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Still Right: An Immigrant-Loving, Hybrid-Driving, Composting American Makes the Case for Conservatism

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A leading political analyst navigates an unfamiliar terrain of what it means to be a conservative in the Trump Era in Still Right .

Since 2016, “conservative” has come to mean “supportive of the policies of the Trump Administration": building his "wall," enacting ruinous tariffs and limiting trade, alienating our allies and kowtowing to dictators, spending wildly, and generally doing the very opposite of what conservatism actually calls for. As a result, millions of Americans are struggling to reconcile their lifelong political identities with what their traditional political party now stands for.

Rick Tyler, MSNBC's leading conservative analyst, shows they are still the ones in the right by making the case for real conservatism, one grounded in principles of liberty, the history of freedom, and simple reason. He explains why it's necessary to have a global view of the economy—and how that includes immigration. He demonstrates the need for protecting our nation with a strong military as well as protecting the planet itself. He discusses what conservatism really asks when it comes to children, healthcare, taxes and elections.

In the end he reclaims conservatism for conservatives—and proves that it's the best way forward for America.

310 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 18, 2020

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About the author

Rick Tyler

8 books5 followers
RICK TYLER is a leading conservative political analyst for MSNBC. He was also a contributing author to the New York Times bestsellers Real Change: From the World that Fails to the World that Works and To Save America. He lives in Northern Virginia.

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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Amora.
215 reviews189 followers
August 1, 2022
A quality defense of conservatism. Tyler is one of the few people on MSNBC that can provide an accurate representation of conservatism. Tyler covers just about every contentious topic in this book and provides the conservative perspective quote eloquently.
Profile Image for Antigone.
614 reviews828 followers
October 8, 2020
Political parties in America have been, for the most part, fairly straightforward. Republican. Democrat. Independent. Other. There were variations on a theme, of course, but nothing so profoundly bizarre as to induce a modicum of concern. Up jumps a man who, to the surprise of everyone (including himself), manages to get elected to the presidency of the United States despite the fact that he has not an ounce of political experience. His temperament either energizes or enrages, depending upon a person's psychological landscape. This state of affairs, compounded by the stressors of a world-wide pandemic, has caused political sentiments to radicalize. Each party has developed a hybrid form of itself, like a crazy aunt who belongs to the family but takes a serious amount of aspirin to endure. Lock twelve of those crazy aunts in a stuffy room together, and you've pretty much got America's current election year.

Part of unravelling the chaos, for me at least, requires returning to the basics; identifying what it means to be a traditional Republican, a traditional Democrat, a standard Independent, a standard Other. Rick Tyler works as a political analyst for MSNBC. He is their house Conservative, and is often called upon to advance a Republican point of view. The disruption of the political climate has caused him to pull back from that affiliation in recent years. He shares the view espoused by so many Democrats these days; they just don't recognize their party anymore.

Still Right is Tyler's reaffirmation of his Conservative roots. He uses the book to walk us through the many rooms that house his traditional political beliefs. Free trade, foreign policy, taxation, immigration, healthcare, the Constitution; all the positions held by the ancients which come to amount to an actual political philosophy. Here is the substance gone missing from the foundation of the Republican manse and, just as with the traditional Democratic philosophy, that substance is genuinely grounding. We forget that it's meant to be a hard decision, the choice of political party. It's supposed to be made through honest thought and careful deliberation. It's supposed to be made from somewhere in the center of your soul.

