Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s

by Nicole Hemmer

A bold new history of modern conservatism that finds its origins in the populist right-wing politics of the 1990s 
 
Ronald Reagan has long been lionized for building a conservative coalition sustained by an optimistic vision of American exceptionalism, small government, and free markets. But as historian Nicole Hemmer reveals, the Reagan coalition was short-lived; it fell apart as soon as its charismatic leader left office. In the 1990s — a decade that has yet to be recognized as the breeding ground for today’s polarizing politics — changing demographics and the emergence of a new political-entertainment media fueled the rise of combative far-right politicians and pundits. These partisans, from Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, forged a new American right that emphasized anti-globalism, appeals to white resentment, and skepticism about democracy itself.  
 
Partisans  is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the crisis of American politics today. 

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, American History, United States, Political Science, Religion

368 pages, Hardcover

Published August 30, 2022

Reviews

[Randall Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Old Right in the US was “profoundly opposed to military intervention abroad”, it didn’t embrace free markets, it embraced protectionism. The Cold War Right replaced the Old Right. Even though Reagan spent the first half of his life as a New Deal Democrat, in office, Reagan’s deal was rolling back the New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. Reagan’s affability was soon replaced by a more harsh, outrageous and uncompromising conservatism not long after his presidency. Reagan demanded Bush Sr “drop his pro-abortion politics.” Reagan used verbal dog whistle tropes (such as “welfare queens” and “young bucks”) to reach out to George Wallace voters. “Perot walked away with 19 percent of the vote.”

Many conservatives hated Reagan and Bush from the Right. Nominating Sandra Day O’Connor for the Supreme Court? Talking with the Soviets, raising taxes? Reagan’s “sunny-side conservatism” was soon replaced by “the politics of resentment.” “The Wall Street Journal saw Reagan’s popularity as a sign of weakness, not strength.” Bush Sr. had trouble keeping his conservative coalition together, w/o the Cold War acting as the glue, or logic for party solidarity. Did you know both the Heritage Foundation and the National Review broke with Bush Sr? Or that Buchanan and Perot both opposed the Iraq War? Buchanan’s America was presented as under siege.

Then came all those TV shows with angry white male opinionated Republicans debating defensive white milquetoast Centrist Democrats (Crossfire, The McLaughlin Group). Then Republicans tried to translate their successful talk-radio into television. Entertainment and politics were merging; it’s the ratings, baby! Dim down facts, focus on opinion, personality, outrage, and partisan sparring. CNN made the news the star. Screw that. Make the newscaster the star. Fox made talk the star while news got the back seat. Entertainment over journalism. If you were running politically as a Republican, you needed to become THE candidate of white grievance. Sell to white crackers, that they are “an oppressed class, losing economic and political power in American society as a result of civil rights, immigration, and economic decline.”

Teddy Roosevelt running independently for President in 1912 against Republican Taft threw the election to Democrat (and racist) Woodrow Wilson. For a while, William F. Buckley Jr. showed that if you spoke fluent effeminate lock jaw, conservative heads would turn. For a while Republicans had to kiss Rush Limbaugh’s hand if they wanted to run for the White House; no Republican then would dare criticize Rush, who was on over 600 radio stations. Even today, Republicans sound much more like Rush than they do Reagan.

1994 brought the US the most conservative Congress in “modern political history” and “one of the most combative and partisan.” The new Republican rules (p.137): “Do not cooperate, do not compromise, do not seek bipartisan solutions - ever, on anything.”

The NRA only turned against gun-control regulations in 1977. Unrestricted gun rights as fraud on the American public (said Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1990). Women are “front and center” in right-wing politics. As my mom used to say, “for every little boy creep, there’s a little girl creep”. Right wing author and known douchebag Dinesh D’Souza was handsomely rewarded for writing that racism is merely “rational discrimination” – he felt that black culture was somehow worse than white culture. The Dinnemeister continued with his well-paid theory of outrage that affirmative action encourages laziness and inefficiency, even though affirmative action for whites (the GI Bill) didn’t. One woman explained the present problem: “It’s really hard to get articulate, Ivy League – educated, smart women who are really conservative.” True, dat.

“As the Democratic party under Clinton moved to the right, Republicans did not meet them in the middle but lurched further to the right themselves, rejecting compromise in favor of perpetual political warfare”. Clinton so enjoyed his race to the right with Republicans, that Clinton lengthened prison sentences, “expanded use of the death penalty, eliminated higher education funding for incarcerated people, and poured money into prisons and policing.” Then he screwed welfare for the poor after saying he wanted to end it, and signed the Defense of Marriage Act (perhaps to lose both the poor and gay vote). Clinton’s shameless right turn made it hard for Dole to distinguish himself. By 1996, Republicans were well to the right of Reagan. How do you have both parties move clearly further right than the electorate, and people at their dinner table NOT talk about it and demand more from their politicians? Thank God for corporate controlled media, PR firms, and unexamined military Keynesianism!

Newt Gingrich was the first Speaker of the House punished for ethics violations ($300,000 fine). It didn’t help that he was also caught humping someone other than his wife. Who needs ethics if you are Republican anyway; just take off your catalytic converter and drive. FOX News passes CNN in the ratings in 2002. Shameless and endless red white and blue backdrops really sell. When there is a Democrat in the Oval Office, white Republicans in their pastel Doctor Dentons nightly pray solemnly (with elbows on their bed) the universal Republican prayer, “I hope he fails.” “As soon as Obama was elected, gun sales skyrocketed” and it sent ammunition prices through the roof”. Jesus would be so proud.

Anyway, this was a good book. Since there are no more moderates in the Republican Party, if a Republican rails against the establishment today, he is only tacking further to the right, straight towards crazy town.

[Reid tries to read · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before the Cold War the American “Old Right '' could be characterized as anti-interventionist and anti-free market due to their belief that America needed strong tariffs to protect its industries from competition. In 1952 these right wingers backed Robert Taft for the GOP presidential nomination but were defeated by liberal Dwight D. Eisenhower, leaving them embittered and giving way to a new breed of Cold War Conservatism. This new right would be a blend of extreme anti-communism, anti-state intervention in the economy, anti-collectivism, and pro-racial/gender hierarchies as it struggled to gain a foothold in the post-New Deal American political landscape. In 1964 these conservatives would land their first victory when Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination for president, which signaled a party realignment: the Republican Party would court Southern white “Dixiecrats” while the Democratic Party would become the party of liberals, Black activists, feminists, and LGBT groups. Nixon, in 1968, used this realignment to fully open the Republican party up to this new reactionary base, which he called the “silent majority”. Nixon would use this base, which was invigorated by its opposition to the anti-war left wing movement, to crush George McGovern 520-17 in the electoral college in his bid for re-election. Nixon’s resignation in 1974 might have been an utter defeat for conservatism if Ronald Reagan and his brand of optimistic and charismatic conservatism had not existed; but alas Reagan was a political force unlike any other and he would become the 40th president of the United States. In the 1990s the Reaganite vision of conservatism would evolve into something much more openly harsh, outrageous, and uncompromising. Sunny optimism would give way to bitter grievance politics in the wake of the Cold War, as conservatisms grew less tolerant of dissent within their ranks and more openly hostile to Democrats. This new conservatism would court the growing right-wing militia and white nationalist movements that had spawned in the wake of Vietnam.


