A thread for Rick Perlstein's THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE

xpost clemenza:

Perlstein, if he had to write about Aaron, missed an opportunity to complicate his story. Wikipedia did it better in their Hank Aaron article (the section "breaking Ruth's record,") which includes far more interesting stuff than Frank Sinatra's dismissal (too insignificant to mention?):

Snoopy getting 'hate mail' in Peanuts (with Lucy coming out explicitly for Hank Aaron)(what a bizarre storyline!);

Sports Illustrated laying down the gauntlet (would 74 be remembered as a triumphant "moon walk" for Aaron or for the "hate mail, cobwebs & goblins that lurk in baseball's attic"?);

& Vin Scully's stirring extemporaneous liberal oration on the record breaking moment, a move to turn it into a great civil rights moment.

Both the racism & the reaction against racism were big stories, in other words; Perlstein's instinct to surprise us with the truth about the past isn't working well here. It is definitely not to Perlstein's credit that he put that bit in the photo section: "note the sparse crowd" in Atlanta, and how Aaron supposedly produced much better attendance records on the road than at home. Maybe, maybe. However, one fact works hard against Perlstein here: the all-time Atlanta Braves attendance record at County Stadium was set on the Monday night that Aaron hit 715.

The racism Aaron endured, just like the racism Jackie Robinson endured, is enshrined as part of their triumphant stories, especially as told to children: they become part of the "feel-good" stories of America, because the racists in these cases have long since become cartoonish villains that we are all now 'better than'. When Perlstein shows us in Nixonland that Martin Luther King was despised all over America, that newspaper editorials pronounced his assassination as the merely regrettable result of MLK's own lack of respect for the law, Perlstein has real reach, that's a real public service: because all that stuff has been completely washed. It's been recast as mean southern rednecks vs. the obviously saintly MLK.

But one big difference: it's pretty hard to find a newspaper writer actively disparaging Aaron's achievement at the time (for what it's worth, Perlstein doesn't produce one). Meaning, maybe, that something had changed between 68 and 74, at least in the newsroom. It's not hard to show that lots of white people hated Aaron, (this would make it nice and simple); it's hard to show how lots of white people actually could love Aaron, and love themselves for loving Aaron, and still support all kinds of racist moves in other parts of the society.

what the fuck:

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/608378399640416256

https://twitter.com/WilliamTurton/status/609014235931230208

dude is verified! twitter is such a trash company

thieving a great writer's account is so worth it for these fire tweets

https://twitter.com/rickperlstein/status/611995859253772289

Comments inspired by new bio though.

We need to kill great men as soon as they die lest their corpses become anchors to which we’re chained before a final hurl into the sea.

extremely well-put and of course too true

So that H.W. Brands bio is good if you like idea-free biographies. With a guy like Ronald Wilson Reagan, this intellectual abdication is a menace.

aw man, i just ordered it! was wavering between this one and the lou cannon book.

"In the context of the stuff I’ve been thinking about today Perlstein is a fascinating writer, a liberal writing Whig history as horror, where the placid teleology of progressivism is recast as the docile idiocy of teenagers in a slasher flick, with Perlstein in the audience shaking his head as liberal America insists on skinny dipping at midnight or just going to see what that noise in the cellar was."

Ha! (from http://tomewing.tumblr.com/post/144218061581/llcooljasonalexander-bowiesongs-tomewing )

Leave me alone! I'm submitting my REAGANLAND manuscript on April 15!

— Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein) March 4, 2019

Excellent. Where does Reaganland end? The hallowed Reagan basically holds sway over the party right up till 2016, although I think Perlstein could end this volume earlier and start Trumpland before Trump actually steps to the fore. Palin would be a good place to start the one after the new one, or maybe all the insanity around Gingrich (and, to a lesser degree, Herman Cain) in 2012. Gingrich's debate showdown with John King would be a good beginning for Trumpland.

His books typically don’t cover more than a handful of years iirc so I’d be very surprised if this one went beyond ‘88, if it even goes that deep

Next Up: Poppy Bush Interzoneland.

(My phone's auto-complete correctly offered both Bush and then Interzone after typing Poppy)

Bushland actually would make sense for '88 to Jeb's coronation in the summer of 2015 (even if that all exists in the shadow of Reaganland and involves a lot of the same people). In any event, looks like he's making this series his life's work. Hope I'm around long enough for the whole thing.

I'm ready to write it as soon as I figure out how to weave Roxette into it.

Reaganland will be 1976-1980.

I'm ready to write it as soon as I figure out how to weave Roxette into it.

Bushland: It Must Have Been Love, But It's Over Now

Wasn't '76-80 The Invisible Bridge?

It ends at the '76 convention.

My memory's going--could have sworn it ended with Reagan's election. That's kind of weird, then, if Reaganland ends in '80; it's more like Prelude to Reaganland.

He just picked vice president GEORGE
He's goin' to Reaganlaaaaand

can't wait for 200 pages about the Panama Canal Treaty

I have never read any of the Perlsteins--best to start at the beginning or...?

I found it to be so. Haven't read Invisible Bridge yet but it sounds like it continues directly on from the first two. I'd long sought a clear summary of the conservative hijacking of the GOP and the Goldwater book was everything I could've asked for on that front.

I bet many people have read the last two but not the first (Before the Storm, mostly focused on Goldwater and '64)--which is still my favourite of the three, in no small part because I read it against the backdrop of the 2008 election.

Nixonland is downright eerie against today's backdrop.

Sorry, missed OL's post just before mine.

Before the Storm is the best so yes, start there

clemenza unless Perlstein has cheanged his mind recently this will be the last volume

I’m thinking it will end with the 84 landslide like nixonland did with 72

idgi wasn’t his last book the reagan one

they’re all the reagan one

i saw perlstein speak at a book signing a couple years ago, he said the next book would end with reagan's election and that he had no plans to write any further books in the "series."

i thought that was interesting because i don't really think of reagan as dominating the culture pre-1980 in the way he did as president -- but an argument that america slowly became "reaganland" in the years leading up to his election, that the slow backlash against the 60s and liberalism made his presidency possible, yeah, i could see that.

he had no plans to write any further books in the "series."

tf else is he gonna do

maybe work on his music idk

He'd probably do well to stop--the transformation from Reagan to Trump has been covered to death by now, and in many different ways.

https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--YRHwQ3ru--/t_Resized%20Artwork/c_crop,x_10,y_10/c_fit,w_470/c_crop,g_north_west,h_626,w_470,x_0,y_0/g_north_west,u_upload:v1462829015:production:blanks:mtl53ofohwq5goqjo9ke,x_-395,y_-325/b_rgb:eeeeee/c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1527645092/production/designs/2736516_0.jpg

someone buy me that t-shirt so I can wipe my arse on it

Or at least put 'WATCH FOR ARMED DOTARDS' in a US flag font across the top.

Anyone else here start in on Reaganland?

shut your mouth

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/books/review/reaganland-rick-perlstein.html

I'm balking at the $55 cost.

Got mine on Sunday, I’m 85 pages in. Probably need about a three month head start to finish before Alfred.

My copy arrives tomorrow. Race you!

Why did you have to make it racist?

hard to believe the publisher passed on that as a title for the series as a whole

Heh. "From Goldwater to Reagan: The Rise of Conservatism in America, or, Why Did You Have to Make It Racist?"

Where's the Racist of Me?

Who Moved My Racism?

Racist Soup for the Soul

Racist to the Bottom