The Corrosion of Conservatism does double duty as a mea culpa memoir and a political manifesto…Boot's clean, starched prose marches forward with all the spontaneity of a military parade…But the stodginess reveals how much soul-searching it must have taken to write this candid, reflective book. For his entire life, Boot wanted to be a good soldier. Instead he's now in his late 40s, waking up to the historical brutality of "white identity politics"…and incredulously wondering: "How could all these eminences that I had worked with, and respected, sell out their professed principles to support a president who could not tell Edmund Burke from Arleigh Burke?" How indeed? And Arleigh who?
The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai
08/27/2018The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam ) frankly explores his tumultuous relationship with the Republican Party, likening it to “a tale of first love, marriage, growing disenchantment, and, eventually, a heartbreaking divorce.” Boot, a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, describes the journey from the beginnings of his career at the Wall Street Journal through positions at the Weekly Standard and Commentary to his current role as a loud Trump critic at the Washington Post and on CNN. Due to his moral horror at the rhetoric and policies of Donald Trump and his supporters, the author has finally turned his back on the only political party he ever identified with, as well as on many of the conservative beliefs he first formulated as a young reader of National Review in the 1980s. While he considers the Democratic Party as a necessary buffer to Trump in the next few elections, Boot refuses to completely give up on conservatism. Instead, he envisions a future for American politics that includes a centrist party led by an Eisenhower-like figure for disillusioned center-left and center-right voters alienated by the extremists in power. Boot’s passionate and principled stand against alleged tyranny will resonate with many readers disillusioned with the state of contemporary politics. (Oct.)
"Bracingly honest.... If all the Never Trumpers had the humility that Max Boot has in The Corrosion of Conservatism , I think we’d go a long way to healing the breach on the right, which is deep. A brilliantly revealed memoir…. I want everyone to read [this] story."
"Boot’s book attempts to answer a looming question for conservatives unhappy with the current occupant of the White House: What now? The Corrosion of Conservatism does double duty as a mea culpa memoir and a political manifesto, detailing Boot’s "heartbreaking divorce" from the Republican Party after decades of unstinting loyalty…. [A] candid, reflective book."
"Max Boot mixes lively memoir with sharp analysis to make an important argument about the state of conservatism in America today. This is a book conservatives are going to have to reckon with and that all of us can learn from."
"Max Boot is one of our sharpest contemporary thinkers about politics, world affairs and America’s role in the global crisis facing liberal democracy. Unsparing, acute and wonderfully well–written, The Corrosion of Conservatism is a bracing repudiation of Ideological myopia, moral compromise and intellectual corruption. More than that, it is an indispensable dissection of how conservatism devolved from the philosophical rigor of William Buckley to the toxic tribalism of Donald Trump – and what we must do to set our future right."
"[A] lively memoir and acidic anti-Trump polemic…Like many of the best memoirs of ideas, Boot's story is one of conversion and de-conversion—of faith gained and then lost... Boot bolted. It was a decision both understandable and admirable. And he does a very good job of telling the story of what led him to it."
"In this searching and heartfelt account of his personal political evolution, Max Boot has given us a particular story with universal import. In this chaotic time, his sane and sober voice is a vital one, and his story is testament to the battle our better angels must wage against the insidious forces of darkness."
"[Boot] has written one of the most impressive and unflinching diagnoses of the pathologies in Republican politics that led to Trump’s rise. What makes Boot’s argument admirable is that he doesn’t simply follow his ideology in a mechanical fashion.... [he] accordingly retraces the steps both of his own career and the history of the movement he joined to try to discover where it all went wrong, what parts can be salvaged and which cannot…. Boot is making an astonishing break in his suggestion that the Republicanism of Eisenhower was actually good, and that the conservative alternative of McCarthy, Buckley, and Goldwater was misguided.... The truly radical act in The Corrosion of Conservatism is its clear-eyed excavation of the movement’s history."