Reagan’s brand of conservatism was built by his experiences in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s which also show the general evolutionary trends of Cold War conservatism. The Red Scare of the 1950s would imbue him and other conservatives with a fearful hatred and loathing of communism, the 1960s would strengthen their love of law and order in the wake of the extreme domestic upheavals the country was facing, and the 1970s would solidify belief in neoliberal economic views in response to the various economic downturns shaking the nation. As president, Reagan would use unyielding optimism as a political weapon while also compromising with pragmatic flexibility to abandon right-wing policies in favor of more moderate choices when risking too much backlash. An example of this pragmatism can be seen in Reagan’s treatment of the Soviet Union; Reagan originally described the USSR as the “evil empire” but this rhetoric gave way to calling for “a policy of credible deterrence, peaceful competition, and constructive cooperation”, in Reagan’s words.


The New Right was very critical of Reagan for his pragmatism, lack of purity, and lack of concrete policy. Direct mail creator Richard Viguerie wrote an article for his conservative magazine in 1982, claiming that Reagan had “deserted conservatives”. When Reagan met with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Newt Gingrich compared it to having a meeting with Hitler. The New Right would use Bush’s presidency following Reagan to do push their own vision of conservatism to new stratospheric heights, because, although Bush was essentially the same as Reagan in terms of policy (both negotiated with the Soviets, both raised taxes at various points, and both appointed moderate Supreme Court justices), they treated him as a betrayal of Reagan. This allowed them to both build a coalition around criticizing Bush for the very issues they had with Reaganism in general while also building a mythology around Reagan that suited their interests.


Newt Gingrich signified the right’s new strategy of aggression and partisanship that was to begin under the Bush regime, when he became the head House Republican in the House of Representatives. He was chosen after Bush plucked Dick Cheney out of the House to be his Secretary of Defense, and Newt was immediately more aggressive than his predecessor. He sought constant confrontation with Democrats in an attempt to stir the pot and jostle party realignments amongst voters. Bush had relied on bipartisanship to placate the Democrats and their majority in the House, so this inevitably drove him into conflict with Gingrich. When Bush tried to pass a new budget bill in 1990 (which was intended to try and stop the bleeding from the massive deficits Reagan had procured) through strategies like closing tax loopholes and hiking taxes Gingrich initially appeared to support it. Then, at the 11th hour, Gingrich flip flopped, leading to a government shutdown. Without support from Republicans Bush’s bill had to rely on more Democratic votes, which meant more concessions in the form of higher taxes, and this further inflamed the New Right’s hatred of him. Then, in November of 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War ended, and the bottom slipped out for Bush. Anti-communism had been the glue solidifying all the right wing strands in American politics together. Without the “evil empire” there seemed to be little need for American internationalism abroad, which risked the Old Right (now called the paleoconservatives) and their isolationism making a comeback. Bush tried to stave this off with the Iraq war, but with a faltering economy and approval numbers in the gutter he had lost the confidence of the right wing coalition.

the 1992 election

During the 1992 election two men, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot, rode waves of discontent to become viable outsider candidates for U.S. president. Buchanan would challenge Bush within the Republican Party, while Perot would end up being the most successful third-party presidential candidate in history. Neither had ever held elected office, both pushed for protectionist policies, both were against the Iraq War, and both derided the political establishment. They were also polar opposites on cultural issues. Buchanan’s views were built upon white anxieties, disdain for feminism, hatred of homosexuality, and his rabid racism. Perot, on the opposite spectrum, was pro-abortion, pro-sex education, and wanted higher taxes. Most importantly of all, both built their political bases primarily through the media.


Buchanan got his political start working under Nixon during his 1968 campaign, specifically to court right wing voters. He had inherited many of his political beliefs from his father, who proudly would say his three heroes were Douglas MacArthur, Francisco Franco, and Joe McCarthy. Pat celebrated his confederacy ancestry, heavily opposed civil rights, and believed the South African apartheid state to be a model form of governance. These, and other far right bends in his belief system, made him a potent speech writer for Nixon’s right wing vice president Spiro Agnew. The speeches often indicted the media for having a “liberal bias”, and, along with the Nixon administrations’ overwhelming disdain for the media as a whole, would prod the media into trying out new methods of “balanced coverage'' by giving space for both conservative and liberal pundits to share their own spin on ‘the news’.


In 1971, the show 60 Minutes aired a new segment called “Point/Counterpoint” with conservative James J. Kilpatrick and liberal Nicholas von Hoffman in which the two would debate each other on various hot topics. Suddenly, there was space for political commentary that was openly and unabashedly biased, giving conservatives a platform that allowed them to speak not just to each other but to the entire nation. In 1982 , with Nixon well out of the Oval Office, Buchanan started a show on CNN, whose 24/7 coverage of the news was both new and exciting while also starving for content. Buchanan and his show, “Crossfire”, would accrue national acclaim. Based on the entertainment model of debate pioneered by “point/counterpoint” Buchanan’s show reached an audience of 10s of millions, propelling him to fame and allowing him to become a conservative regular on other debate shows like “the McLaughlin Group”. Over the post Reagan years Buchanan and other conservatives would use the medium of television to spew their brand of “right of Reagan” conservatism.


Buchanan began to leverage his media popularity towards a run at the Republican presidential nominee, and he ran on a populist “voice of the forgotten man against the tyranny of king George (Bush, that is)” style. To Buchanan, the post Cold War was a chance to return America to isolationism. Why go fight in Iraq or fund Contras overseas when the enemies were already on our doorstep in the form of Mexican immigrants, Japanese goods, and NAFTA free trade policies? “We are a European country,” Buchanan insisted, so if we need any immigrants they should be of European descent. His idea of a new conservative revolution was a revolution against the conservative establishment itself. In his words: “We Republicans can no longer say it is all the liberals’ fault. It was not some liberal Democrat who declared, “Read my lips! No new taxes!,” then broke his word to cut a back room budget deal with the big spenders”. When his campaign dwindled Buchanan made more blatant overtures to the nativist voting block he was vying for (which he called ‘the Wallace bloc’). To Buchanan, these voters were not simply a small constituency to be pandered to like Reagan had done, they were the very base of the conservative political revolution. Therefore, Buchanan’s campaign amped up the racist rhetoric to help cultivate and invigorate these voters. These racist attempts included: choosing the slogan “America first” which was also used by KKK grand wizard David Duke as his campaign slogan after he had already appropriated from fascist Charles Lindbergh (a national celebrity in the 1930s who, during his presidential campaign, often gave pro-Nazi speeches). Pat also spoke at Stone Mountain, the Mecca of the second KKK which still to this day has confederate generals carved on it, and, during this speech, praised former Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge, a rabid white supremacist. Finally, Buchanan dabbled in Holocaust denial, arguing that people hadn’t actually been gassed to death in Polish concentration camps. Towards the tail end of his campaign at the US-Mexico border, in the presence of a KKK grand wizard, Buchanan warned of a coming Mexican “invasion” and stressed the need for a border wall, both novel ideas for a presidential candidate at the time. He then blamed them for the Rodney King riots, tying Mexican immigrants to black civil unrest, by saying: “Foreigners are coming into this country illegally and helping to burn down one of the greatest cities in America,”.


