Rule and Ruin
The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party
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Narrated by:
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Michael Bulter Murray
About this listen
The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity.
Except this development is not new at all. In Rule and Ruin, Geoffrey Kabaservice reveals that the moderate Republicans' downfall began not with the rise of the Tea Party but about the time of President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address. Even in the 1960s, when left-wing radicalism and right-wing backlash commanded headlines, Republican moderates and progressives formed a powerful movement, supporting pro-civil rights politicians like Nelson Rockefeller and William Scranton, battling big-government liberals and conservative extremists alike. But the Republican civil war ended with the overthrow of the moderate ideas, heroes, and causes that had comprised the core of the GOP since its formation. In hindsight, it is today's conservatives who are "Republicans in Name Only".
Writing with passionate sympathy for a bygone tradition of moderation, Kabaservice recaptures a time when fiscal restraint was matched with social engagement; when a cohort of leading Republicans opposed the Vietnam war; when George Romney - father of Mitt Romney - conducted a nationwide tour of American poverty, from Appalachia to Watts, calling on society to "listen to the voices from the ghetto". Rule and Ruin is an epic, deeply researched history that reorients our understanding of our political past and present.
Today, following the Republicans' loss of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential contests, moderates remain marginalized in the GOP and progressives are all but nonexistent. In this insightful and elegantly argued book, Kabaservice contends that their decline has left Republicans less capable of governing responsibly, with dire consequences for all Americans. He has added a new afterword that considers the fallout from the 2012 elections.
©2012 Geoffrey Kabaservice (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Long before the "culture wars" usually associated with the rise of conservative politics, driven individuals funded think tanks, fought labor unions, and formed organizations to market their views.These nearly unknown, larger-than-life, and sometimes eccentric personalities - such as General Electric's zealous, silver-tongued Lemuel Ricketts Boulware and the self-described "revolutionary" Jasper Crane of DuPont - make for a fascinating, behind-the-scenes view of American history.
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The Conservative battle for taking back the New Deal
- By Dr Joseph Borreggine on 05-13-24
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Pivotal Tuesdays
- Four Elections That Shaped the Twentieth Century
- By: Margaret O'Mara
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Pivotal Tuesdays looks back at four pivotal presidential elections of the past 100 years to show how they shaped the 20th century. During the rowdy, four-way race in 1912 between Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Eugene Debs, and Woodrow Wilson, the candidates grappled with the tremendous changes of industrial capitalism and how best to respond to them. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt's promises to give Americans a "New Deal" to combat the Great Depression helped him beat the beleaguered incumbent, Herbert Hoover.
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Important book...especially this year.
- By Jim on 07-31-16
By: Margaret O'Mara
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The Shadow Party
- How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party
- By: David Horowitz, Richard Poe
- Narrated by: Gregg Rizzo
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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America is under attack. Its institutions and values are under daily assault. But the principal culprits are not foreign terrorists. They are influential and powerful Americans secretly stirring up disunion and disloyalty in the shifting shadows of the Democratic Party. Radical infiltrators have been quietly transforming America's societal, cultural, and political institutions for more than a generation. Now, backed by George Soros, they are ready to make their move.
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Best introduction to the Democrat party in 2019
- By Larry on 06-12-19
By: David Horowitz, and others
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To Make Men Free
- A History of the Republican Party
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Republican Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession. While progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln’s vision and expanded the government, their opponents appealed to Americans’ latent racism and xenophobia to regain political power, linking taxation and regulation to redistribution and socialism. In the modern era, the schism within the Republican Party has grown wider, pulling the GOP ever further from its founding principles.
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Fascinating read!
- By Marsha on 12-27-21
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American Heritage History of the Presidents
- By: Michael R. Beschloss
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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From George Washington's reluctant oath-taking through George W. Bush's leadership challenges after September 11, 2001, we view ambitious and fallible men through the new lens of the 21st century. Where did they succeed? Where did they fail? And what do we know now that we could not have known at the time?