Tyler's work has the additional bonus of being terrifically immediate. This is a fresh release, and is equipped with material on present-day events and conflicts. Trump, Biden, Obamacare, Hong Kong, tariffs, the Wall. The reflections on certain hot-button issues (pro-gun/pro-life) can get a little intense, but he's made a heck of a case for himself here. Solid enough to correct the spin of that wildly-ranging political compass - and since that's what I was after? Worked for me.
Profile Image for Caroline David.
834 reviews
June 25, 2020
This was everything I needed. As a moderate Republican, I find myself often being too liberal for the right and too conservative for the left. I do certainly lie more within the Republican party and my goal to move back to those principles within the party with keeping an eye on tradition. Rick Tyler really hit the nail on the head in this book and I probably highlighted far too many things and went "highlighter happy". Rick Tyler reminds us of what the Republican Party really is and what it was before the past couple of years. If you're a die-hard Trump supporter, than this isn't the book for you but if you're open to hearing polite criticism of what the party has become, then this book is for you. Also, if you tend to lean right but have qualms with the current administration or feel as though the party has kind of left you, this book is 100% for you. It is a very common sense approach to republican policy and I feel like these are the words many of us have searched to find.
Profile Image for Theodene.
405 reviews2 followers
September 4, 2020
Political genres aren’t typically my cup of tea. For some reason, I felt drawn to read Still Right by Tick Tyler. And I will admit that I was quite surprised at all I learned in this book!!

Mr Tyler covers various political topics and weighs in on the various points of view as well as how the topic has changed through the years. It’s like a political history book while encouraging what he views as the conservative idea.


Whether it’s free trade, taxation, environmental, healthcare, family dynamics, electoral college or whatever the issue at hand, there’s a history to research about how the topic came about and what pushed it to become a popular topic.

Even though this isn’t a genre I typically read, I found this book very educational! Views on issues I didn’t know much about were explained very well. Okay, I didn’t really know much about any of these topics, at least not the the extent described by Mr Tyler.

An ebook version of Still Right by Rick Tyler was provided complimentary by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book was published on August 18, 2020 with St Martin’s Press and Thomas Dunn Books. I give this book five out of five tiaras because of all the political topics I learned about while the approach was respectful of opposing views. Delicately written!

*Book review publishes on my blog on 9/7/20
Profile Image for Susan.
144 reviews
September 26, 2020
I've liked Rick Tyler since he used to guest host for Michael Steele on the old Steele & Unger XM radio show. I don't agree with all his positions, but he makes reasoned arguments that I can respect. Like most principled conservatives, he joined the never-Trump train and thus has been an outcast among his"people" these last few years. Still, he makes a great case for maintaining conservative views without becoming shrill and dogmatic. Worth a read.
Profile Image for Todd Stockslager.
1,834 reviews32 followers
December 9, 2020
Review title: What is a conservative?

I picked this up at my local library because I have been saddened by the Republican party under Trump: he is not just unethical and a poor leader, but his political philosophy and policies are not conservative, and I have been frustrated that no one in the Republican Party seems willing to stand up and say it. Rick Tyler finally stood up and wrote it for those few of us who seem to realize this. As a campaign manager for Republican candidates and now a political analyst for MSNBC, he is both still "right" and a committed Christian who isn't afraid to align his political walk with his religious talk. It is a rare and refreshing combination these days.

In his introduction and opening chapter, Tyler provides a simple brief statement of what conservatism is and what conservatives believe.
Conservatism advocates limited government, but that does not mean the absence of government. Conservatism is about ordered liberty with the recognition that order requires a properly functioning government, and liberty requires it to be limited to stay within those proper functions. Put another way, while conservatives do believe in a smaller, less powerful centralized government, they are not anti-government. They are simply pro-limited government. (p. 16)

A conservative approach to the Covid-19 crisis, for example, would be both ordered--national standards based on science, medical and technical competence in both government and private industry--and limited: focused on funding, approving, and distributing tests and vaccines. Because the Trump administration response was not orderly, with no standards and no plan to control the spread of the virus, the economy slid into sharp downturn so that the response could not be limited; the $2 trillion recovery plan did help the economy, at the expense of corruption and a massive increase in the federal debt.

As a failed businessman with multiple bankruptcies who relied on the manipulation of government agencies with oversight of financial and legal regulations to reboot his businesses and stay out of jail, Donald Trump was never a conservative in the above sense. Writes Tyler:
Donald J. Trump was for most of his life a registered Democrat. . . . .Then he joined the Republican Party and won the GOP nomination in 2016. . . . . For most of Trump's life, he never spoke for the conservative cause. He was not known to have supported conservative candidates for office. In fact quite the opposite, he made numerous contributions to liberal Democrats. . . . .

