A thread for Rick Perlstein's THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE

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

Girl, Wash Your Racism

President Keyes delivers the lol.

This piece from 2012 is just scarily on the mark for current era. And. as we look towards Romney's potential role during the Biden administration, a good reminder about Romney's past. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con

Reading this now. I find these books to be oddly comforting. The parallels to whatever is going on now to, say, West Virginia in 1972 makes me think "this country has always been insane". This one, yes, but especially Nixonland. The 70s were fucking ~insane~.

Most interesting insane decade ever.

Still holding out hope for a bringing-it-all-back-home final book.

The 70s were fucking ~insane~.

Living through the 70s is what formed all the now-insane boomers.

I love when Perlstein points out the obvious about the audience for some right wing knuckle-dragging talking-point. Like here where Reagan had just recorded a long form talk-to-the-camera speech:

One reviewer -- Elizabeth Drew -- found it "rather poor. Reagan jumped from subject to subject, just as he had in his early speeches when he shuffled his 4x6 cards; he talked too fast about too many things [...]" But New Yorker writers did not have a vote in North Carolina Republican primaries.

In Nixonland, it was the opposite -- when some horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing bureaucrat would spout statistics that would lead to Perlstein would write something like "it all made so much sense" to liberals, only to have Nixon pull the rug on them again with some inanity.

Picking up The Invisible Bridge and Reaganland from my local library tomorrow. Just finishing Season 2 of Mindhunter, which mostly deals with the Atlanta child murders, so I guess late '70s/early '80s is where my brain is right now.

Picking up The Invisible Bridge and Reaganland from my local library tomorrow.

That is a lot of pages. Glad my copy of Invisible Bridge auto-renewed...twice.