This is an excellent history of the evolution of the Democratic Party from its belief in small government and individualism in the Andrew Jackson era to the changes that occurred with the New Deal and , especially, under Lyndon Johnson. The Civil Rights acts of 1957, and especially 1964, shifted the black vote from Republican to Democrat in a very short period. The black vote and the Congressional Black Caucus became an integral part of the Democrat structure. The labor unions were similar, especially after the Wagner Act of 1935 which created an adversarial relationship between labor and management. Mickey Kaus, among others, has decried the effect of this 1935 law on the ability of unions to adapt to the modern economy. The auto industry is one example.
Reviewing Kindle editions is more difficult because it is not easy to leaf back and forth in the book to refer to earlier sections so this review will be written, as I have done others, as I read the book. One main theme that runs through much of the story since the Depression is the desire of the unions to eliminate section 14b from the Taft-Hartley law of 1947, passed over Truman's veto. This is the provision that allowed states to ban closed shops, the "right to work laws." The provision originated in the alliance between Republicans and the old Southern wing of the Democratic Party. These two Congressional entities combined to frustrate many left wing desires of the Democrats over the years, none more important than the right to work laws. When the Japanese car companies were obliged by US tariffs to build plants in the US, they expected them to be unionized. However, they found that southern workers did not want unions and that situation continues today. It can be seen in the controversy over the Boeing plant in South Carolina.
The Public Employee Unions are the next topic to be taken up in the book. John F Kennedy allowed federal employees to join unions by executive order in 1962 and Wisconsin permitted public employee unions about the same time. The numbers of private industry union members declined after 1954 as public employee union membership rose. However, the members had very different interests and this would affect the Democratic Party in years to come. The 1968 election was a watershed for the party. The Republicans dominated after the Civil War, partly due to the residual animosities in the North-South divide. This lasted until the Depression, after which the Democrats dominated for 30 years. The Viet Nam war and Johnson's political and fundamentally dishonest way of conducting the US side of the war, plus deterioration of American life in the cities and the disturbances around the Democratic convention in Chicago, all contributed to a loss of confidence in the Democratic Party's way of governing. After the 1960s, the southern wing of the Democrats faded away, partly due to the shift to the black vote dominating in southern states but also to the increased prosperity as northern skilled workers moved south now that air conditioning had changed the climate.
I don't want to summarize the entire book but simply to report that it is fascinating as an analysis of US political life over centuries and the effects of changes in both parties. I will add more after I finish the book, but so far, I can't put it down and I usually do not read political books. It is highly recommended as history, more than politics. There is one error at location 3079-3087 in the Kindle edition which states that Proposition 13 was passed in California in 1961 to avoid a state anti-discrimination housing law. Prop 13 was passed in 1978 to limit rising property taxes. There was an Unruh Fair Housing Law, which may be what the author was referring to, passed about 1961. It was not, however, Prop 13.
He goes on to discuss the Jimmy Carter presidency where Carter fought with the clients of the party as he began to recognize the dilemma of inflation and a slowing economy, which would not permit the spending demanded by the clients. The result was disaster and Carter had a divided party going into the 1980 election. Bill Clinton faced a similar problem, which was solved by the 1994 Republican landslide. Now, Clinton could deal with Republicans and here is where "triangulation" came to be used. The impeachment crisis cause Clinton to shift left again to seek support from the party but his accomplishments came during the period of cooperation with the new Republican Congress.
Once again, the story is very well done and fascinating as political history, somewhat in the style of Theodore White's books, "The Making of the President..."
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