The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America

by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

Evaluates the conservative movement that has swept across America in recent years, contending that conservatives have waged deliberate and effective campaigns against liberal advances, in an analysis that offers insight into right-wing politics and its organizers, representatives, and supporters. 50,000 first printing.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, American History, American, Sociology, Political Science

464 pages, Hardcover

First published May 24, 2004

About the author

Richard John Micklethwait CBE (born 11 August 1962) is editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, a position he has held since February 2015. A British journalist, he was previously the editor-in-chief of The Economist from 2006 to 2015.

Micklethwait was born in 1962, in London, and was educated at Ampleforth College (an independent school) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied history. He worked for Chase Manhattan Bank for two years and joined The Economist in 1987. Prior to becoming editor-in-chief, he was United States editor of the publication and ran the New York Bureau for two years. Before that, he edited the Business Section of the newspaper for four years. His other roles have included setting up an office in Los Angeles for The Economist, where he worked from 1990 to 1993. He has covered business and politics from the United States, Latin America, Continental Europe, Southern Africa and most of Asia.

Appointed as editor-in-chief on 23 March 2006, the first issue of The Economist published under his editorship was released on 7 April 2006. He was named Editors' Editor by the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2010. Micklethwait has frequently appeared on CNN, ABC News, BBC, C-SPAN, PBS and NPR.

In 2015 he was appointed as a Trustee of the British Museum. He was also a delegate, along with two colleagues, at the 2010 Bilderberg Conference held in Spain. This group consists of an assembly of notable politicians, industrialists and financiers who meet annually to discuss issues on a non-disclosure basis.

Micklethwait was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to journalism and economics.

Reviews

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The extreme left holds almost no power in the United States. The extreme right controls one house of Congress".---Paul Krugman
"Can you imagine a country where George Bush is considered a moderate?"---Historian Bob Levine
How far to the right is America? Name another advanced capitalist country where abortion is illegal, the death penalty (banned in the European Union) is widely used, whole swaths of the population cling to religious dogma, and one of the two major political parties does not believe in democracy in principle to say nothing of practice. How the United States got that way is the subject of THE RIGHT NATION, really two books in one. The first half is a detailed look at toxic conservatism from George Bush I to George Bush II. You may, if that is your cup of joe, join in on examining how both Republicans and Democrats bent over to embrace neoliberal economics and social conservatism; remember Bill Clinton ended "welfare as we know it" and expanded the incarceration state. Of far greater interest is the second half, tracing the origins of America's birth and expansion as a right-wing nation from the start. Religion is the most significant factor in turning the American republic conservative and keeping it that way. The Founding Fathers rejected an established church in favor of conformity and group pressure to have Americans keep the faith. Race kept white America unified and hostile to expanding democracy, except very slowly. Who suffers the most from welfare reform, limits to abortion, and capital punishment? If you answered "those darker than Tony Orlando" you're right, and also right wing. The frontier, first the West and later the empire abroad, made Americans feel besieged and bellicose at the same time. The place of the South in driving American politics rightward, from the Virginia Dynasty of Presidents to Nixon's racist Southern Strategy for a Republican victory, is noted by the authors and deserves more attention. Regionalism in Britain, in counterexample, has historically driven that nation to the left. America possesses a perfect storm for creating a political system with one party---the property party---with two right wings. Our glimmer twin authors, both writers for THE ECONOMIST magazine, bemoan the rise of the radical right and want Americans to adopt British-style conservatism, meaning free markets and free minds. Right now, the opposite is the case on this side of the pond.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book. I almost abandoned this after the first few chapters, thinking this was just another rehash of the same history of the rise of "conservatism" in America over the past 30 years that has been told by several books published in the last decade (the best of which I still think is Rick Perlstein's "Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus").

But I'm glad I read on because this book turned out to have a lot of good reporting and analysis of the specifics of the rise of conservative think tanks and conservative mainstream media and conservative political organizing, and also lots of interesting reporting on trends and poll results (such as the Gallop poll which reported that 19% of Americans believe that they are among the top 1% of income earners in America(!), and that an astounding 40% of Americans believe that they either are now, or will someday be, among the top 1% income earners!

Sections of the book that recap the consensus intellectual and religious history of America are less compelling and sometimes simplistic, but nevertheless fun to read because of the non-American context that the authors bring to it.

I was kind of shocked to read in some other Goodreads reviews of this book that this reporting and analysis is now "dated," apparently because the United States elected a Democratic Party candidate in 2008. ... Therefore, the continuing conservative revolution that started somewhere around the 1960's or 1970's never happened? Interesting. Scary, too, for the future of American politics if that's what you think!