Ross Perot’s campaign was no less striking than Buchanan’s, and it really started during a Larry King interview in 1990 when Ross raged against the Iraq war. The interview brought in record views, showing that Perot was pure box office. In 1992 Perot told his supporters live on air that he would run as a third party candidate if they got his name on ballots in all 50 states. His supporters not only accomplished this, but swamped Perot’s phone banks with millions of calls. Perot would make use of new interactive media, where audience members could call in and converse with guests and hosts of shows which was made possible by satellite and long-distance phone calling technological innovations, to essentially run his campaign solely through the media and television appearances. Perot and Buchanan were both feeding from the same trough: angery, radical, middle class white people who disdained the elites of both parties. The economic downturn, a feeling of white political power slipping due to civil rights amendments/bills passed, booming immigration, and resentment of neoliberalism in general fueled these dissatisfied partisans who would soon become the Republican base. But it was Perot, by focusing more on populist posturing than anything else while also lacking the baggage of Buchanan’s campaign, who was able to secure 19% of the popular vote on Election Day.


Rush Limbaugh and the growth of conservative media

Rush Limbaugh was to become by far Pat Buchanan’s most influential and important supporter (Rush called Buchanan an influential and “important thinker” that inspired his own views on politics) and he would far surpass Pat in terms of clout and overall power. In 1971, Rush was a 20 year old college dropout whose radio job was to simply report on sports and play songs. However, Rush was ambitious and saw “shock jocks” like Bob Grant as the new wave of radio. Grant had garnered a huge following mainly due to his ability to say racist and misogynistic things on radio and never really face consequences for it (some of Grants greatest hits include comparing “welfare mothers” to “maggots” and saying they should be sterilized, advocating for “white rights”, and being blatantly homophobic). Although Grant was often fired he always found a new job due to the massive ratings his shows brought. In 1983, Rush found a job being a radio host in Sacramento after the station’s previous host had been fired for saying racial slurs on air. Rush was given the job under the restrictions that he had to 1. be polite to callers and 2. not use slurs; both of these restrictions actually enhanced Rush’s ability to serve up right-wing outrage and agitation by giving him plausible deniability to claim that he was not actually a racist piece of shit. Rush quickly tripled his predecessor’s ratings and leveraged his popularity to start the nationally syndicated “Rush Limbaugh Show”. Limbaugh had no background or real knowledge in political theory; he had never read conservative gospel like Hayek’s “road to serfdom” as Reagan had. Instead, Rush and his show were based around bashing liberals. He would humorously, but no less viciously, attack people like “feminazis”, he called political correctness “the new fascism”, and referred to his hero Reagan as Ronaldus Magnus. When called out for being a piece of shit Rush would simply deflect by saying things like “I don’t hate all gay people, just the militant homosexuals. I don’t hate black people, just the black leaders who have been bought off by the democrats.”. By coating his entire show and persona with humor and irony Rush was able to say outrageous things then back down when called out for them by saying “I’m obviously only joking”.
Changes in the media landscape helped Rush much like it had Buchanan. Music had migrated to FM stations, leaving AM stations starved for content and more willing to try out new political commentary. Long-distance calling and new satellite technology made it possible for Rush to interact with callers live on air and build a stronger audience, which hadn’t been possible when Rush first entered radio in 1971. Finally, the ending of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan also helped give Rush his own space free of any liberal pushback. Rush had cornered the market of radio conservatism. By 1993 he would be making $15 million a year, not because he was seeking new converts towards his ideology but because he was simply trying to pull in more and more new listeners to expand his profits, and in the process gained massive political influence and became one of the most recognizable voices in America. In 1992, a few weeks before the election, Reagan crowned Rush as the new figurehead of the American conservative movement in a letter which read “Now that I’ve retired from active politics, I don’t mind that you’ve become the number one voice for conservatism in our country”. Now Republican politicians knew they had to court Rush Limbaugh if they wanted to have any future as a conservative in the Republican Party.

[Brandon Westlake · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of the 1990s is just beginning to be written, and I have often thought that there needed to be some light shined on those conservatives that followed in Reagan's shadow, but not necessarily his footsteps. Until Hemmer's book, I don't think Pat Buchanan has received the attention he is due. True, there have been other books looking at the rise of conservatism and Gingrich, but Hemmer does a great job looking at the impact of Buchanan and how his ideas by the 2000s became the central pillars of conservative thinking.
My only criticism is that the beginning of the book seemed to linger too much on Reagan. It's necessary to include him but it bordered on heading down a different track in my opinion.

This is a great, unique book that will definitely get other research started. I hope Hemmer continues doing some exploring of the 1990s and early 2000s in her future research

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimately a shallow and impressionistic look at the nineties right. There are some good anecdotes in here, but little in the way of compelling analysis. The book's central theme - that the right in the nineties was a lot nastier than the right before the nineties - is just impossible to take seriously. It relies on a mythologization of Ronald Reagan as the sunny, optimistic face of conservatism, contrasted with Newt Gingrich and company as the dour, destructive face. But anyone familiar with the movement that put Reagan into power would know that the New Right of the 50s-70s was just as nasty as Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, or Tom DeLay (a figure who receives short shrift in this book). If you want a breezy overview of the right in the 1990s, with a heavy focus on right wing media figures, this is a good book to skim. But as an actual analysis of the 90s right, there's just not very much substance.

[Paul Womack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat partisan treatment of very partisan people who have, as a group, diminished public discourse and civic life in our nation. But, what I missed, was what values or ideas promoted their ideological preferences, other than a generic conservatism or notions of white supremacy and American exceptionalism? I conclude for some it was the money they could make or the power they could gain, and not an idealistic vision of public service.

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hemmer, an American historian and political pundit traces the history of the modern conservative movement from its ascendancy with Reagan's presidency to the present day. While the book is focused on how the party defined itself both from the inside and the outside it also provides context for understanding all of the personalities who sought to control or manipulate the movement. It is a fascinating look at how Reagan unleashed the party from the shackles of the Cold War and how it then moved further to the right and fractured driven by different interest groups.

"The Cold War with its emphasis on the rhetoric of freedom and its tendency to redefine US politics in opposition to communism, fundamentally transformed the conservative movement." 3

"The focus on the presidency also grew out of the specific circumstances of presidential politics in the 1950s. As the Old Right was giving way to Cold War conservatives, movement conservatives backed Robert Taft, the Ohio senator known as, "Mr.Republican," for the GOP presidential nomination in 1952. When Dwight Eisenhower, a celebrity general with no previous party allegiance, won the nomination, conservatives felt cheated-and were convinced that liberal elites in the party had stolen the nomination from them. That formative experience shaped the founding of National Review, the conservative journal of opinion started by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. In its first issue, a writer blamed "aa small band of Eastern financiers, international bankers and industrialists" for snatching the nomination from Taft."...In 1964...snagging the Republican nomination for Goldwater in a victory so profound that it triggered a party realignment: the Republican Party would become the home of the American right, welcoming conservative white Democrats, while the Democratic party would grow increasingly liberal, becoming the party not just of economic liberals but of Black civil rights activists, feminists, and gay rights groups." 4-5