"I found Boot’s book to be a valuable and provocative dissection of the things we had glossed over, rationalized, or ignored. He has sparked a debate that we need to have: to what extent does Trump retrospectively discredit the modern conservative movement?"
"In this poignant and brave political memoir, Max Boot digs deep and chronicles the intellectual journey that caused him to question previous beliefs and quit the Republican Party of Donald Trump. Both an intriguing confessional and an insightful behind-the-scenes exploration of how the conservative movement went awry, this candid, engaging, and important account provides critical lessons for the current moment and the days ahead."
"Max Boot came to America as a young refugee whose parents fled the old Soviet Union. A conservative inspired by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, Boot now finds himself a political refugee rightly offended by the excesses of Trump’s Republican Party and the continued collapse of American conservatism. His latest work is an important must-read for anyone hoping to better understand where the right went wrong and what the future of American politics has in store for us all."
"In The Corrosion of Conservatism , Boot charts his ideological odyssey. He deftly recounts his early attraction to the conservative cause and his revulsion at its embrace of Trump…. He explains what it was like to immerse himself in what amounted to a conservative madrassa. In describing his self-conversion from zealot to apostate, he emerges as the Candide of the right, offering fascinating insights into the psychology of a true believer.... His readiness to reexamine his old convictions is admirable.”"
"[A] page-turner…. Max Boot reveals himself as a thoughtful and serious individual who is wary of dogmatism from either political side. We who are readers of his books and regular columns should be thankful for his insight into the conservative movement, and for his intellectual growth and honesty."
"Boot has written the essential book of the Trump era, the one that needs to be read immediately by those of all political stripes."
"This is a significant book, and an elegantly written and enjoyable one. In explaining his own intellectual and political evolution, Max Boot presents a vivid modern version of America's timeless immigrant making-it saga—and also documents the catastrophic decision of many of his colleagues to abandon conservative principles in favor of Trump-era resentments and tribalism. This book will stand as a clear-eyed look at our times, and as part of the effort to find a better way forward."
"In this searching and heartfelt account of his personal political evolution, Max Boot has given us a particular story with universal import. In this chaotic time, his sane and sober voice is a vital one, and his story is testament to the battle our better angels must wage against the insidious forces of darkness."
2018-09-02
Washington Post columnist and CNN global affairs analyst Boot (The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam , 2018, etc.) contemplates the collapse of the GOP under the poisonous influence of Donald Trump.
The author is convinced that the Republican Party will suffer repeated and devastating defeats for its embrace of extremism, conspiracymongering, ignorance, isolationism, and white nationalism. He feels those events will be necessary in order to rebuild as a center-right party. As much autobiography of a conservative as a political book, the narrative discusses Boot's arrival in Los Angeles from the Soviet Union at age 7 and his early awakenings to politics. His intellectual heroes were William F. Buckley and George Will, and his political hero was Ronald Reagan. He went to college in Berkeley, "a town that never seemed to have left the sixties behind," in the days of rallies and sit-ins. After writing editorials for a while, Boot joined the staff of the Christian Science Monitor . That neutral line, between opinion and news, has now been destroyed by the likes of Fox News, Infowars, and Breitbart. Added to that, the "alternative media" has become a massive phenomenon, giving rise to the populism proffered by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others. The author's move to the Wall Street Journal and the Council on Foreign Relations cemented his role as an uncompromising conservative. As readers follow the GOP fall through Boot's eyes, many may wonder why it took him so long to leave. He states that the dark underside was always there. With Barry Goldwater in 1964, the GOP became a party of Southern whites, and the concept of states' rights was nothing more than a euphemism for racism. Furthermore, the party's refusal to support Barack Obama in his confrontation with the Kremlin contributed to the proliferation of Russian hacking. The Trump administration's complete lack of ethics, sheer incompetence, and Cabinet toadyism are driving home the final nail.
Republicans particularly need to read this book; it's not really news to the Democrats.
