Madison's Sorrow: Today's War on the Founders and America's Liberal Ideal

by Kevin C. O'Leary

Overview

“Essential reading” —Booklist (starred)

“Kevin O’Leary tells this complex and alarming story brilliantly.” —Robert Kuttner

“O’Leary could not be more timely...” —Norman Ornstein

“This beautifully written book is a must-read...” —Erwin Chemerinsky

An eye-opening cultural history of the political revolution that has destroyed the Republican Party and unleashed an illiberal crusade against the ideals of the Founding Fathers.

The story of America is the struggle between our liberal ideal and illiberal resistance. Donald Trump catalyzed a reactionary revolution by tapping into the dark, shadowy side of American democracy that embraces exclusion and inequality. Throughout American history these alarming impulses have come to the forefront of our culture—during the Civil War, the era of the Robber Barons, and the Civil Rights Movement—but have now come to fruition in the presidency of Donald Trump.

Arguing that the contemporary Republican Party is waging a counterrevolution against the core beliefs of the nation, journalist and scholar Kevin C. O’Leary cracks open American history to reveal the essence of America’s liberal heritage by critiquing the reactionary illiberal currents that periodically threaten American democracy. American politics is no longer an ongoing debate between liberals and conservatives because the new Republican Party embraces the feudal values of the Old World. While there are millions of conservatives in the population, the elected leadership of the GOP is deeply reactionary.

Today’s marriage of white-identity Southerners and their northern allies to moneyed libertarians is no run-of-the-mill political partnership. Instead, it is extraordinarily dangerous. Clearly, conservatives have lost their party. And without conservatives debating liberals in an intellectual, respectful manner to address the nation’s problems, Madisonian democracy breaks down.

A stimulating reinterpretation of the American experience, Madison’s Sorrow exposes the intellectual and moral deficiencies of the illiberal right while offering a robust defense of the liberal tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643134345
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	05/05/2020
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Kevin C. O'Leary is a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine and teaches in the Political Science Department at Chapman University. A contributor to The American Prospect, he was the lead West Coast reporter for TIME, as well as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He earned his PhD at Yale University. His previous book, Saving Democracy: A Plan for Real Representation in America, was a finalist for the American Political Science Association's Michael Harrington Award.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Introduction: The Birth of Reactionary America xiii

1 John Locke Invents America 1

2 Our Imperfect Founders 18

3 Illiberal Challenge from the Plantation Elite 47

4 Social Darwinism with a Vengeance 68

5 Why Liberals Love Government: The Progressive Era 83

6 The New Deal and Reaction: The Libertarian Fallacy 99

7 Rage Against Government: George Wallace 123

8 Zealots in Charge 140

9 Donald J. Trump: Revival of the Southern Demagogue 166

10 America's Reactionary Revolution 193

Conclusion: Liberals Answer Back 225

Acknowledgments 241

Endnotes 245

Index 303

Editorial Reviews

03/23/2020

O’Leary (Saving Democracy), a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine, delivers a sharp-elbowed yet shallow polemic accusing modern right-wingers of attempting to dismantle the liberal democratic traditions of America’s founding fathers. Donald Trump’s presidency, O’Leary contends, is the culmination of two trends in American conservatism that emerged in the latter half of the 20th century: a white identity politics that expanded beyond its traditional Southern base in response to the civil rights movement, and a winner-take-all conceptualization of capitalism that has fostered rising inequality. O’Leary sees these ideas as antithetical to the founding father’s vision for America, which drew from the meritocratic ideals of 17th-century philosopher John Locke, among other Enlightenment thinkers. O’Leary traces this moral vision from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to Barack Obama, whose 2008 election appeared to usher in a new era of liberal consensus, yet failed to effectively channel public anger about the 2008 financial crisis. Though O’Leary makes a strong case about the relationship between Trumpism and white identity politics, he fails to fully explain how the president’s protectionist trade policies and immigration restrictions fit with libertarian orthodoxies. Progressive readers will nod their heads in agreement that the “illiberal” wing of the Republican Party is bad for the country; those who need more convincing should look elsewhere. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"The Republican Party has lost its moorings and is hemorrhaging some of its most prominent thinkers and professionals. Donald Trump is the immediate cause, but only a symptom of a larger problem. Kevin O’Leary could not be more timely with his new book Madison’s Sorrow."

Norman J. Ornstein

"The problem with our politics is not Donald Trump; it is the many who support him. Kevin O’Leary’s book explains in great detail and with the clearest of prose, just how this crazy situation came about."

Alan Wolfe

"O’Leary illustrates with dismaying accuracy and compelling intelligence how illiberalism’s co-opting of the modern Republican Party has unbalanced the American system, allowing nationalists, white supremacists, and economic oligarchs to subvert the Founders’ aspirational ideals of democratic enfranchisement and equality. Essential reading."

Booklist (starred)

"Kevin O’Leary offers us a timely and important examination of the illiberal idiocy that courses throughout American history. He champions a revitalized liberalism that should win over those who are searching for an alternative to the threat posed by the right. This book should be read - and read now."

Kevin Mattson

"If you want to understand the deeper menace of Trumpism, read this book. Kevin O’Leary tells this complex and alarming story brilliantly."

Robert Kuttner

"A compelling account of the rise of the right in contemporary American politics and the threat that it poses to the country’s most basic values. This beautifully written book is a must read for all who care about the future of American democracy"

Erwin Chemerinsky

"O’Leary illustrates with dismaying accuracy and compelling intelligence how illiberalism’s co-opting of the modern Republican Party has unbalanced the American system, allowing nationalists, white supremacists, and economic oligarchs to subvert the Founders’ aspirational ideals of democratic enfranchisement and equality. Essential reading."

Booklist

2020-03-15
Returning to the Enlightenment ideals of Founding Fathers like James Madison to understand the stakes in the current illiberal political climate.

O’Leary—a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at University of California, Irvine, and former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and TIME—has been an observer of the political scene for three decades, and he cares deeply about the recent drift toward “reactionary” politics in the U.S. Noting that “for two centuries, [America] has been the modern Athens for those seeking a society that values democracy, equality, and freedom,” he is appalled by the Trump administration’s seeming determination to “reject that legacy, preferring instead the ancient authoritarian principles of privilege, hierarchy, inequality, and exclusion that divides societies into winners and losers based on ethnic identity, gender, social status, and economic power.” As other historians have documented, O’Leary points out the moment when classic conservative principles turned reactionary: the ugly 1964 compromise between Barry Goldwater and the white supremacist South, represented by segregationist George Wallace. To tell the unsettling story of the nation’s continued drift into Trumpism and its many attendant ills, O’Leary plunges back into the historical record, showing the strenuous adherence to individual autonomy that the Enlightenment authors espoused despite the illiberality of their own era. The author cogently breaks down the writings of Locke, Paine, and others, showing the terrible compromises the early founders had to make in securing constitutional ratification by the slave states. Moving into the recent past and present, O’Leary cleanly melds historical research with his own personal outrage. “Donald Trump stands as the embodiment of reactionary America,” he writes. “He is both a hard-right capitalist and a man who believes that his whiteness and his maleness give him the right to hold others who are neither in contempt.”

A highly opinionated yet accessible work of history and current affairs. (16 pages of color photos)

Kirkus Reviews