"The political philosophy Reagan carried into office was deeply rooted in the Cold War. He laced his speeches with appeals to freedom and democracy, but his conservative understanding of those ideas also shaped his policies: a preference for more open borders and higher immigration levels, for fewer tariffs and a stingier social safety net." 8

"Over the course of the next decade, political media would radically change. By the end of the 1990s, there were three cable news networks, including one with overtly right-wing programming. Right-wing punditry had spread to every network and cable news network and also found a home on shows like Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect." 9

"..in the 1990s, the sunny optimism of the Reagan era fell away, and grievance politics took over. Conservatives were in power, and they were furious...He [Buchanan] fashioned grievance politics into an agenda: a border wall to keep out non-white immigrants from the south; an end to affirmative action and civil rights legislation; a rollback of commitments to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations and the World Trade Organization." 11

"...this book is not a prehistory of Trumpism. Instead, it is an exploration of how and why Reaganism, which the 1980s seemed to be the future not only of the conservative movement but of US politics more broadly, collapsed so quickly." 13

"The tumultuous politics of the Cold War era transformed his [Reagan's] politics, which were shaped first by the anxious anticommunism of the 1950s, then the domestic unrest of the 1960s, and finally the economic woes of the 1970s." 16

"He [Reagan] did that by infusing his politics with flexibility and optimism, making movement conservativism genuinely popular for the first time in the Cold War ear." 17

"Changing conditions enabled Reagan's majority-making politics. Rising crime rates, a stagnant economy, double-digit inflation, and military failures, though they happened under presidents from both parties, suggested that the New Deal order was in a state of collapse and persuaded millions of Americans to consider an alternative political philosophy." 18

"If morality was the New Right's theme, resentment was its emotion." 27

"Though an newly organized part of the conservative coalition, the New Right rapidly established institutions and media outlets that would help it wield political power in the 1970s and 1980s. Those included the Heritage Foundation, a think tank established by Paul Weyrich in 1973; the Conservative Caucus, an advocacy group create by Howard Phillips in 1974; the National Conservative Political action Committee, an innovative money group founded in 1975 that figured out how to funnel millions in independent expenditures to conservative candidates without violating campaign laws; and the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell's religious right organization created in 1979." 28-29

"Unwilling to cut any popular spending programs, Reagan instead went after programs for the poor, including food stamps and Medicaid." 40

"Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the base of party leadership shifted from wealthy East Coast elites who tended to political moderates to wealthy Sunbelt elites who were far more conservative." 43

"...the end of the Cold War unwound the underlying logic of the conservative coalition." 64

"Middle American Radicals" was his [Buchanan] way of describing a group that, while sometimes conservative in terms of policy preferences, was actually deeply radical in its rejection-loathing even-of the establishment. Middle American Radicals disdained elites in media, education, politics and business." 90

"Cable networks, especially those dedicated to news, experimented with political talk shows throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Larry King scored the first hit with political talk television. He got his start in radio, but in 1985 CNN decided to see if the hit radio show could become a television phenomenon. It could and did: it became CNN's top-rated show in the late 1980s." 104

"In that sense, Clinton and Limbaugh swam in the same cultural waters with ease, even as their politics sharply diverged. Theirs was a politics of connection, contingent on creating intimate emotional ties with listeners or voters." 105

"On Election Night 1994...The Republicans controlled the House for the first time in forty years, and for the first time since Reconstruction, they held more seats in the South than Democrats did." 127

"The militarized show of force against the small cabin [Ruby Ridge], followed the next year by the federal siege against a militant religious sect in Waco, Texas...stoked fears of a militarized federal government hell-bent on disarming Americans. Coupled with conspiracies about the new world order and gun-control legislation, these fears culminated in the militia movement, a conspiratorial antigovernment movement made up of armed paramilitary groups with roots in white-power organizing. Whereas such groups were largely nonexistent prior to the late 1980s, by the mid-1990s, there were 858 known militias in the United States. As militia membership grew, the lines between the conservative movement and these far-right groups blurred. They were united by issues and emotion: anger toward the federal government, opposition to gun control, suspicion of federal bureaucracies, and hostility toward the success of Black, feminist, and gay rights movements." 140

"That work placed her [Chenoweth] at the the heart of the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and 1980s. An effort by western activists to open up federal lands and roll back environmental protections, the movement caught the attention of both the New Right and Ronald Reagan." 144

"She also helped forge a new conservative approach to women's rights, serving as a bridge between the antifeminism of Phyllis Schlaffy and the counterfeminsm of the 1990s." 145

"Like abortion, guns had not been a litmus test issue prior to the 1990s...It wasn't just the Republican Party that was evolving-as to was the NRA. Founded in 1871, the organization supported gun-control regulations until the 1970s, believing they were necessary to prevent violent crime and to protect gun ownership for hunters." 148-149

"But something shifted in the early 1990s. The passage of the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required background checks and a waiting period for gun sales, and the 1994 federal assault weapons ban....not only superheated but polarized the gun debate, turning it into an absolutist cause and a partisan one." 149

"Under the leadership of Wayne LaPierre, the hard-liner chosen to run the NRA in 1991, the organization shifted to a policy of recrimination and ultimatums, pouring money into the campaigns of pro-gun candidates and running ads against members who voted for gun control." 151

"The road to that new nativism ran through California. The early 1990s had not been kind to the state. The heart of the country's military-industrial complex, California had seen its population and prosperity mushroom in the Cold War era as federal funds flooded the state's universities, military bases, research centres, and corporations. When the Cold War ended, the recession that wracked the United States hit California particularly hard." 168

"The political media landscape was being remade in the 1990s, as ideology, opinion, entertainment, and outrage became core components of the way politics was covered in nonconservative outlets-in outlets, in fact, that touted the ideas of objectivity and balance as central to their mission." 189

"At the time, Ailes's main media role was as executive producer of Rush Limbaugh's television show. But he was about to embark on a new project, one that would lead, in 1996, to the founding of both Fox News and MSNBC." 201

"MSNBC, which debuted in 1996, positioned itself as the news channel for Generation X, leaning into its tech roots." 204

"Despite the lack of viewers, the new cable news channels were doing important work in constructing a political media environment dominated by opinion, personality, and outrage." 205

"Fox News took the opposite tack. When founded in 1996, it flew the banner of objectivity: its slogan was "Fair and balanced," and its tagline was "We report, you decide." However, it leaned heavily on opinion, stacking its prime time with shouting heads..." 206

"The Christian Coalition, which would become the dominant conservative religious organization of the 1990s (the Moral Majority dissolved in 1989), helped ensure that evangelical stances like across-the-line opposition to abortion would become a new litmus test for Republican politicians." 223

"Reed [Ralph Reed] was on to something: the post-Reagan Republican Party was a congressional party. It was there that the party's oppositional identity cemented itself, there that "bipartisanship" became a dirty word, there that the big ten shrivelled to include only true believers." 227

"The terror attacks had a profound impact on this already-shifting media environment, as new appetites changed and the range of tolerable opinions narrowed." 259

"The creation of the new Department of Homeland Security involved a wholesale recognition of the federal immigration agencies, now housed in the new department. Institutionally, immigration was now part of the national security, which ensured that ideas like border security would be prioritized, while migrant prosecutions and services became second-tier responsibility." 267

"If there was a formal beginning to the tea party, it took place on cable news. In mid-February 2009, President Obama announced a plan to aid millions of homeowners at risk of foreclosure as a result of the financial crisis. Hearing news of this plan, Rick Santelli, an on-air reporter for the business channel CNBC, exploded." 287

"The tea party was not a third party, though it was often confused for one. Instead, it was an intraparty revolt, a protest against the party establishment as well as a way of organizing the right-wing backlash to the election of the first Black president." 288

"Trump understood something the debate moderators and other candidates did not: the age of Reagan was over. It had been over for a long time." 299

[Daniel Silliman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better accounts of contemporary conservatism, looking at the break between Cold War Reaganism and what happened in the 1990s, but also helpfully thinking about how the 1950s wasn't "normal America," but a peculiar kind of interlude in the life of the nation.