[Becca Ehling · Rating 4 out of 5]

As difficult as it was (at times) for this California liberal to read this book, I am certainly glad that I did! It is a good reminder that we all live in our own bubbles--liberal, conservative, a mixture of the two, neither--and that to truly understand this country, we have to understand that there are other bubbles. A wonderfully researched and written book; I wouldn't mind an update given the chaos of this upcoming election.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review is based on when I read this book back in 2004. It's written by a couple of guys who write for The Economist. It's well researched, well written and now very dated.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im Zeitalter von Donald Trump lohnt es sich, ein Blick in die Ära von George W. Bush zu werfen. Denn auch wenn Bush sich heute sehr gerne und bevorzugt von Donald Trump abgrenzt, dessen Wähler hat er damals selbst eingefangen.

Und damit offenbart sich eine der größeren Fragen der westlichen Gesellschaften: Wie konservativ sind wir eigentlich?

Kurz gesagt: Wesentlich konservativer als wir selbst Glauben.

Dieser vermutete Liberalismus, erfährt nun einen Backlash. Auch, weil die liberale Politik nie recht verstanden hat, dass sie selbst gar nicht so liberal ist. Weil sie vielleicht zu sehr aus der Stadt heraus dachte. Zu hip, zu progressiv, zu weit weg von den Problemen all jener, die einfach nur in Ruhe in ihrer Fabrik schuften wollen. Das Gros der Wähler der Liberalen war und ist Konservativ.

Und so war das Streben innerhalb der Liberalen dann doch eher gen Konservatismus gerichtet. Wenn nicht im Großen, doch oftmals im Kleinen. Man kann all das anhand des Buches sehr gut nachvollziehen. Aber, und das ist der Haken, leider in sehr langatmiger Form. Mir hätten 200 Seiten gereicht. Es hätten nicht 500 sein müssen. Das Volumen ergibt sich aus der Detailbesessenheit der Autoren, die ihre These mit einer Unmenge an Beispielen unterfüttern. Gen Ende hin verlieren sie sich etwas...

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting look at America's drift rightward over the last several decades. Okay, so I didn't finish it--this is a classic case of a topic that deserves more than a long-form magazine essay, but less than a 400 page book.

Plus the authors, who are former writers and editors for The Economist, are a little too sympathetic to certain aspects of American conservatism for my taste. Perhaps it didn't feel evenhanded because I'm used to reading stuff by leftwardly-biased writers from the New Yorker and the New York Times, but it really did feel a little more "center-right" than "radical center" (the phrase The Economist likes to use to describe its own leanings).

Bottom line: borrow it and read a few chapters.

[Nate Cooley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am halfway through this book and it is much better than I expected.

The first part of the book is an insightful breakdown of the Conservative revolution starting in the 1960s up until the present day.

Being a self-described Conservative myself, I was a little skeptical of this book due to the fact that the authors are a couple of journalists who write for "The Economist", a traditionally left-leaning British publication. However, the authors of "The Right Nation" have been incredibly fair and I am enjoying this book immensely.

[Pedro Martins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book about the conservative movement and how it managed to sweep up America. Reading it 16 years later held up quite well.

Probably the biggest things it missed was the nativist/anti-immigration turn which, to be fair, didn't really start to take shape until 2006-2007.

Also obviously misplaced today is the underlying faith the authors have in the american model of capitalism and its ability to deliver widspread prosperity and to manage, or somehow contain, the effects of wealth inequality.

Nonetheless, a really good read and absolutely worth everyone's time.

[Nilendu Misra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read to understand the insights behind why Trump may win in 2020. "Nations have characters, and national character is precisely the quality which politicians either deny or overlook@ - Disraeli. Trump not only did not overlook, but he put a fire under our national character of liberty over equality exceptionalism.

[Jen K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the first 100 or so pages and unfortunately it is just very boring and dry. If you want to know the exact date on which a particular conservative white man founded which conservative think-tank this is the book for you.

[Douglas Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good.

[Jack R.]

