quotes

The Chicago Reader quoted and paraphrased:

From Adlai Stevenson to John Kerry, high-minded liberals have acted as if they were blind to the root feelings that feed the followers of politicians like Nixon and Bush. Instead, they alternate between expecting a fair fight on the issues (and getting swiftboated instead) and imagining that once people realize what a bad person Nixon or Bush is, the people will turn against him.

Conservatism isn’t just a temporary delusion or a wacky distraction. In Perlstein’s view, it’s a deep-seated expression of human nature…His point: “We’re not going to eliminate them. The best we can do is to win our 51 percent. What’s fascinating is that we share this country together.

Followed by:

He’s right about this. Conservatism is not an aberration. It is a facet of human nature and a permanent fixture in American life. At the moment they have a successful political movement that first grew out of a genuine grassroots uprising and was soon funded by the aristocrats (who are always conservatives) to help them protect their interests.