In American religious history, theological qualms tend to get pushed aside when politics intervenes. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
There's a certain kind of cultural energy pursued by the gatekeepers of elite discourse, who want to argue that Americans fundamentally agree… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
My big subject as a historian is how Americans divide themselves. What are the divisions that structure our political lives. Richard Nixon… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
We Americans love to cite the 'political spectrum' as the best way to classify ideologies. The metaphor is incorrect: it implies symmetry. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
One thing Republicans understand: In American elections, you have to choose from among only two people - not between the perfect and… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
While Obama might not push college education exclusively, like most Democrats he does oversell it and does shortchange the alternatives. And millions… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I believe politics is a team sport. That, for awful and unfortunate reasons beyond any of our control, the American system only… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Part of the fantasy certain pro-reform Republicans like to broadcast about Hispanics, family-oriented, churchgoing traditionalists, is that they are somehow natural conservatives,… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
It is a quirk of American culture that each generation of nonconservatives sees the right-wingers of its own generation as the scary… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
The history of American higher education over the twentieth century is an extraordinary one, the story of the creation of a powerhouse… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
When downed American pilots were first taken prisoner in North Vietnam in 1964, U.S. policy became pretty much to ignore them -… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Everyone on the Left has a favorite story that allows them to kind of excuse Reagan, explain away Reagan, say he was… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Unfortunately, given the rules of the American political game, people who try to participate by self-righteously refusing to identify with one or… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Leaders are for calling people to their better angels, for helping guide them to a kind of sterner, more mature sense of… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Prediction is structurally inseparable from the business of punditry: It creates the essential image of indefatigable authority that is punditry's very architecture;… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
America was founded on the fissure between slave states and free states, so these huge fault lines are just built into the… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I feel bound to respect Ronald Reagan, as every American should - not least because he chose a career of public service… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Watergate got us to think of leaders as mere mortals. America began to think of itself in a very different way -… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Over fifteen years of studying the American Right professionally - especially in their communications with each other, in their own memos and… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
The argument that John F. Kennedy was a closet peacenik, ready to give up on what the Vietnamese call the 'American War'… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I love trade magazines - any trade's magazine: by entering into what is taken for granted in a world not your own, you better… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
When the 2008 victory of Barack Obama and the defeat of grumpy old John McCain began looking, um, inevitable, I started fielding inquiries about… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Watergate got us to think of leaders as mere mortals. America began to think of itself in a very different way - I would… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Part of the fantasy certain pro-reform Republicans like to broadcast about Hispanics, family-oriented, churchgoing traditionalists, is that they are somehow natural conservatives, just waiting… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
The history of American higher education over the twentieth century is an extraordinary one, the story of the creation of a powerhouse set of… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
The only times during my religious instruction I remember hearing God's name invoked with any sincere conviction at all was in the oft-repeated and… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
As a general rule of thumb, Democrats do better in national elections when the year's defining issue is economic fairness, and Republicans do better… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Computers have cut-and-paste functions. So does right-wing historical memory. — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Empirical debunking cannot reach the deepest fear of the reactionary mind, which is that the state - that devouring leviathan - will soon swallow… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
I think that all politicians who aspire to the presidency are a little nuts, but for different reasons. What kind of person aspires to… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Chicago's privatization mania began during Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, which ran from 1989 to 2011. Under his successor, Rahm Emanuel, the trend has… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