There is a lot to dislike about "The Right Nation" -- from its grating liberal tone redolent of "The Economist" at its most self-assured, to its historical flights of fancy, to the preposterous assertion that the Democratic Party is more politically conservative than the average European centre-right party (by focusing, of course, on "The Economist's" hyperfixation: fiscal policy). Nevertheless, when Micklethwait and Wooldridge stick to (a journalistic rather than social scientific) expose on the social- and thought-world of the turn-of-the-millennium American conservative, they offer persuasive insights and craft compelling categorizations for grasping that distinct but positively mainstream milieu. While dated, yes (as they focus so much on a type of suburban, educated conservative long-gone from the Republican ranks in the wake of the populist Trump), the sociological undercurrents and political-anthropological schema the author's describe still exist, however mutated. Indeed, the pertinence of "The Right Nation" is providing language and concepts that better illuminate the those continuities between past and present conservatives, not merely the discontinuities as hammered home by so many Never Trump mouthpieces. In other words, reading "The Right Nation" leads to a conclusion, obvious to some and heresy to others, that Trump is not an aberration but an augmentation.

[WallofText · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extensive and well laid out look at why America is more conservative than other rich nations. I really appreciated the broad, accessible and sensitive look into the historic, societal and political depths of conservatism. A lot of events and figures are illuminated rather well and a lot of the assertions still hold up despite the book’s age. Naturally in the ~15 years since publication a lot has changed, so some of the conclusions and word choices have certainly changed (including calling black Americans ‘blacks’ and gay Americans ‘gays’). I found a few of the author’s assertions either disagreeable, such as their statement claiming that gay marriage should be left up to the states and that is is emphatically different than the civil rights’ movement in the 60s, or their over generalizations about Europe. Time has proven a few of their claims and projections wrong such as that liberalism is dead or that young people are increasingly more conservative. This book definitely encourages critical thinking and analysis and I really appreciated that about it.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is sharp and prescient account of the rise of conservatism in the U.S. from around 1964 through early 2004. Much of it seems dated fourteen years later, but the authors' observations and analysis often hold up to the passing of time.

It's non-partisan in tone and written for a European-conservative audience, and the writing style is such that someone from the opposite political camp could finish the book without wading through a mire of condensation.

Many of the chapters can be skimmed-a summary section begins each chapter-but the last part, "Part IV: Exception" is essential reading.

[Siobhán Antoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was sometimes so frustrating to read because of how much of their research essentially predicted the current state of American politics, but a really entertaining and well written book nonetheless! Would love to hear what they have to say about the effect the Obama presidency had on the Right Nation and, of course, their view on Trump and his followers.

[Xin Wang · Rating 4 out of 5]

有几点感想:

1. 英国人写的，有些欧洲和美国的对比。在很多美国人自己写的类似书中看不到这样的对比。

2. 逻辑非常明晰。全书按照时间顺序安排。每章都会先摆出主题，分论，然后每个分论都会有准确的标题相对应，让人看他的章节标题就了解书的脉络。到底是economists的编辑，功底就是强。

3. 比较中性的评价。美国人自己写的介绍右派的书，大多都有政治偏向。作者很好的发挥了作为媒体人的中立性。

4. 涉及的面很广，从右派的政治家，到学者，到机构，到foot soldiers都涵盖了。对我帮助最大的是，让我知道从哪里了解最新的右派的政策主张:heritage foundation, cato, aei...

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinda interesting to read this book now, especially since it was published before George W. Bush second term, but there’s a lot of good insights and history about conservatism in this book. Some of their future predictions ended up on point, and others, well...not so much.

[Noa Cohen]

ANOTHER great book that I lost in the middle of reading :( if I don't find it I'll get another copy because it really is so good

[Laurence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read half of it, for my studies. Very interesting and informative, but I am not into this anymore.

[Mang Liu]

61% 实在不敢相信当初已经读了10个多小时。说了什么也不太记得了，估计想读完这本免不了从头开始

[The_J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why is America so Different? Here is the thesis to give a grounding.

[Luca Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book in 3 parts. Well researched but quite a drag.

[Chip Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book expecting to find your everyday conservative propaganda, explaining why Bush is the greatest president in history or why abortion is leading our country straight to the pits of Hell. Instead, what I found was a refreshing and extremeley interesting look at the evolution and dominancy of the American Right.

This book offers an exhuastive (not to mean tiring) explanation for how the Right Nation became so dominant in American politics. From the very beginings of conservative thought to the modern time of even the "liberal" Democrats behaving like hard-core conservatives by most European standards, The Right Nation thoroghly examines the rise of conservatism and details an American spirit with such a powerful trust in self and suspicion of federal government. The clash between the ever more conservative Republican party and the ever more liberal Democrates, and why the Republicans seem to have come out on top is detailed here in ways that reveal the true workings of American politics as well as the firmly held beliefs of the majority of American citizens.

