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Wrong for All the Right Reasons: How White Liberals Have Been Undone by Race
Contributor(s): MacInnes, Gordon (Author)
ISBN: 0814755437     ISBN-13: 9780814755433
Publisher: New York University Press
OUR PRICE:   $88.11  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: February 1996
Qty:
Annotation: There was a time, in this century, when liberals championed the working class, when Democrats were indisputably the party of those who worked rather than invested for a living. Today, however, most Americans have come to see liberals as drifting and aimless, somehow lacking in backbone and moral fiber, beholden to radical ideologies that have little to do with the average American's life. Few incidents cast this phenomenon into greater relief than George Bush's successful tarring of Michael Dukakis as a liberal in 1988 - and, tellingly, Dukakis's subsequent flight from the liberal tradition. How has it come to this? Why have liberals allowed themselves to be so portrayed? In this book, Gordon MacInnes - state senator, fiscal conservative, frustrated Democrat, and a man who believes deeply in America's civic culture - reveals how progressive forces have retreated from the battle of ideas, at great cost. Squarely at the nexus of race, poverty, and politics, Wrong for All the Right Reasons charts the sources of liberal decline and the high costs of conservative rule. Tracing the origins of the liberal retreat to the fallout from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report on the black family, MacInnes claims that white liberals have somewhere along the way stopped taking black people seriously enough to argue with them. Taking in by the solidarity-over-debate approach of the Radical left and overwhelmed by the shrewd propaganda of the conservative Right, liberals have been continuously on the defensive for decades, unable to forge an aggressive, proactive agenda of their own to address the needs of working-class and poor Americans. This has led to a breakdown of honest dialogue that to thisday continues to plague liberal Democrats.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Minority Studies
- Political Science | Political Ideologies - Democracy
- Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social
Dewey: 305.8
LCCN: 95032529
Physical Information: 0.84" H x 6.3" W x 9.24" (1.00 lbs) 254 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

There was a time, in this century, when liberals championed the working class, when Democrats were indisputably the party of those who worked rather than invested for a living. Today, however, most Americans have come to see liberals as drifting and aimless, somehow lacking in backbone and moral fiber, beholden to radical ideologies that have little to do with the average American's life. Few incidents cast this phenomenon into greater relief than George Bush's successful tarring of Michael Dukakis as a liberal in 1988--and, tellingly, Dukakis's subsequent flight from the liberal tradition.
How has it come to this? Why have liberals allowed themselves to be so portrayed? In this book, Gordon MacInnes--state senator, fiscal conservative, frustrated Democrat, and a man who believes deeply in America's civic culture--reveals how progressive forces have retreated from the battle of ideas, at great cost. Squarely at the nexus of race, poverty, and politics, Wrong for All the Right Reasons charts the sources of liberal decline and the high costs of conservative rule.
Tracing the origins of the liberal retreat to the fall-out over Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's report on the black family in the 1960s, MacInnes claims that white liberals have somewhere along the way stopped taking black people seriously enough to argue with them. Continuously put on the desfensive, liberals have been unable to forge an aggressive, proactive agenda of that addresses the needs of working-class and poor Americans. This has led to a breakdown of honest dialogue which to this day continues to plague liberal Democrats, as evidenced by Bill Bradley's withdrawal from active party politics last fall.
Finding room for optimism in the groundswell of grass-roots progressivism, Wrong for All the Right Reasons is a timely, necessary call to arms for liberal, progressive Democrats, outlining ways in which they can reverse their party's dangerous decline.

Contributor Bio(s): MacInnes, Gordon: -

Involved in politics, anti-poverty programs and public and civic life for over 30 years, Gordon MacInnes is currently a state senator from New Jersey.