Nixonland, Then and Now: Q&A With Rick Perlstein

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Nixonland, Then and Now: Q&A With Rick Perlstein
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080518_nixonland_then_and_now_qa_with_rick_perlstein/
Posted on May 18, 2008

By Jon Wiener

“Nixonland”—that’s Rick Perlstein’s term for the political world where candidates win power by mobilizing people’s resentments, anxieties and anger, where politics destroys its victims. Truthdig’s Jon Wiener spoke with Perlstein recently about his new book, “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.”

Jon Wiener: Do we still live in Nixonland?

Rick Perlstein: Yes, we do. I don’t mean that the political anxieties and passions today are as great as they were in the late ’60s. But the way Richard Nixon used the ’60s to define the ideological contours of American politics is still with us. On right-wing radio today, they keep talking about how snobby and elitist the liberals are—just like Richard Nixon did.

Wiener: You are suggesting there was a time when the Republican Party did not win power by mobilizing resentment and anger.

Perlstein: In 1960, there was a strange creature called the liberal Republican. When Richard Nixon ran for president in 1960, his platform wasn’t all that different from Kennedy’s.

Wiener: A key turning point in the history of Nixonland is the invention of the “hardhat” as a political figure, which coincided with the rise of the flag as a partisan political symbol. We can identify that moment precisely: the riots on Wall Street following the Kent State killings in 1970.

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080518_nixonland_then_and_now_qa_with_rick_perlstein/
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Perlstein was one of the guests on Seder's show this afternoon. It was a good interview.