Polling only works in a country without a depressed, frightened populace. Where the public trusts authorities enough to tell them the truth… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Black Fergusonians have shown that they will vote when they have something to vote for and know that their vote will count.… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Whatever you think about his intelligence, what's unquestionable is that Reagan had extraordinary emotional intelligence. He could sense the temperature of a… — 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
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
For conservative leaders, making candidates pay them court, publicly and ostentatiously, is a colossal source of their symbolic power before their followers.… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Here's an irony of the history of conservatism's relationship with business and business's relationship with conservatism: 'Wall Street' used to be the… — 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
The fact is that the Democratic Party in modern times has always had a conservative wing, one frequently as strong or stronger… — 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
Here is a truism about the psychology of politicians: there is almost nothing so soul-definingly traumatic for them as losing an election.… — 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
In the suburban Midwestern Reform Jewish world I was raised in, in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, grown men built plastic scale models… — Rick Perlstein Copy Share Image
Conservatism is, among many other things, a culture. The most important glue binding it together is a shared sense of cultural grievance… — 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
