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You are here: Home / Archives for Books / Nixonland

Nixonland

NIXONLAND II: “The Stench”

by Anne Laurie|  February 7, 20118:54 pm| 292 Comments

This post is in: Books, Nixonland

Herein emergeth both “Nixon the Loser” and “The New Nixon” (same as the old Nixon, but with embedded viral marketing). What say y’all?

Have to admit, this is also where Perlstein starts to run crossgrain to my own prejudices:

Went one of the Stevenson/Galbraith jeremiads… “Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. America is something different.”
__
Of course, saying a President Nixon would unleash the bomb was also slander and scare, and spared not the innuendo. Adlai Stevenson and his learned speechwriter had coined a useful word, Nixonland. They just did not grasp its full resonance. They described themselves outside its boundaries. Actually, they were citizens in good standing… [I]t only stood to reason that if you believed your opponent was neither sensible nor sober and would do anything to win, and that his victory would destroy civlization, a certain insobriety was permissible to beat him.

I have no opinion of Adlai Stevenson (which is the way my people say: I have a conviction that Stevenson is too minor a character to bother having an opinion about), but I would argue that Galbraith was indisbutably correct to assert that “Nixonland” was (is) a sociological construct in opposition to all that is best and decent behind the concept of “America”. Of course, this is because I’ve spent my entire life on the Galbraithian side of the divide… and I blame the Stench Artists Nixonians for its very existence…

NIXONLAND II: “The Stench”Post + Comments (292)

Late Afternoon Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  February 7, 20114:39 pm| 42 Comments

This post is in: Nixonland, Open Threads, Popular Culture

First off, another reminder: NIXONLAND discussion group tonight, 9pm EST, “The Stench”. Now aren’t you curious enough to come lurk and see what you’re missing?

Second, since I know many of us are geeks and some of us are gamers, how come no love for this particular Superbowl ad?

Late Afternoon Open ThreadPost + Comments (42)

Nixonland Reminder

by Anne Laurie|  February 3, 20115:27 pm| 57 Comments

This post is in: Books, Nixonland

Next virtual meeting of the Balloon Juice Book Group is Monday evening, February 7, 9pm EST, because a bunch of participants (including Rick Perlstein) are going to be busy watching the Superbowl on Sunday afternoon.

We’ve only up to the third chapter (“The Stench”), so it’s not too late to download the enchanced e-book edition and join the discussion. Lurkers always welcome!

Nixonland ReminderPost + Comments (57)

Sunday Evening Open Thread

by Anne Laurie|  January 30, 20116:22 pm| 97 Comments

This post is in: Nixonland, Open Threads

Thanks to all who participated down-thread. Next Sunday is some big noisy quasi-religious observance for sports fans, I’m told, so how about we schedule the discussion of NIXONLAND, chapter 3, “The Stench”, for Monday evening, Feb 7, at 9pm EST? Or is that too early / too late / the wrong day?

Incidentally, I was a bit surprised that more of you ‘lurkers’ didn’t comment on the book… rest assured, we would be thrilled to hear what you have to say, new blood is alway welcome!

Reading assignments aside, what are y’all doing this evening?

Sunday Evening Open ThreadPost + Comments (97)

Nixonland I: Hell in LA / The Orthogonian

by Anne Laurie|  January 30, 20113:55 pm| 238 Comments

This post is in: Books, Nixonland

The past isn’t dead; it isn’t even past. — Faulkner

Here begins the first virtual meeting of the BJ Book Group. Today’s topic: the preface and first two chapters of Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland.

What do y’all think?

One thing: I hadn’t realized how much Nixon used the “popular media” successfully. I know everyone remembers the Checkers speech as a near-career-killer and the infamous JFK tv debate as a debacle, but Perlstein demonstrates in convincing detail that Nixon used those “failures”, as much as they stung at the time, to dog-whistle to those among his fellow grievance-huggers who would become his Silent Majority.

Another thing: The Goldwaterite wing of the Republican Party — the people now calling themselves Tea Partiers — really does come off as a cult, right from the beginning:

Experts, claiming the Republican tradition of progressivism was as much a part of its identity as the elephant, began talking about a party committing suicide. The Goldwaterites didn’t see suicide. They saw redemption. This was part and parcel of their ideology — that Lyndon Johnson’s “consensus” was their enemy in a battle for the survival of civilization. For them, the idea that calamitous liberal nonsense […] could be described as a “consensus” at all was symbol and substance of America’s moral rot. They also believed the vast majority of ordinary Americans already agreed with them […] It was their article of faith. And faith, and the uncompromising passions attending it, was key to their political makeup. (p.5)

Nixonland I: Hell in LA / The OrthogonianPost + Comments (238)

Nixonland: Book Group Reminder

by Anne Laurie|  January 28, 20119:14 pm| 56 Comments

This post is in: Books, Nixonland

After Checkers, to the cosmopolitan liberals, hating Richard Nixon, congratulating yourself for seeing through Richard Nixon and the elaborate political poker bluffs with which he hooked the sentimental rubes, was becoming part and parcel of a political identity…

Four o’clock EST, this Sunday, we discuss the first two chapters of Nixonland.: the Rise of A President and the Fracturing of America.

The book is info-dense, but Perlstein’s range is giving me all sorts of details I hadn’t heard before, even though I consider myself fairly well read about Nixon’s pre-Watergate history.

Nixonland: Book Group ReminderPost + Comments (56)

NIXONLAND: Official Book Group Invitation

by Anne Laurie|  January 20, 20115:34 pm| 74 Comments

This post is in: Books, Nixonland

First online ‘meeting’ of the BJ Book Group will start at 4pm EST Sunday, January 30th. The book, of course, is Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland. If you own an e-reader (are an e-reader?), commentor RSR pointed out that an “enhanced” e-book with CBS news footage is available through publishers Simon & Shuster.

Now that I’ve pored through the pages available on Amazon, let’s plan on covering the preface and first two chapters, plus the notes and related backup material as necessary.

I’ve added a new category, in hopes that people will be able to use the ‘search’ function to find all posts related to Nixonland as we progress.

Any suggestions, comments, or disagreements will be accepted in the spirit in which they are offered.

NIXONLAND: Official Book Group InvitationPost + Comments (74)

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