Partisans

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For decades, Ronald Reagan's name has served as shorthand for the entirety of the modern conservative movement. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, Reaganism was, from today's vantage point, a brief digression in conservatism's history. In the 1980s, an unusual set of economic and political conditions and an unusually charismatic leader combined to win huge majorities for Reagan's vision of American exceptionalism, commitment to small government, and faith in free markets and free movement in an era of rapid globalization. But from the very moment Reagan left office in 1989, dissatisfaction with Reaganism in the GOP rank-and-file began to grow. In Partisans, historian Nicole B. Hemmer identifies the forces that were, often imperceptibly, rewriting the DNA of conservatism in the 1990s. Propelled by former Reagan devotees, from Pat Buchanan to Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Party abandoned the optimistic Reagan worldview that once seemed to bind the conservative movement together. Changing demographics, shifting congressional coalitions, and the emerging political-entertainment media fueled the rise of combative far-right politicians and pundits who mixed anti-globalism, appeals to white resentment, and skepticism about democracy. Under their leadership a new American right emerged. It would have far more in common with the isolationist, pessimistic Old Right of the 1930s and 1940s than with the Reagan coalition of the 1980s. Tracking the transformation of Reagan acolytes into Trump cheerleaders, Partisans is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the right's turn toward divisive, populist politics"--