While this book is jam-packed full of interesting facts and staticstics, some of the most striking to me were the comparisons between America and Europe. Besides just being far more conservative than Europeans, Americans have a deep set belief in themselves and in their country. I forget the exact numbers but it is really high (about 30%) of Americans who believe that they will advance to become one of the top one percentile of wage earners in America. While the might suggest to some people that Americans are just stupid, to me it conveys a sense of confidence and positiveness that is part of a great American can-do spirit.

I am sure that extremists from either end of the political spectrum found this book to be baised in one way or another and I think that is a good indication of the fairness and balance with which this book was written. The material presented here has been researched to an almost rediculous degree (thus the ~50 pages of references in the back of the book) and discussed in a open and honest fashion. Not everything about the conservative movement has been beautiful, but the conservative movement and the people involved should feel proud to have achieved so much and overcome so completely.

While most of this book is easy and enjoyable to agree with, there are some things that I must dispute. Despite the seeming dominance of conservatives in American politics, there is still a very strong liberal presence steering America in a more liberal direction. Mainly the court systems and their forcing of issues on the American people. When people are afraid to build playgrounds for their children, cities are filling in public swimming pools, and police departments are refusing to give stranded civilians a jump all because of fear of lawsuits, you know something is wrong. There is still much work to be done to lessen the overbearing weight of governmental regulation on the people and to fix up a court system so that people can truly be free and not live in fear of being sued by scam artists or criminals.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, written by two British Economist journalists, sets out to explain both the history of conservatism in America and the relatively recent rise of the New Right. It was written just before the 2004 election, and obviously quite a lot has changed since then, but a lot of its conclusions are still valid. They effectively argue that the rise of the Right has been a long time coming, is firmly entrenched, and will continue regardless of who occupies the White House - and it's hard to disagree.

The authors argue that America has always been a conservative nation, the Revolution notwithstanding. The Revolution was fought not to introduce new rights and privileges, but to preserve and maintain the status quo. The Britain of the time was seen as infringing and oppressing rights enshrined in law; it was a revolution fought against change, not for it. And as a result, government itself was seen as part of the problem, and that view hasn't changed.

The authors also argue that because so much of American history has been written by what we call, for lack of a better word, the bourgeoisie, it has never developed a radical fringe, either Left or Right, that other countries with more established labour classes have. I'm not entirely convinced by that argument, although there's no denying the country was founded with Jefferson's small farmer in mind, and farmers have always tended to skew conservative.

Because of this past, both dominant political parties in America are conservative to European eyes, the Centre and the Right-of-Centre. Even the supposed liberal party, the Democrats, is not as left-wing as most of Europe. This, the authors argue, aids the Republicans as the more right of the parties, as the Democrats have less to argue against.

There's a lot more besides, too much to go into in one review. It's a fascinating read, for once entirely lacking in the partisan vitriol that most discussions of American politics tend to engender. It also highlights the lack of understanding of the basic roots of American politics that gave rise to the European loathing for George Bush and the hailing of the election of Barack Obama. For my own part, it's sad to admit that the election of Obama may not herald any kind of sea-change in American politics; the underlying trend is conservative and is likely to remain that way for some time.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America is a delightful read, well-written, well-argued, and is informative. When the 2004 election came, many Democrats thought that something has fundamentally changed and shifted in America. What ever happened to the liberal days of Clinton, they ask. Well, as this book points out, America was always a conservative nation when compared with the rest of the world. America has lower taxes, a strong military, and a GDP of $11 trillion dollars, and some of the largest corporations in the world.

Far too often I think many people think this has happened automatically. Some think we are "lucky" and that at some point in the future another nation may become a superpower. Although the U.S. has been a conservative nation since its Founding, it has been quite liberal, at least politically, from the 1960s to 1994, in terms of its voting patterns for Congress. Conservative intellectuals spent forty years articulating their message, refining, and publishing their message; they were often mocked as strange folks, and the voting pattern showed it (witness the huge defeat of Barry Goldwater). The message eventually carried the day for Ronald Reagan, the GOP Congress of 1994, and George W. Bush. The only problem I have is that even if we are a conservative nation, we still have a socialistic Social Security system, still have a corporate income tax that reaches 35% (while many European socialistic nations have plans to lower theirs even lower than ours!), still have too many public employees, we still have an unaccountable public school system, and our taxation system has harmed our healthcare by creating incentives for doctors to provide too much treatment in some cases. We still have more work to do. The conservative movement will have plenty of work to do for years and years.