[David Montano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I personally expected more from this book. Given there was a lot of media hyping up its release, I was envisioning a comprehensive retrospective of the reactionary nutjobs who for the most part worked in the shadows transforming the Republican party. Given that alot of this press for Partisans highlighted that these nutjobs have now completed the take-over of the Republican Party and that such a book was indispensable in understanding how we got to this point. And given the fact that one of the more popular questions in political writing these days is: "Have the crazies always been who the Republicans are?" this seemed like the perfect book to settle or to enlighten some of the discussion. What Partisans ended up being was a narrow look at how the national media landscape was manipulated and utilized by various fresh faces who have now fallen short of their past effectiveness. Which leads me to my disappointment, in that: while I appreciate learning the history of pundits and politicians who have influenced our national headaches, there is little time given to why they were so compelling to the public at large. Unfortunately, I am a person more inclined to care about analysis in books like these, so I found myself searching for more as the page numbers creeped towards the end.

However, for someone less "in the know" about how Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and Pat Buchanan started us off into the chasm of a more racist, anti-democratic and hateful politics ... this is the book for you! Its a great primer into how Paleo-conservativism became vogue, and where certain pundits (Dinesh D'Souza, Laura Ingraham and Bill Maher) got their start. It's also insanely readable, so there still is a lot to like here.

I'll close in saying that I think this book doesn't give the reader any insight regarding how to identify or how to fight back against hateful rhetoric in extremist media spaces. The media landscape has changed not only technologically but has also sprouted new faces and new challenges. While Partisans provides a critical supplement towards crafting a grand narrative of how modern politics came to be, it doesn't reach the heights I wished it did.

Rating: 2.5/5

[Chantelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author’s bias against and disdain of conservatives drips from every smug sentence. I’d recommend Jesus And John Wayne for a look at 80s-90s politics leading to Trump. Though I could tell that author was liberal, she at least wrote in a more factual way and tried to fully present ideas and biographies. Nicole Hemmer just reduced every conservative to a rich white male who hates everybody not a member of his own country club.

[Victoria Pasche · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book, fluidly written. Basically the point is that pretty much every Republican since Reagan (including Reagan) has been a racist jerk. Bill Clinton wasn't the nicest guy either.

Enjoyed the perspective, and agreed with it. In the end, it didn't feel all that new or fresh, and became a bit of a slog.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strong and somewhat revisionist analysis of modern conservatism and the GOP from NH, whose earlier book is on the rise of conservative media. NH challenges the idea that the right has been in the shadow of Reagan since his presidency. Rather, she argues that in fact Reagan represented the peak of Cold War conservatism and that his successors on the right quickly moved in a different direction. Cold War conservatism was held together by the glue of anti-communism, and Hemmer argues that when the Cold War ended the movement became more unhinged, radical, and angry.

Reagan was a defense hawk, global interventionist, compromiser on domestic issues, not much of a Cold Warrior, pro-immigrant, pro-free trade, and fundamentally optimistic. The post-Cold War right, especially in the 1990s, was anti-globalist, angry, profane, pessimistic if not apocalyptic, anti-immigrant, anti-trade, and more than comfortable with dog-whistling on race. Hemmer focuses on Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh as the key new figures on the right in this era. Buchanan was the conspiratorial, America-first, highly negative, anti-immigrant and anti-trade insurgent on the right in the 90s. LImbaugh was the profane, bitter, sarcastic radio host who became probably the most influential figure on the right in from the 1990s to the 2010s, echoing Buchananite themes to his huge audience. These figures didn't attack Reagan but did attack his policies, which they believed didn't make sense after the Cold War, as well as his more mainstream successors in the GOP like Dole and Bush. They paved the way for the Tea Party and the eventual Trump insurgency.

NH is also excellent on conservative media in this decade. She shows how talk radio, cable news, and a massive conservative infrastructure of scandal research and mongering changed conservative politics in this period, making it much angrier, shallower, and more radical. It also sapped the influence of the GOP and conservative elite, transferring that sway to cruder figures like Rush, Coulter, Ingraham, Tucker, Dobbs, and so on. News as entertainment evolved into politics as entertainment and politicians rotating back and forth from right-wing media to the GOP. She does a great job showing how the conservative ecosystem worked in this period and how it generated more pressure to perform anger and obstruction rather than actually govern.

As much as I like this book, I do have a fairly large critique. NH pays almost no attention to the conservative mainstream in this time period, particularly neoconservatism, which I've always seen as an attempt to modernize conservatism and maintain some of the better elements of liberalism. After all, Buchanan and many of this book's main characters were insurgents to a party held by a more mainstream elite. GOP candidates from Reagan to Trump (Bush, Dole, Bush, Romney) were pretty middle of the road conservatives who also tried to take the edge off right-wing excesses (think Bush's compassionate conservatism). I think NH is right that the Buchananite hard right has won out in the MAGA guise, but I don't think she quite proves that Reaganism ended with Reagan. MOst of his followers in the mainstream tried to continue and update it in various forms, albeit with little success. In short, I like NH's challenge to the conventional narrative of a recent hard turn rightwards under Trump for the GOP, but because she leaves out these other strains of conservatism and GOP politics, I'm not sure she makes her case with maximum effectiveness.

Lastly, a quick beef with the title: Partisans is a flashy title but doesn't really work. A lot of the figures in this book were not super comfortable with the GOP, especially Buchanan, who eventually broke and ran 3rd Party. I think ideologues would have been a better title, and yet so many of her subjects were such clear opportunists, especially in the media world, that it is hard to label them as such. Anyways, a good book that I hope makes an impact.

[Greg Talbot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Say what you will about the Reagan Revolution, but the hard right after decades of liberalism (p.1) seems as unlikely then as it does now. With Nicole Hemmer’s hindsight, the described conditions of a stagnant economy, unprecedented inflation, military failures, crime rates (p.18), the movement’s success looks inevitable. It seemed unlikely then, and impossible now.

Hemmer’s book is not an exploration of the modern GOP. It is an exploration of Reaganism, the party’s optimism and anti-communist visages, that for a brief window recast America’s role in a post-Vietnam world as strong, morally courageous and populist. This isn’t to say everyone loved Reagan, latino and black americans overwhelming voted against him. But like many presidents, Reagan built coalitions with the aim of a better America.