People change and positions change and converts to the cause should always be welcome. But Trump never acknowledged that he changed his positions on abortion, trade, federal spending, the deficit, the debt, foreign policy, healthcare, property rights, free markets, and monetary policy--in every one of these policies Trump was 180 degrees out of phase with commonly understood conservative thought. Instead, candidate Trump asked us to accept a different reality--his reality. When Trump became president, he simply redefined what conservatism was. Shockingly, most self-identified conservatives cultishly accepted the new ambiguously twisted conservatism and jumped aboard the Trump train. Left behind were the guiding principles of conservatism that gave the Republican Party its governing philosophy. (p. 14)


Instead of becoming a conservative, he sold his new policies as conservative and shaming everyone opposed to his policies as a "Never Trumper", as though there was no distinction between him and conservatism:
During Trump's presidential campaign, "conservative" had come to mean supporting of the policies uttered, however incoherently, by Trump. That meant adopting an unshakable belief in a wall on America's southern border, banning immigrants based on religion, a single-payer healthcare system, an affection for tariffs, a radical skepticism of free trade, withdrawing from NATO, kowtowing to dictators, and promoting inflationary easy-money policies from the Federal Reserve. Today it has also meant something else, and I've seen this firsthand as well: castigating anyone who refuses to go along with these newfound "conservative" policies. (p. 6)

That includes those evangelical Christians who stood on their faith against Trump. In his chapter on faith in politics, where he powerfully defends Christian involvement in government and presciently mentions Democratic attacks on Amy Coney Barrett's Catholic beliefs during a 2017 judicial appointment hearing (writing this early in 2020 before her Supreme Court nomination), Tyler laments that the "us-versus-them mentality that the Christian Right is accused of exhibiting is now directed at fellow Evangelicals. . . . . While the Christian Right was established so 'that Christians could dramatically influence politics,' . . . the roles had been reversed: politics was now influencing and dramatically shaping Christians" (p. 250-251, 247).

While establishing his point about Trump and his non-Conservative policies which now dominate the Republican Party is important, the great majority of the book is not about what Trump isn't but about what conservatism is. In his consistency Tyler will delight and anger readers on both extremes of many of the issues he covers. He begins by establishing the position of economic liberty and free trade in the moral center of conservative philosophy--yes, free trade is a moral issue, he argues, because life and liberty only have moral meaning if we have the economic freedom to pursue happiness. Foreign policy, especially in representing truth and liberty in dealing with despicable dictatorships like North Korea, when done well is a conservative value. Taxes and spending, health care, and environmental issues all have an economic approach documented by Tyler; as the subtitle says he is personally very environmentally aware but also pushes back against extreme climate change policies as destructive (not conservative) to the personal freedoms cherished by conservatism while not achieving the environmental goals progressives promise. He is critical of the Green New Deal from both the environmental and economic angles, although he perhaps misses its original point, as do most who oppose it, as an educational and infrastructure investment response to make American companies and workers more competitive in the global market.

But conservatism is not just or even primarily about economic freedom, but about the life and liberty that Jefferson and the Founders rightly put above it in their declarative list. Tyler argues that conservatism is pro-life, not just against abortion but consistently pro-life on issues like immigration, where he makes some of his strongest arguments for the conservative position of open borders and compassionate treatment of refugees and asylum seekers--including even illegal ones. "For conservatives, any and every discussion of immigration must begin by reaffirming the dignity, sanctity, potential, and right to life of every person above, below, or at the border. Current Republican rhetoric and America's recent immigration policies have obscured these truths, if not rejected them altogether. But the basic human rights of every person must be recognized and promoted regardless of country of origin." (p. 142-143). Instead, the Trump Republican party not only took an immoral stance against immigrants and American political and religious beliefs, it demonized both legal and illegal immigrants, ignoring data (from a 2017 federal study commissioned by Trump) that immigrants generate $63 billion more in tax revenues than they cost, and that immigrants have a much lower crime rate than native born Americans (P. 135).