[Ahmad Alhussiny · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكتاب يصف حال السياسة الامريكية و الحياة الحزبية حتى إنتخاب جورج بوش الإبن للمرة الثانية عام 2004
يظهر في كلام المؤلفين مدى تدخل الدين و التمييز العنصري في السياسة الأمريكية على عكس ما هو شائع عن�� بعض الناس أن أمريكا دولة علمانية تماما مليئة بالملاحدة , لكن نظرة الكاتبين توضح مدى إستخدام الدين في السياسة و مدى إهتمام المتدينين الأمريكين و الإيفانجليكيين خصوصا بالسياسة .
كما يظهر أيضا سفاهة النظام الديمقراطي في أكبر دولة ديمقراطية في العالم فالإعلام يلعب دورا كبيرا في تحديد الرأي العام الأمريكي و تتنافس وسائل الإعلام في التأثير على الناخبين بشتى الطرق حتى بالإشاعات ,وكثيرا ما تجد الإتجاهات السياسية للسياسيين الأمريكيين تتغير بمرور الوقت و على حسب ميول الناخبين فتجد سياسيا ديمقراطيا يتحول إلى جمهوريا في الإنتخابات أو العكس , و تجد الإستعراضات الإعلامية من قبل المرشحين للتأثير على الناس .
ما يثير الإنتباه أيضا كمية الأموال الضخمة التي يتم صرفها على الحملات الإنتخابية للمرشحين و التي تصل إلى مئات الملايين من الدولارات .
كما يظهر أيضا مدى التقارب السياسي بين الحزبين , فمع إختلافهم في بعض القضايا لكن هذه الخلافات تكاد تتلاشى أحيانا فتجد الديمقراطيين يتبنون قضايا جمهورية فقط من أجل الفوز بالإنتخابات

و بعيدا عن إتجاه الكتبين ( جون ميكلثوايت و أدريان وولدريدج ) إلا أن الكتاب يقدم رسما جيدا في عدد من نواحيه للسياسة الأمريكية و كيفية إدارتها إلا أن التحقق و التأك من هذه المسئل يحتاج بحثا أكثر.

[Bojan Tunguz · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge are journalists writing for The Economist, and this book bears the same high quality of writing that many have come to expect from that magazine. The authors are as thorough in their research as they are clear in their presentation, and we the readers are that much better off because of it. The basic premise of the book, that the conservative power in America has been on the rise for many decades, is an indisputable fact of political life, and will be for many more years to come regardless who the occupant of the White House will end up being. The book deals with the roots of this phenomenon, and tries to present it as objectively and critically as possible. It shows how American conservatism is unique, and would probably not be recognized as traditional conservatism in many other parts of the world. Many critics may find it objectionable and problematic that the authors take this American conservatism seriously at all, but even those critics could benefit tremendously from reading this book. If their aim is to get to know the enemy, this book would be the best place to start. Even though the book was first published around the 2004 elections, it will probably remain relevant for many years to come.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps the most important thing I got out of this book was a deeper understanding of why America is politically and often culturally much more conservative than Europe. This is the gist of the book, really. The authors were both educated at Oxford, but live in America. Often the book is an attempt to explain this most complex of nations to Europeans who simply do not understand what they see as the underlying conservative nature of the US.

In that I found it a very different take on America to what I was accustomed to: books like What's the Matter with Kansas, by Thomas Frank, and Dude Where's my Country? by Michael Moore. It is much more of a challenge to attempt to deeply comprehend than it is simply to mock. (I'm not saying Thomas Frank mocks his country, but Moore often does have that tone.)

I'd really recommend this to anyone from outside of America who is baffled by the place.

Like Leonard Cohen says: "It's coming to America first, The cradle of the best and of the worst."

[Jeff Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

A foriegn-eye-view of the rise, fall, and rebirth of conservatism in the United States. The first quarter of the book was a great history lesson, but then they got into the stuff about how America is so much further right than the rest of the world, and then tried to explain that Bush's non-conservatism is actually conservatism, and they honestly kinda lost me there. Regardless, there was a lot of interesting stuff in there, and I think is meant for a non-US audience more than a US one, but some of the flaws were too huge for me to really want to hand it off to someone as a worthwhile venture.

[Gary Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

An eye-opening work on the influence of conservative thought in our country. While the book does talk about the Reagan movement, and conservative policies such as The Contract with America, the author spends most of his time discussing the preponderance of conservative think tanks, the alliances that conservatives have built, and the un-elected officials that work to hold those alliances together when the elected officials can't.