Lind, Michael. Up From Conservatism: Why the Right is Wrong for America.
New York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1997. 295 pages.
Michael Lind was just another name on our NameBase list of Heritage
Foundation internal phone numbers in 1988, and on the Council on Foreign
Relations membership roster, until he bolted from the neocons and decided
that he'd rather be a liberal again. If only the liberals weren't messed
up even worse than the conservatives! Earlier at Yale, he was a Humphrey-
Johnson liberal. Then he embraced conservatism and became a protege of
William F. Buckley, Jr. Having since parted company with Buckley, Lind is
now an editor for liberal Harper's magazine. Is this guy confused, or what?
Not really. He was merely born in 1962, meaning that he cannot understand
the 1960s. With the 1960s under your belt, American politics since then
is still impossible to digest, but at least it's somewhat less confusing.
Lind makes a valiant effort to put it together, in the course of which
he makes some trenchant observations about today's conservates and liberals,
and where each falls short. The conservatives betray genuine populism and
cozy up to Wall Street, by tricking their populist base into thinking that
culture wars are more important than the disappearing middle class. And the
politically-correct liberals are so absurd that they're almost extinct.
Meanwhile, nothing is happening in the reasonable middle. Hang in there,
Lind. You'll never get drafted, but the 1960s will return in another guise.
ISBN 0-684-83186-4
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