Health care, while usually addressed as an economic issue, is also properly seen as a pro-life issue in Tyler's conservative vision:
And the right to life extends far beyond the right to be born; it is the right to maintain life. And to the extent that essential healthcare is necessary to maintain life, healthcare is therefore an inarguable basic human right. If there exists a right to life, there also exists a right to maintain it. In the profession of that right, surely conservatives and liberals can find a large measure of agreement. But conservatism also professes-and this is where we part company with progressives-that there is a huge difference between protecting the human right of healthcare and government providing a system of Healthcare. (p. 157)

Of course, as on environmentalism, his vision of health care runs counter to both government-run single-player systems proposed by the left and abolishment of Obamacare by the right; in fact, he points out something I didn't know, the original proposal for what became ACA or Obamacare came out of Republican Mitt Romney's office!

Tyler's take on gun control is perhaps his most controversial for me. A hunter and owner of multiple guns with right-to-carry licenses in many states, he is strong in the defense of gun ownership, but open to requiring registration, licensing, and training. He references back to some surprising historical studies that show the Founding generation, when guns were necessary for food and protection, were also often in favor of similar programs to know and manage who had guns and how they used them. Finally, in another surprising and again very prescient chapter, he outlines favorably a proposal for Electoral College reforms to deal with the extreme red state/Blue state split in elections this millennium. "A group of states is currently attempting to form a compact where the states who join will hold at least 270 electoral votes, the minimum needed to win. Then each state would allocate all its electors to the candidate that wins the national popular vote, thus ensuring the candidate with the most actual votes would also win the Electoral College." (p. 256-257). According to Tyler this would force all candidates to campaign to voters of all parties in all states to win the most popular votes, instead of focusing only on the voters of their party in a small handful of swing states, thus forcing candidates and party platforms to make reasonable compromise to attract voters of all stripes.

Why does "reclaiming the conservative brand", as Tyler titles his final chapter, matter? Because what we believe, what we say, and how we govern and lead, both at home and abroad, matters. In case you have forgotten what competent conservative belief, words, governance, and leadership looks like, and how far we have fallen from it, Tyler concludes by documenting the five key skills conservative leaders must possess, with examples of how Ronald Reagan, the last great conservative leader, exemplified them. The contrast to today's leadership is sobering. You may not remember Reagan with such respect, and you may not agree with all of Tyler's definitions of conservatism, but he he makes a great case that it is a worldview we need to recover.
Profile Image for jess ~has abandoned GR~.
556 reviews116 followers
September 1, 2020
I wanted to love this book and I appreciate that it was written, and that there is audience for it. I appreciated hearing a bit from a conservative who is equally disturbed by what we are seeing of this administration. There were some great thoughts on the environment and immigration, and I could see some paths forward for progressives and conservatives.

But.

First off, it was riddled with so many grammatical errors that it rendered some phrases unreadable. There were many sentences I had to read over a few times, using context clues to figure out which word was missing.

Second, there were some blatant inaccuracies. For example, he dismisses the concept of "dumping" as a made up term, but it is a legitimate concept in economics and international relations. Then, there's this doozy -- "...conservative arguments are backed up -- in the aggregate -- by all of recorded economic history." Of course, he doesn't back this up with any sort of evidence, and I know several economists and historians who would disagree.

My favorite grammatical error: "In essence, the administration's immigration policy can be summed up in four words: only white people need apply." Four words, huh?

I'll be honest, I only read up to 50% because at that point I was losing steam and wanted to read other things.

arc received from the publisher
53 reviews46 followers
July 13, 2020
Stunning case for a conservative even though I am a liberal. There were many things I disagreed on like climate change and gun control, but all in all, using historical references and precedents to argue his case, Tyler did a stellar job.
265 reviews
November 6, 2020
I pretty much agree with him. But how could he have worked for ted cruz! Yuck!
Profile Image for Helen.
3,656 reviews82 followers
April 7, 2025
This is a good book of political explanation. The author describes the traditional Conservatism in the Republican Party from 1990 to 2016, before Mr. Trump entered the political scene.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

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