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.