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Today on Heading Left — The Intellectual Architect of the Netroots
By nathanleewilcox | June 1, 2007
Today one of our guests on HeadingLeft radio will be Rick Perlstein author of “Before the Storm” — a book that is often considered a foundation document for the progressive netroots movement:
The intellectual genesis of the netroots analysis lies in a book called Before the Storm by left-liberal historian (and tnr contributor) Rick Perlstein. He argues that the conventional narrative of the ’60s pays far too much attention to left-wing activism. After all, he observes, the ’60s ended with the left smashed by a rising conservative tide that has continued to this day. The real story is that of the grassroots countermobilization on the right, which took its most public form in the Barry Goldwater campaign. This movement built counterparts to the dominant liberal institutions, slowly took control of the Republican Party from the moderates who had been running it, and jerked the national agenda sharply to the right. Perlstein’s book, wrote blogger and George Washington University political scientist Henry Farrell in a Boston Review essay, “enjoys near-canonical status among netroots bloggers.”
We’ll be talking about the book and also his recent blog post “Conservatives can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas…” which concludes:
So there you have it: Mike Baroody’s people. And a demonstration, our first, of a Big Con principle: there’s no set of ideas so dangerous, inhumane, antidemocratic, or stupid that a big enough right-wing infusion of cash can’t make look like it’s sound.
Call (646) 652-4803 to join the discussion.
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