Republic of Wrath: How American Politics Turned Tribal, From George Washington to Donald Trump

by James. A. Morone

Overview

A prize-winning political scientist untangles the deep roots of tribalism in America.


American politics seems to be in an unprecedented uproar. But in this revelatory work of political history, James A. Morone shows that today's rancor isn't what's new — the clarity of the battle lines is. Past eras were full of discord, but the most contentious question in American society — Who are we? — never split along party lines.


Instead, each party reached out to different groups on the margins of power: immigrants, African Americans, and women. But, as the United States underwent profound societal transformations from the Civil War to the populist explosion to the Great Migration to civil rights to the latest era of immigration, the party alignment shifted. African Americans conquered the old segregationist party and Democrats slowly evolved into the party of civil rights, immigration, and gender rights. Republicans turned whiter and more nativist. The unprecedented party lineup now injects tribal intensity into every policy difference.


Republic of Wrath tells the story of America as we've never heard it before, explaining the origins of our fractious times and suggesting how we might build a more robust republic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465002443
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/08/2020
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	365,592
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

James A. Morone is the John Hazen White professor of political science and public policy at Brown University. He is author of two New York Times notable books and the award-winning Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Introduction: How American Politics Turned Tribal 1

Part I The Parties Rise

1 Into the Temple of Liberty on the Shoulders of Slaves: The First Political Campaign (1800) 29

2 "Keep the Ball Rolling": The First Campaign for the Masses (1840) 61

Part II Crack-Up: The Civil War and America's Identity

3 A Fire Bell in the Night: The Path to War (1852-1860) 95

4 Who Are We? The Civil War and Its Legacies (1860-1876) 127

Part III The Populists and their Long Shadow

5 Populism and the Rise of Active Government (1890-1900) 175

6 The New Deal and the Origins of Contemporary America (1933-1948) 215

Part IV American Politics Turn Tribal

7 The Election That Remade American Politics (1964) 265

8 We Win, They Lose: Tribal Politics at High Tide (1968-2020) 293

Conclusion: What Next? 335

Acknowledgments 355

Notes 359

Index 405

Editorial Reviews

07/20/2020

Political scientist Morone (The Devils We Know) surveys more than 200 years of partisan discord in this incisive and well-researched history. Though immigration and race have been flash points since the first contested election in 1800, Morone writes, today’s disagreements over “who votes and how easily” have reached an unprecedented ferocity due to party realignment; Democrats now represent “all the so-called minorities” and their liberal supporters, while “white, native males” lean Republican. Sketching the evolution of the major parties through the 19th and 20th centuries, Monroe pinpoints Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, which paved the way for landmark civil rights legislation, as the genesis of today’s “fierce tribal politics.” Resentment over minority progress broke up the coalition of Southern Democrats and Northern liberals that had been the backbone of New Deal and Great Society reforms, Monroe contends, and transformed the Republicans into the party of “small government, moral values, states’ rights, and racial backlash.” Monroe marshals a vast amount of information into a brisk, accessible narrative, and draws illuminating contrasts between past and present, spotlighting, for instance, stark differences between the politics of Democratic presidential candidates Harry Truman and Hillary Clinton. This nuanced and richly detailed account offers essential perspective ahead of the 2020 election. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"James A. Morone's Republic of Wrath offers a fresh theory to an already sizable pile of explanations for the dismal state of our politics."—New York Times


"Morone marshals a vast amount of information into a brisk, accessible narrative, and draws illuminating contrasts between past and present.... This nuanced and richly detailed account offers essential perspective ahead of the 2020 election."—Publishers Weekly


"A brilliant exposé of the uglier undercurrents of American political history."—Kirkus

"With deep learning, uncommon historical range, and a vibrant analytical voice, James Morone displays how contentious party divisions in the United States have long been charged by outrage about race, immigration, and gender. What is new, his Republic of Wrath persuasively explains, is how political barriers that divide configurations of passion about identity presently have become ever more absolute."—Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

"James Morone has written a grand, eloquent, and consistently insightful narrative of the conflicts over race and immigration that have always been central to politics and governance in the United States. Republic of Wrath is an essential book for anyone who wants to understand the deepest and darkest sources of our partisan discontents."—Michael Kazin, author of The Populist Persuasion: An American History

"Republic of Wrath is both a valuable historical survey and an important intervention at a pregnant political moment. Both our historical memories and our current debates will benefit from the lessons it teaches."—Eric Alterman, author of Lying in State

"I am among many who rely on Jim Morone to offer insightful and provocative perspectives on our politics and history by way of pushing us to be better — more open to each other, more democratic in our practice, more honest about our problems. In Republic of Wrath, he does it again with great candor about our enduring struggles over racial injustice and immigration. And his solution to the problems of democracy is real democracy in which everyone can vote without obstruction under fair rules — and in which partisans who don't pretend to be anti-partisan but rather embrace their principles and 'take them to the voters.' A refreshing take on the way forward."—E. J. Dionne Jr., author of Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country

"Want to know why partisan tribalism has gotten so bad, and why the Republican Party, in particular, has embraced division and attacked democracy? Read Republic of Wrath. Combining history and political science within a gripping narrative, James Morone shows how enduring cleavages — black vs. white, native vs. immigrant — have become dangerously revivified in the present era."—Jacob S. Hacker, coauthor of Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality

From the Publisher

★ 2020-06-09
It’s us versus them—and thus it has ever been.

As Brown University political scientist Morone writes, what many of us find deplorable (or, for some, commendable) in American politics is old hat: “nastiness, violence, intolerance, fraud, twisting the election rules, bashing the government, bias in the media,” and so forth. Today’s partisan politics may seem particularly nasty, but compared with the election of 1800, they’re not so bad. Two issues stand at the dividing line: race and immigration. In the matter of voting rights, for example, “the most intense battles have always blazed around African Americans and immigrants,” and even now powerful forces are afoot to disenfranchise minorities. Astonishingly, notes the author, there is no basic right to vote at the national level, that being punted back to the states, such that at a certain time in history African Americans could vote in New York but not Alabama and women in Arizona but not New York. There’s a reason for the drive to disenfranchise, of course—namely, the “unprecedented configuration” by which “African Americans, immigrants, and women lean to one party, white, native males toward the other.” Morone traces the evolution of that configuration across the broad expanse of American history, charting the divisions between Federalists and Democrats in the early days of the republic, Thomas Jefferson’s winner-take-all solution to Electoral College votes to secure victory for himself, and like topics. He observes that with the election of Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, racial and ethnic debates were quieted but did not die, as is obvious today. Morone closes this wide-ranging and readable history by venturing some suggestions on how the “tribal” breakdown of politics might be further reconfigured so that Trumpist ideas are shed for the “big tent” notions of old in the Republican Party. At a more practical level, he urges that voting rights be made automatic and easy: “Register every American when they turn eighteen. No caveats. No paperwork. No convoluted residency tests.”

A brilliant exposé of the uglier undercurrents of American political history.

Kirkus Reviews

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