We of course do see the beginning of discontent within the GOP. Ideologically, the Reagan administration was a rebuke to Johnson’s Great Society. Although Regean maintained a flexibility that would surprising to the average GOP voter - Reagan was pro-abortion rights, pro- equality opportunity amendment and for common sense gun regulation - the aggrieved right would ascend and ultimately drive the party’s narrative.

Hemmer explores the post-war redefining of the GOP. With the Cold War and Gipper gone, new voices took precedent. It’s a slow descent for the party to it’s state of illiberalism, cronyism, and nutjobs of today. The exploration of tactical and cynical GOP congress, led by Newt Gingrich, turned the pro-social/collaborative nature of the congress into a a hornet’s nest. Civility didn’t win elections and it certainly didn’t make money. The rise of new media in right wing conservative radio (Rush Limbaugh), comedy-political slapstick television (“Crossfire”, “The Daily Show”) and a fire-throwing activists (Dinesh D’Souza, Ann Coulter), emotionally connected with millions of Americans.

In her most riveting chapter “Pitchfork Pat”, the story of Pat Bucannan’s American-first brand of politics as the stirring soul of the modern movement is cast. The GOP has had plenty of boot-strapping individuals claiming to be the authority of modern conservatism (Ron Paul, John McCain, George W. Bush). But the moderate wing deplatformed him as soon as the momentum was there. Not unlike the left’s Bernie Sanders, Bucannan’s decades long scorched Earth politics sharpened a uncompromising edge. It's not clear if we are beyond this moment in history yet..or if further spiraling is likely

Reagan’s chapter closes here with the new world tension with the War on Terror. Riding unprecedented popularity in his first term, George W. Bush would re-instill a pro-American populism , share deep faith in unfettered markets , and re-brand himself a compassionate conservatism. The taste of the politics also largely gone after our country tasted the bitterness of an unending unnecessary war, economic collapse and reminders of our moral hypocrisy.

We are forty years from a revolution that promised to make America a shining beacon on a hill.
Heller makes clear this is not a book about Trump - but we are never really far from his presence. Here we see the worst of modern GOP politics. The conspiracy, the purity tests, the radicalizations, the race-baiting and the shameless self-interest. Trump, only has notable reference in this book, and it is to refute the very politics that he came to be known for. Decrying Buchanan as a racist and fascist, and running by the very playbook of Pitchfork Pat years later made him president. The politics of cynicism has been fully embraced - we are a country full of voters who believe in fabulist conspiracies, disbelieve science, unwilling to compromise, and proudly anti-democratic. This isn’t to say we can’t change or that better days will not come, but “America First” is sadly predicated on social crises, poverty, health issues and imagination.

[Jack R.]

Once Trump squeaked into office, the whole pundit class went into a dizzy mining the "historical origins" of the man and his fledging movement. Some, like MSNBC election analyst Steve Kornacki in his slapdash tome The Red and the Blue, argued that Newt Gingrich's polarizing, raucous tenure as Republican Whip and Speaker of the House found. Other books, periodicals, and rags saw the inception (or historical equivalent) of Trump and his brash style in Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, George Wallace, even turn-of-the-century populist Ben Tillman. Even I, as an undergraduate partaking in an intra-student academic conference at my tiny private liberal arts college, went about arguing for a Buchanan-Trump continuity after mining old copies of The Weekly Standard and The American Conservative, all located in the basement of the campus library. While Hemmer's book waits till the very, very end to even mention Trump (sans his obligatory appearance during the half-baked Reform Party run 2000), she is essentially throwing her hat in the same ring with Partisans. To Hemmer, she posits a stark difference between Reaganism, a cold-war phenomena, and the conservatism that emerged during and after his time as presidency, especially in the 1990s. This non-Reaganite conservatism, of Limbaugh and Buchanan, was more rhetorically nasty, more offensive, deeply suspicious of immigration, affirmative action, and even liberal democracy itself. To this argument she examines the usual suspects but also adds some interesting understudied profiles like Idaho militia-supporting congressman Helen Chenoweth, as well as influential media types like Lou Dobbs and Laura Ingram. While her case for the increase of coarseness amongst the GOP during the final decade of the 20th-century is sound, it is not without problematic characterizations and elisions. For example, Hemmer paints Clinton has an arch-conservative, to the right of Reagan! If we focus on a handful of Clinton's mid-administration policies, then that is merely an unfair snapshot. Clinton's success as president came from triangulation of right and left-liberal policies, rather than just wholesale appeasement to the knuckle-dragging Republicans. Republicans did not despises Clinton on conspiracies alone! Second, important libertarian figures-- many of whom were supporters of Buchanan and architects of the revival of the Old Right in the form of paleoconservatism-- are absent, including popular, if electorally underachieving, congressman Ron Paul, whose supporters and tactics were as much a part of the rise of the Tea Party and congressional "massive resistance" in the Obama-era as the Koch Brothers, et al. Hemmer also lacks adequate attention to the Christian Right, who became loyal if cumbersome foot soldiers for the GOP solidly in the 1990s and 2000s-- white evangelicals being the single most loyal base for the party in that time. Sadly, brief bios of Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed play-down their religious connections and ideals.*


*Partisans, like so many other histories of recent conservatism, is a secular book from a secular author and the bifurcation of religious history and political history continues in the popular (and academic!) press unabated, aside from worthless tracts like White Evangelical Racism (2021).

[Graham Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Around the time I first heard of Nicole Hemmer's "Partisans", the House of Representatives was in turmoil because 20 far right holdouts/election deniers refused to vote for Kevin McCarthy as Speaker without enormous concessions. This circus and these clowns drew me to bump Partisans up on the reading list, to maybe get a better sense of the figures and organizations perhaps responsible for the current insanity as well as Bush Jr., the Tea Party, Trump, and a growing anti-democratic feel to the party of Lincoln.

Hemmer does an excellent job covering a who's-who of far right political and media figures, some of them I know and already detest (Newt Gingrich, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh), others I'm finally learning about in greater detail (Pat Buchanan). Learning that they got to their current spots due to their actions in the 90s wasn't all that surprising. More surprising was some of the sources of encouragement for their rise like MSNBC, Comedy Central, and Dartmouth College. The biggest surprise of the book was discovering how split these conservatives were about Ronald Reagan, who I always thought was blindly treated as a Saint by the GOP, while the entire country (includes GOP voters who worship him) endures the litany of problems his conservative policies created. It turns out that Reagan was often criticized within the GOP as well during his administration for not going far enough to the right. While a new chapter for American conservatism, his presidency was an end in many ways as Far Righters (from within his administration and without) took the party even further to the extremes in the 90s and even dragged the Democrats with them.

As revealed by Partisans, a lot of the attitudes of conservatives in the 2020s got their start 30 years ago. Politicians would ride the wave of angry voters until they were devoured by them for not being conservative enough (Gingrich). The party would push for broadly unpopular policies and political stunts to retain power. And figures like Buchanan would lean heavily into bigotry and dog whistling to stir up controversy and white anger. Hemmer draws a distinct line between Buchanan and Trump (which makes it ironic and unsurprising how Trump in the 2000s was criticizing Buchanan for policies and behaviors he himself would become known for). Buchanan's 1996 Presidential campaign resembled the MAGA crowds of today, making it clear how much the 20 MAGA diehards that screwed over McCarthy owe what Buchanan started.

