Exploring the complexities of American partisanship, the book provides fresh insights into its meaning and significance in contemporary society. It delves into the implications of political divisions, aiming to enhance understanding of their impact on the future. Through thoughtful analysis, it encourages readers to reflect on the nature of partisanship and its role in shaping political discourse.
Drawing respectful attention in a variety of disciplines - history, philosophy, and communications, as well as political science, this book is full of good writing, sound judgment, and the exactly appropriate rhetoric for an analysis of the rhetorical presidency.
This is a study of the losers in three major episodes in American political history and shows how their ideas ended up, at least partially, winning, in the long run. The authors consider the campaign of the anti-Federalists against the adoption of the Constitution; the failed presidency of Andrew Johnson; and the defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964, as political losses that later heavily influenced American politics later. Sometimes the losers, because they articulate a vision of American government that resonates with some part of America, later contribute to a new political order. This is not an effort to explain winning or losing in American politics. Rather, it is intended to offer a new understanding of American political development as the product of a kind of dialectic between different political visions that have opposing ideas, particularly about the size and role of the federal government and about whether America is exclusively a liberal regime or one in which illiberal ideas on topics such as race, play an important role.