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
In Ronald Reagans case, he always bore with him this extraordinary ability to radiate confidence, optimism, clarity, a blitheness of spirit, in… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
There is no freedom without groceries. There are no groceries without freedom. What people call 'capitalism' and 'socialism' are actually one and… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Reagan's emotional intelligence, his ability to suss out people's longings and to channel them for political purposes, was better than just about… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Look at liberty's greatest historic advances: ending slavery. Giving women the vote. Outlawing legal segregation. Each and every time, the people at… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Again and again as president, Reagan let it slip that he concurred with fundamentalists' belief that the world would end in a… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Presidents are always also storytellers, purveyors of useful national mythologies. And surprisingly enough, Richard Nixon, this awkward man who didn't even really… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
My liberal friends love to dismiss Reagan. You know, they'll say something like, 'Oh, didn't he, like, only read one-page memos when… — 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
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
Why was Barack Obama attractive to people in 2008? If you think about Barack Obama, there's all this anxiety about society, just… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Somehow, failures in the public sector are always judged as systematic. The private sector thus exists to ride to the rescue -… — 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
