The Strange Death of Liberal America

Ralph Brauer defines Liberal America as a place where government exists to keep the playing field level. The success of the American experiment, he argues, depends on how well we maintain this equity and its four cornerstones: economic justice, educational equity, voting rights, and media fairness. His book is both a political and intellectual history examining the various threats to these cornerstones, and a social and cultural chronicle. Touching on music, television, movies, and sports, Brauer's thesis is underscored by a historical discussion that begins with the New Deal and works its way to the present, ending with Global Warming and the Iraq War. Arguing that the patient is in intensive care, Brauer identifies three reasons for the decline of the level playing field: 1) a Republican counterrevolution dedicated to rolling back the values of the New Deal, 2) an inability of both parties to answer questions raised by decades of Civil Rights revolutions, and 3) the transformation of suburban America from a place of opportunity created by government programs to a battleground. These three ideas form the basis for the book's three sections. Part One follows the development of the Counterrevolutionary Coalition, beginning with the Southern Strategy and ending with a chapter on America's politicized media. Part Two focuses on questions that have been raised by people of color and by women, and treats the Democratic Party's failure to answer those questions as illustrated by events like the Nader-LaDuke campaign and the 1964 Atlantic City convention. Part Three details the impact of suburban America on the cornerstones.