It takes two things to make a political lie work: a powerful person or institution willing to utter it, and another set of powerful institutions to amplify it.
Rick PerlsteinIn American religious history, theological qualms tend to get pushed aside when politics intervenes.
Rick PerlsteinIn Ronald Reagans case, he always bore with him this extraordinary ability to radiate confidence, optimism, clarity, a blitheness of spirit, in what other people saw as chaos. And after the 1970s, that was catnip.
Rick PerlsteinWhen legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger.
Rick PerlsteinIt is a lesson of the sixties: liberals get in the biggest political trouble - whether instituting open housing, civilian compliant review boards, or sex education programs - when they presume that a reform is an inevitable comcomitant of progress. It is then they are most likely to establish their reforms by top-down bureaucratic means. A blindsiding backlash often ensues.
Rick PerlsteinI cant summarize my favorite movie, Jacques Tatis Play Time. You just have to see it.
Rick PerlsteinIve summarized dozens of books in my literary career; its become rather second nature.
Rick PerlsteinImagine a senator running for president whose positions included halving the military budget, socializing the medical system, re-regulating the communications and electrical industries, establishing a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans, and equalizing funding for all schools regardless of property valuations - and who promised to fire Alan Greenspan, counseled withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, and, for good measure, spoke warmly of adolescent sexual experimentation. That was Barry Goldwater, conservative.
Rick Perlstein