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Good but Far from Great
- By Michael on 07-11-20
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Machine Made
- Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics
- By: Terry Golway
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes.
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A missed opportunity
- By Kathy on 05-27-15
By: Terry Golway
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The Corrosion of Conservatism
- Why I Left the Right
- By: Max Boot
- Narrated by: Max Boot
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Warning that the Trump presidency presages America’s decline, Max Boot, the political commentator, recounts his extraordinary journey from lifelong Republican to vehement Trump opponent. As nativism, xenophobia, vile racism, and assaults on the rule of law threaten the very fabric of our nation, The Corrosion of Conservatism presents an urgent defense of American democracy.
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Not an intellectual tour de force!
- By Wayne on 07-14-19
By: Max Boot
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Kill Switch
- The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy
- By: Adam Jentleson
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Every major decision governing our diverse, majority-female, and increasingly liberal country bears the stamp of the US Senate, yet the Senate allows an almost exclusively White, predominantly male, and radically conservative minority of the American electorate to impose its will on the rest of us. How did we get to this point? In Kill Switch, Adam Jentleson argues that shifting demographics alone cannot explain how Mitch McConnell harnessed the Senate and turned it into a powerful weapon of minority rule.
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Don't bother, narration intolerable!
- By Joseph on 03-08-21
By: Adam Jentleson
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Fear Itself
- The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
- By: Ira Katznelson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 22 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Redefining our traditional understanding of the New Deal, Fear Itself finally examines this pivotal American era through a sweeping international lens that juxtaposes a struggling democracy with enticing ideologies like Fascism and Communism. Ira Katznelson, "a towering figure in the study of American and European history" (Cornel West), boldly asserts that, during the 1930s and 1940s, American democracy was rescued yet distorted by a unified band of southern lawmakers who safeguarded racial segregation as they built a new national state to manage capitalism and assert global power.
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History in Context of Political Science Analysis
- By zsuzsanna on 08-27-15
By: Ira Katznelson
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The Black History of the White House
- By: Clarence Lusane
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Black History of the White House presents the untold history, racial politics, and shifting significance of the White House as experienced by African Americans, from the generations of enslaved people who helped to build it or were forced to work there to its first black first family, the Obamas.
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From Quarries to the Oval Office - Unforgettable
- By Susie on 07-14-16
By: Clarence Lusane
What listeners say about Rule and Ruin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Easton Reader
- 03-05-16
Excellent and important history and insightful discussion
This is a fairly thorough discussion of the history, causes, and consequences of the right-wing seizure of the Republican Party from Eisenhower to the present.
Narration is excellent except for a few mispronunciations.
Highly recommended.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tamengua
- 12-13-19
Interesting, but could be half as long
Interesting history and very thorough. Honestly it could be about half as long and It’d be more engaging.
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- MJE
- 01-22-16
Kabaservice doesn't make the case
This is a superb chronological exposition of the history of the GOP from the time of Eisenhower - but his failure to counterbalance the narrative by discussing the Democrat's lurch to the left of the political spectrum diminishes a well told albeit history of politics over the last 60 years. Blaming the GOP for the dysfunction in DC is totally disingenuous. Both party's lurch away from the center are equally culpable. However, since the conservatives want less government they will probably be more content with the idea that nothing gets done anymore.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Sheila Bryan
- 09-06-21
excellent explanation of the crazy train clown car
Thorough review of how centrism in the GOP failed this country and lead to crazy town in the GOP. I hope he does an update of how they went off the rails since 2012 to 2021 and straight into alternative reality land.
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- Linda Blake
- 09-09-22
Rule and Ruin
I note that this was published in 2014. I shall be looking this author up to see what he has to say about 2026- 2021. What he proposes has indeed come to pass. I have only voted Republican once in my voting life. I shall NEVER make that error again.
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- Carol Kurtz
- 10-30-22
Tedious
Far too much to read to get the essence of the book, really a miasma.
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