Like any nostalgic millennial I long for the decades of my youth in order to escape the knowledge of the world's and country's problems of today. Yet were I to travel back to the 1990s as an adult I bet I would be just as infuriated as I am today about the GOP's extremism and insanity. Besides helping me understand some of the political jokes I missed in classic 90s Simpsons episodes (i.e. the nuances of the classic Halloween story of Kang and Kodos impersonate Bill Clinton and Bob Dole), I commend Nicole Hemmer and "Partisans" for opening up my mind about a decade I was much too young at the time to politically comprehend.

[Erik Champenois · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Partisans" covers the remaking of the Republican Party in the 1990s, arguing that the party did not stay Reaganite for long but instead moved back towards a pre-Cold War Old Right conservative direction. In the process, Hemmer explains much of what made Trumpism possible in 2016+ (and is really one of the best books I've read to contextualize Trump). Trumpism, in many ways the negation of Reaganism, was partially a return to the more protectionist and isolationist Old Right, a turn away from moderation and compromise, a turn away from Reagan's more pro-immigrant stance to anti-immigration, and marked a darker and more combative politics that contrasts with Reagan's sense of optimism.

Hemmer successfully explains how all these elements predate Trump and really started becoming important in the 1990s - a decade where the Republican Party moved towards a more ideologically pure and less centrist party. As Democrats themselves moved to the right, Republicans moved even further right, fueling political polarization and uncompromising extremism in the process (a process that has obviously continued to play out until today, with the exception that Democrats have started moving back to the left a bit or in some areas).

Hemmer also successfully shows how the presidential runs of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot - but particularly Buchanan, who ran, with mixed success, in 1992, 1996, and 2000 - prefigure the importance of the sentiments that enabled Trump's win in 2016. Pat Buchanan railed against globalism and immigration, favored tariffs over free trade, promised a wall at the southern border, opposed the first Iraq War, opposed NATO and championed a more isolationist foreign policy, used "America First" as a slogan, and faced accusations of racism, antisemitism, and Nazi sympathies. In fact, Trump, who briefly ran against Buchanan as a potential nominee for the Reform Party, denounced Buchanan as a "Hitler lover" and "neo-Nazi." He also denounced the Reform Party for being associated with Buchanan and with the Clansman David Duke. Fast forward to 2015-2016 and Trump in many ways repeats Buchanan's tactics, including campaigning strongly against immigration, and appealing to the racist and xenophobic sentiments of many Americans - even refusing to condemn David Duke and pretending not to know who he was after his endorsement of Trump.

Hemmer - who previously wrote a book on an earlier era of post-World War II conservative media - includes in this book extensive coverage of the trends in political media, including the 1988 debut and subsequent success of Rush Limbaugh, the creation of Fox News, and political media coverage from CNN and MSNBC. She shows how political media and entertainment converged, in talk radio and Fox News on the right and in late night comedy on the left, driving further political polarization as balanced nonpartisan media gave rise to partisan media. Overall, this is a foundationally important book for understanding the polarization and asymmetric extremist politics of the contemporary United States.

[Gretchen Hohmeyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I finally made my way through the last "modern history of the Republican Party" book in my library queue right now and--no rudeness meant to Hemmer but--thank goodness, I am tired. I didn't intend to read all these in such swift succession, but such is the oddness of library loan availability. Still, I'm absolutely fascinated by how each book took a little bit of a different tact in its telling, and each illuminated some interesting points. My recent reads (and reviews) on this topic are Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted, The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party, and The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism.

This book is certainly most similar to The Destructionists, with Insurgency starting with 2008ish Sarah Palin and The Right being a longer form, traditional history. If you are wondering which to start with, the best way to describe the difference between this and The Destructionists is that this one is more focused on the rise of conservative media and Pat Buchanan, while the latter is more focused on rhetorical changes in GOP messaging and Newt Gingrich. While I thought The Destructionists was hard to read, due to the longform quoting of those new, sharper rhetorical turns of phrase, Partisans is written in a much more typical nonfiction style that is very readable and more even-keeled in tone, though Hemmer is not a supporter of the modern GOP. Much like how The Destructionists made me feel like Insurgency was lacking, Partisans made me feel like The Destructionists was lacking as well. Hemmer does more of the sociocultural work in what was going on outside of Washington, while The Destructionists focuses on Gingrich and the GOP-in-Washington message. You may be interested in one more than the other, but it is Hemmer's work that I find most fascinating. If you are juggling all these books and don't know where to start, this one has my vote.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Partisans: the conservative revolutionaries who remade American politics in the 1990’s, by Nicole Hemmer
The trip of 15 Republican candidates (of 2016) on Sept 15, 2015 (for Donald Trump) was just the final stop in a long good bye (to civility).
Books like the Bell Curve(Murra and Herrnstein), the End of Racism (Dinesh D’Souza) and Alien Nation (Peter Brimelow) heralded the takeover of the GOP by the charming sneerers and the venomous rhetoricians such as Buchanan, and Limbaugh; Perot, who gave the Presidency to Bill Clinton in 1992, with his 13% of the electorate vote, paved the way for the Donald, (who got 3X as many into his tent.).
It is interesting to note that comedians using politics beginning with Maher on Politically Incorrect, may have paved the way for Franken, (and also for Zelensky) to win high office.
The hunt for scandals to use to impeach Clinton in the 1990’s (which unfortunately was not completely lacking in material) went on with huge enthusiasm despite the hypocrisy of a very black pot of Republican leaders describing the Clintonian kettle.
The rise of Fox News, playing to the Nascar audience, rather than the coasts, and their stable of right wing personalities who had a knack for finding the most divisive issues in American life, and exploting them for political gain sums it up …. All before Trump.
Rush Limbaugh saying his hopes for the new Obama administration in 2009 was “I hope it fails” is a testimony to the absence of any real patriotism of these super patriots. The torrent of voter suppression laws as well as the Birtherism that followed Obama’s election all preceded Trumps grabbing attention for himself… and this is an attempt to summarize the pithy arguments made in this rather well written book.. that helps me better understqnd how we got to where we are in American politics today….

[Tom Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

8.3/10 (4 stars)

This was an interesting telling of conservativism after the Reagan presidency. Indeed, the book could easily be mistaken for a telling of the throughline from Reagan to Trump, but in reality, this is an attempt to explain what happened to Reaganism. How did we go from a dominant conservative perspective focusing on optimism, free trade and free movement, compromise, some level of gun control, and colorblindness to one that was more pessimistic, restrictionist, uncompromising, nativist, 2nd amendment absolutist, and “race realist?”

The story is told through many individuals including Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Helen Chenoweth, Wayne LaPierre, Peter Brimelow, Charles Murray, Dinesh D'Souza, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Kellyanne Conway, David Brock, Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Lou Dobbs, and Glenn Beck who rose to prominence in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s and left an indelible mark on American conservatism.

Beyond individuals, there were a number of changes that also shifted the landscape these individuals operated in: the end of the Cold War, the advent of the internet and the phenomenon of cable news, the dominance of Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio, shifting from manufacturing to a service economy, and media less focused on informing and more focused on creating outrage and scandal.

