E.J. Dionne Jr.

discusses

Why the Right Went Wrong:
Conservatism—From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond

$5 tickets on sale now

This event includes a book signing

Date

Feb
23
Tuesday
February 23, 2016
7:00 PM ET
(Doors at 5:30)

Location

Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

Harvard Book Store welcomes acclaimed NPR commentator and Washington Post columnist E.J. DIONNE JR. for a discussion of his latest book, Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism—From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond.

About Why the Right Went Wrong

Why the Right Went Wrong offers a historical view of the right since the 1960s. Its core contention is that American conservatism and the Republican Party took a wrong turn when they adopted Barry Goldwater’s worldview during and after the 1964 campaign. The radicalism of today’s conservatism is not the product of the Tea Party, E.J. Dionne writes. The Tea Partiers are the true heirs to Goldwater ideology. The purity movement did more than drive moderates out of the Republican Party—it beat back alternative definitions of conservatism.

Since 1968, no conservative administration—not Nixon not Reagan not two Bushes—could live up to the rhetoric rooted in the Goldwater movement that began to reshape American politics fifty years ago. The collapse of the Nixon presidency led to the rise of Ronald Reagan, the defeat of George H.W. Bush, to Newt Gingrich’s revolution. Bush initially undertook a partial modernization, preaching “compassionate conservatism” and a “Fourth Way” to Clinton’s “Third Way.” Conservatives quickly defined him as an advocate of “big government” and not conservative enough on spending, immigration, education, and Medicare. A return to the true faith was the only prescription on order. The result was the Tea Party, which Dionne says, was as much a reaction to Bush as to Obama.

The state of the Republican party, controlled by the strictest base, is diminished, Dionne writes. It has become white and older in a country that is no longer that. It needs to come back to life for its own health and that of the country’s, and in Why the Right Went Wrong, he explains how.

Praise

"An important pundit delivers a thorough exegesis of the stubborn recurrence of the fringe right wing in response to a sense of 'lost social status in a rapidly changing country.'" —Kirkus Reviews
 

E.J. Dionne, Jr.
E.J. Dionne, Jr.

E.J. Dionne, Jr.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. is a columnist for the Washington Post, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, university professor at Georgetown University, and visiting professor at Harvard University. He is a co-author of the New York Times bestseller One Nation After Trump and author of Code Red and Why the Right Went Wrong.

Photo credit: Margot Dionne

Tickets are also available at Harvard Book Store and over the phone at 617-661-1515. Unless the event is sold out, any remaining tickets will be on sale at the door of the venue when doors open.

Tickets are non-refundable and non-returnable.

Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 10 minutes

As you exit the station, cross Mass. Ave. and proceed along Brattle St. Follow Brattle St. as it curves to the right in Brattle Square (follow the sidewalk on the right side of the street). The Brattle will be on the left-hand side of the street. The building is shared with Algiers Cafe and Alden & Harlow Restaurant, and the theatre entrance is on the left side of the building—look for the sidewalk poster case and marquee.

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