This wasn't quite what I expected. But when I realized it was written by a history professor, it all became clear to me.

This is very much a chronicle of modern times, centred on liberalism and white liberalism in the US context. There's so much material packed in here, so many quotes and references (and not a few allusions) ... this is a dense read fit for fans of contemporary American history. Schultz traces how historical characters and incidents and attitudes have shaped the so-called hatred of "white liberals."

Frankly, I can't say that this was a pleasant read ... for me. Schultz can write, no question, and is clearly learned in historical matters (not only by virtue of his position, but in the sheer wealth and diversity of material cited in this text). Yet, this was a bit of a chore to read and really felt like, well, a history textbook. Dense, in a word. Moreover, the reader is expected to come in with a basic understanding of American history. Or perhaps there was just so much material that the author simply couldn't keep track of what had been explained before or not. I felt bombarded by a suite of ever-changing information and references (some opaque) nearly every paragraph. Again, this is impressive and hard to challenge ... but also the opposite of a light read for an average reader.

I'm also not sure if this level of detail is really necessary for answering the question of "why." My takeaway is that "liberal" and "white liberal" are merely scapegoats massaged and maligned over time by powerful entities for political purposes. I suppose this is an essential read for people unacquainted with such ideas or those not yet convinced.

There was also something unsettling about the text. At various points, I wasn't quite sure if the author was merely laying out the facts or showing his cards. For example, in one section he has "radical feminism" in quotes (like that), and I wasn't sure why. In another section, he offhandedly remarks about how Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has "some good points" without giving space to hose points (apparently not good enough to be worth the time and effort of sharing with us). He also uses "retarding" at one point; I would think that someone with as much social clout and apparent orientation towards social justice would avoid using words still associated with negative attitudes towards people with disabilities.

At the same time, Schultz calls a spade a spade, and doesn't shy away from engaging with race and power. One chapter draws liberally from the words of James Baldwin and other figures of colour while criticizing the more powerful players, such as Sidney Hook, who often attempted and succeeded in stealing the show from their Black contemporaries. Well done there.

My favourite tidbit was finding out that technology-obsessed 80s neoliberals were called "Atari Democrats." Ha!

This is an unflinching and unflattering history of the modern liberal tradition in America from the New Deal to this afternoon’s presidential proclamation regarding the 28th amendment. My generation is all too well aware of the history of Rush Limbaugh, the rise of Fox News, the shift toward the “owning the libs” strategy of right wing social media. What I didn’t know or at least didn’t understand is that those attitudes and strategies were outlined decades earlier. Stalwarts of Republican thought knew the power of words. They took the fight against Liberals to the realm of semantics and never let up. Redefining the people who were anywhere left of center in American politics as weak, feckless, dangerous and even demonic. The book does a fantastic job of laying out exactly when and where liberal politicians stepped directly into the traps laid for them. Unable to define themselves in a way that couldn’t immediately be dismissed as liberal. The discussion of what to call the left side of American politics starts with this post-mortem on the death of “Liberal” the word. It’s time to move on from the word, it’s baggage and everything that it used to mean both good and bad. But the questions remains what next?

I appreciate having found thorough references and sources that will lead me to my next reads. Most of all I found it cathartic in this time of recent post-election loss for the left, to really begin to piece together the forces against them. It is a great read full of history and I recommend it regardless of your party affiliation for the historical context and factual analysis it offers for today. In short this book is full of relevance and lessons primed for today.

Thanks to the author Kevin Shultz, Publisher: University of Chicago Press and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

The book is about the history of the term "Liberal," which is newer than you think, and its critiques, which are older.

It is foremost a book about language, and moves biographically through different politicians and pundits to discuss how each used the label and its variations, including the curious history of "Neoliberal," one of the greatest triumphs of descriptive lexicography.

The author is not out to rehabilitate the term and suggests discarding it, contra several other books this book mentions.

The author is quick to point out how these critiques contain an element of truth, maybe even too much so.1 The critiques around race and racism remain the most trenchant, and the most emotive. Many around class have aged poorly. Consider this me sending the "and let you live in a society" meme to Tom Wolfe's grave. As to the rightward critiques, the author's thesis is that there never really was a Liberal, excluding the feverish imagination of Aaron Sorkin. Primarily a means of not saying the c-word or the s-word, it was flipped and weaponized, specifically by William F. Buckley Jr., and became the GOP's glue.

Buckley is alleged to have sanewashed the fringe Right. This is a broader project towards the same end. The Republican party should not work. It is made up of ideologically opposed entities, where no tent would be big enough. The author's premise is that Liberal, as an idea, is the spit and baling wire that got old school Libertarians and the proto- Christian Fascist into the same room.2

By extension then, there is no such thing as a Conservative. We are all anti-Liberals; some are more anti- than others. The author has great evidence here. People were brazen about it as a strategy and took notes. And while contemporary politics only gets passing mention, the thesis fits.

The book is fun. Much more that I expected. The author makes light of much of who and what he discusses. It is not snarky, more of a deadpan stares into camera at hypocrisy and craven calculations, which know neither right nor left. This is also a both-sides argument done right. Outside the sense of an extended eye-roll at the ecology of grifters on this topic in the early '00s, a Conservative remix of the text would take minimal effort.

The problem is contained within the parenthetical of the title. The book is well sourced, except when it is not. Repeatedly, I found myself looking for a footnote that was not there, usually over a credible assertion that I wanted to see the primary sources on. The particular cluster here was around the self-defeatism. Why was the line of attack so effective?

The book's answer amounts to hate more marketable than hope, which has an Occam's Razor appeal. But centering in again the Buckley moment, how he built and articulated the argument is clear and well-supported. The response to it, the flight from Liberal as a concept, is not. I infer that the Left critiques of other chapters are meant to be that. But that is not quite the same thing. The book does not require an explanation of that to still stand, but it was jarring in comparison to how it treated other points.

The book is great as a study of political language, but it fails to answer the question its title poses. It is an important history, just not as useful as I might hope.

My thanks to the author, Kevin M. Schultz, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of Chicago Press, for making the ARC available to me.