Hemmer concludes that George W. Bush was the last Reaganite, and since his foreign and domestic policies both largely failed in the eyes of the American people (based on polling and the results of the 2008 election), this opened the door for further gains by the more Buchananite conservatives in the new millennium.

Overall a good read! A welcome continuation from where I left off with Reaganland by Rick Perlstein. Not coincidentally, he recommended this book.

[Stacy Bearse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remember when U.S. governance was bipartisan? You know, those good old days when negotiation and compromise led to progress. When our elected representatives acted together to improve our lives and make a better country for our children and grandchildren. What led to the current milieu where Republicans are obsessively focused on political warfare, grievance, white resentment, outright propaganda and social disruption? Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Nashville's Vanderbilt University, takes a close look at the 1990's, which served as the breeding grounds for the polarizing politics of today. Familiar names are at the center of the the new radical, intransigent right: Buchanan, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Ingraham, Carlson, Hannity. This is a serious, scholarly book. Hemmer's observations will be an important key for future generations when they ask "what the hell happened to a collaborative government dedicated to forming a more perfect Union, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity?".

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like my recently read :The Destructionists" this book traces the slide off the Republican party from the feel-good optimism of Reagan's "Morning in America" the feel bad about everyone paranoia and racial hatred of the Trump era. The time scale is a bit shorter but the analysis is clear and convincing. The biggest difference is that Hemmer, a historian tries and sometimes succeeds at being objective while dealing with crazy stuff. Her accounting of the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan and also the rise of the tea party are particularly good, as is her exploration of the development of right-wing media outlets Milbank is a conservative political writer who has actually received death threats from the Right and his passion shows much more clearly. Both chronicle a decline that hopefully has reached the bottom (though with talk about crashing the economy over the debt limit, I wouldn't bet on it.)

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

A breezy, journalistic look at some of the Great Men (also women, but women who reject the idea that you should include 'women' in your grammar or language, so, sic) of 90s right wing politics and media trolling, but with surprisingly little in the way of analysis or argument. Hemmer does a good job of highlighting just how much of Trump's politics is a re-hash of stuff from earlier eras of the Republican party--especially Buchanan, but really, most everyone. But *why* that should all succeed for a presidential candidate in 2016 goes unmentioned, as does why is succeeded at the congressional level in the 1990s. On the upside: you can read it in three hours and get pleasure from the reading.

More troublingly, this is perversely gentle on George W. Bush and the neo-cons, as if their politics and actions didn't set the stage for the present both negatively (i.e., the stupidity of the Iraq war) and positively, with their embrace of culture wars and pomo relativism.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) This work looks at the evolution of key right wing political figures in the Conservative Movement from the Reagan Administration to the rise of Trump. Much of the emphasis is on figures that came to prominence in the 1990s. While Buchanan was already a known commodity in the 1990s, his rhetoric and efforts did much to set the stage for the modern movement. Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich also feature prominently here, as they also had their role in turning the conservative movement ideologically more extreme.

While there are some good facts and interesting analysis, there isn’t a lot here that hasn’t been covered in other forums/documentation. Probably a starter for those not cognizant of the 1990s and the conservative movement, but not much beyond that.

[Paul Szydlowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have an old journal entry from 1992 about the divide between the optimistic wing of the Republican party represented by Jack Kemp and the nativist, zero-sum wing of Pat Buchanan, proclaiming I decidedly believed in the optimist side. This book makes it clear my side lost (or, at least has been overtaken). A lot of people are angry for some reason and there is no shortage of folks seeking power or fortune, or both, who are more than happy to stir and exploit that anger. Author Nicole Hemmer pulls no punches in calling them out. However, I would still like to understand why so many are so happy being angry that they seek out the pot-stirrers. That question this book does not answer. I'm left paraphrasing FDR - it seems the only thing we have to be angry about is anger, itself.

[Aloysius · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was younger, and getting into politics around the late 2000s and early 2010s, I kept hearing that the Republican Party was moving so far to the right that even Ronald Reagan couldn't get anywhere in it. Now in one sense, that sounds rediculous: the GOP now, as in the 80s, likes low taxes, less regulation, social conservatism, etc, right? But after reading this book, that argument makes a certain kind of sense.

In these pages, you'll find out how Buchannan, Perot, Gingrich, and many other cast of rogues and worse transformed the GOP from the Cold War era behemoth upon which Reagan rode to victory into the authoritarian, semi-fascistic (bleep)-show that could put such a man as Trump into the presidency.

[Thomas Perscors · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up in the 90s and assumed I knew this story. Certainly, there were plenty of familiar faces, but there were as many surprising insights as well. Hemmer is most useful in how she positions figures like Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh in their historical context, laying out how the 90s partisan politics veered away from the sunnier Reagan’s morning in America brand of conservatism. Even though I knew these partisans, it was illuminating to see how they discovered their tactics (such as using the most outraging and outrageous takes on an issue to stir up emotions and build loyalty to their side). FYI—I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by the author, something I always enjoy. Recommended.

[John Purcell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I lived through all of this,but had forgotten a lot of it. This is a very good, one-book, reminder of what the conservative element in America did to politics after Reagan was elected. Much of the division and polarization can be traced back to the Republican Party that ceased trying to be a governing institution, and became one focused only on obtaining and retaining power and prestige for itself, the country be damned. They found that for the most part they have always been a minority, and because they found it difficult to persuade the participants of democracy to vote for them, they had to use other menas to retain their power. Politics became life-or-death to them, not simply a means to rule.

[Alex Gruenenfelder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a historian with a very compelling writing style, this book tracks the evolution of the Republican Party over the past number of decades from the Old Right to the New Right and finally to the Radical Right of today. It focuses on the rise of opinionated political punditry, paying particular attention to the role of figures like Bill Maher who are frequently excluded from this story. Even as I've read dozens of books in this subgenre, Nicole Hemmer's writing as approachable, compelling, and I genuinely learned many new things from it. Scholars of political media and the American right-wing would be well-suited to give this entertaining tome a read, if for no other reason than to invest in the character drama.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hemmer examines the shift of the Republican party from the politics of Reagan to the more far-right views espoused by Pat Buchanan, Fox news, Limbaugh, and Trump. The case is laid out and shines a light on the media networks who published information without any factual basis to promote a specific ideology. An ideology that led to January 6th. The conclusion was abrupt and ended prior to the Trump Presidency which is a shame. This is a well-written, very readable, history of the Republican party. Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advance digital copy.

[John Schorg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is yet another volume on the deterioration of American politics and the impact made by the shift of the Republican Party toward something more craven and irresponsible. While the Dana Milbank book "The Destructionists" places most of its attention on Newt Gingrich, "Partisans" focuses primarily on the influence of Pat Buchanan. These books are all well-written, but ultimately they cast a collective pall over the future of political discourse and effective representative government in this country.

[Rebecca Brenner Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

historian and journalistic commentator investigates how the purportedly conservative, moralistic Republicans became the “politically incorrect” and “pitchfork” party ready to embrace Trumpism. Hemmer identifies Reagan Republicanism as less of a turning point and more of an ending, followed by an “anti liberalism” that “leaned into the coarseness of American culture.” focuses on the “partisans” of the 1990s, when they grew to prioritize political victory over any ideology.