year" in 2015 and also won the Young Conservatives Coalition's William F. Buckley award that year. He writes the "Morning Jolt" newsletter and contributes to NRO's Corner blog. He's the author of Heavy Lifting with Cam Edwards, the novel The Weed Agency (a Washington Post bestseller) and Voting to Kill.

He appears regularly on CNN, CNN International and Fox News' MediaBuzz as well as other cable news programs, and co-hosts a pop culture podcast with Mickey White.

Jim spent two years in Ankara, Turkey working as a foreign correspondent and studying anti-Americanism, democratization, Islam, Middle East politics, and U.S. diplomacy efforts, appearing in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Sun, The Washington Times and The Washington Examiner. He covered violent protests over the Muhammad cartoons, avian flu outbreaks, and Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Ankara. He also covered national elections in Great Britain and Germany, and has reported from Egypt, Italy, Israel, Spain, and Jordan over the years.

In 2008, Best Life magazine called Jim one of "the 10 most important voices to listen to this election cycle." His "Kerry Spot" blog was awarded for having the "Best Political Dirt" by WashingtonPost.com in 2004, and the London Times praised his "killer insight" in that election cycle.

He lives in the spider-infested neighborhood nicknamed "Authenticity Woods" in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Reviews

[Gemini · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is so great, I am so glad I picked it up. It's so baffling to see all the things that transpired politically & how vast the changes were before & after 9/11. Although I lived through it, I wasn't as politically aware as I am now, but have grown to see how much destruction the right-winged republicans have changed things for the worse. It's amazing to see how simple voting rights for people have been slowly stripped away in certain states. How things are mobilizing to take away such things as the right to vote is ridiculous, what's worse is how they're getting away w/ it. The republicans during the era of our fore fathers are very different then the republicans of today which is really horrendous on how things have gotten worse for people. This book tries to explain how their are certain things that effected the way people voted & how even those that are trained to note the way an election will turn out was completely off during the 2000, 2004 & 2008 presidential elections. Still baffling to me how the popular vote doesn't get a president elected. I guess the electoral college process isn't going anywhere though. The amount of crap that the Democrats will put up with is insane compared to Republicans. But in this book it was almost like Democrats were seen as the peacemakers while the Republicans just wanted to go to war & fight like all the time. Why are Democrats seen as soft just because they feel there are other ways to solve problems? This is the type of thing that influenced how the Republicans won, they made it a PR strategy to always take about fighting the Taliban, Al-Queda & anybody else who got in their way. This made US citizens "feel" safer so even when people who normally voted as a Democrat, they changed their view & listened to the damn rhetoric that the Republicans were spewing. That's how the won, that's how W got re-elected, it wasn't for his smarts since he was the dumbest president in the history if the US & did more damage than any other president.

[Katya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched and insightful. Geraghty's analysis doesn't sugarcoat anything. The occasional "roasts" and one-liners could be seen as a bit distasteful or immature; if nothing else, they indirectly support the author's position that Democrats' position on the issues of terrorism and homeland security is ridiculous or laughable.