Is the Political Divide Harming America?

Download Is the Political Divide Harming America? PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Turtleback Books
ISBN 13 : 9781417786435
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Is the Political Divide Harming America? by : Julia Bauder

Download or read book Is the Political Divide Harming America? written by Julia Bauder and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 2006-06-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acrimony surrounding the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections has caused many observers to worry about the health of the American civic system. Some pundits believe that the American public is splitting into relentlessly hostile red and blue camps, while others argue that the divide is exaggerated. This anthology debates the extent, roots, and effects of the political divide.

Is the Political Divide Harming America?

Download Is the Political Divide Harming America? PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Greenhaven Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780737735222
Total Pages : 92 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Is the Political Divide Harming America? by : Julia Bauder

Download or read book Is the Political Divide Harming America? written by Julia Bauder and published by Greenhaven Publishing. This book was released on 2006-06-23 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series of essays discuss political differences in the United States. Includes a list of organizations to contact.

Mending America's Political Divide

Download Mending America's Political Divide PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (349 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mending America's Political Divide by : René Levy

Download or read book Mending America's Political Divide written by René Levy and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you feel that the current political divisions are harming our country, this book is for you because it provides a science-based, stepwise, approach to build constructive partisanship and re-learn how to engage with and live with political disagreements. Because its approach appeals to our reason as well as our emotions those who reviewed this book found it "transformative."

Divided America

Download Divided America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1416539050
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (165 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Divided America by : Earl Black

Download or read book Divided America written by Earl Black and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Divided America tells the biggest story in American politics today. It's the story behind the emergence of a ferocious power struggle between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats that is tearing the country's politics apart. Drawing on extensive polling data and close analyses of presidential, senatorial, and congressional elections over the past fifty years, two eminent political scientists show, for the first time, how partisan warfare has reduced both major parties to minority status and locked them into fierce power struggles in each election cycle, thereby making America less stable and more difficult to govern. Because the two major parties are now evenly balanced in the national electorate, control of the White House and Congress can shift dramatically with each election. Neither Republicans nor Democrats operate with any "lock" on the presidency, House of Representatives, or Senate, as demonstrated by the 2006 congressional elections. Earl Black and Merle Black examine the party battles as they've played themselves out in the nation's five principal geographic areas. Each party has developed two important regional strongholds, as exemplified in the 2004 elections, when Republicans won all the electoral votes and sizable majorities of House and Senate seats in the South and Mountain/Plains states while the Democrats won almost all the electoral votes and large majorities in the Northeast and the Pacific Rim states. The Midwest is the perennial swing region. The authors describe the enormous changes that have occurred in the electorates of each region over the past fifty years -- with emphasis on how the size and partisan affiliations of key groups have changed -- and show how these transformations have generated today's unstable two-party battles. Although the relentlessly competitive nature of modern American politics is generally appreciated, the regional causes underlying this new state of affairs are not well understood. Because neither Democrats nor Republicans can produce national majorities simply by sweeping their regional strongholds, they are locked in a fierce power struggle in each election. Divided America tells the story of these remarkable developments in clear, vigorous prose and provides a pragmatic understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each party. For the foreseeable future, each party will be within striking distance of winning -- or losing -- political power in every national institution. Understanding the party battles in America's regions is vital to understanding how today's losers can become tomorrow's winners

Polarized

Download Polarized PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691180865
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Polarized by : James E. Campbell

Download or read book Polarized written by James E. Campbell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening look at how and why America has become so politically polarized Many continue to believe that the United States is a nation of political moderates. In fact, it is a nation divided. It has been so for some time and has grown more so. This book provides a new and historically grounded perspective on the polarization of America, systematically documenting how and why it happened. Polarized presents commonsense benchmarks to measure polarization, draws data from a wide range of historical sources, and carefully assesses the quality of the evidence. Through an innovative and insightful use of circumstantial evidence, it provides a much-needed reality check to claims about polarization. This rigorous yet engaging and accessible book examines how polarization displaced pluralism and how this affected American democracy and civil society. Polarized challenges the widely held belief that polarization is the product of party and media elites, revealing instead how the American public in the 1960s set in motion the increase of polarization. American politics became highly polarized from the bottom up, not the top down, and this began much earlier than often thought. The Democrats and the Republicans are now ideologically distant from each other and about equally distant from the political center. Polarized also explains why the parties are polarized at all, despite their battle for the decisive median voter. No subject is more central to understanding American politics than political polarization, and no other book offers a more in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the subject than this one.

Why We're Polarized

Download Why We're Polarized PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476700397
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Why We're Polarized by : Ezra Klein

Download or read book Why We're Polarized written by Ezra Klein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-01-28 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. “Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.

Deeply Divided

Download Deeply Divided PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199394261
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Deeply Divided by : Doug McAdam

Download or read book Deeply Divided written by Doug McAdam and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-18 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By many measures--commonsensical or statistical--the United States has not been more divided politically or economically in the last hundred years than it is now. How have we gone from the striking bipartisan cooperation and relative economic equality of the war years and post-war period to the extreme inequality and savage partisan divisions of today? In this sweeping look at American politics from the Depression to the present, Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that party politics alone is not responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. Instead, it was the ongoing interaction of social movements and parties that, over time, pushed Democrats and Republicans toward their ideological margins, undermining the post-war consensus in the process. The Civil Rights struggle and the white backlash it provoked reintroduced the centrifugal force of social movements into American politics, ushering in an especially active and sustained period of movement/party dynamism, culminating in today's tug of war between the Tea Party and Republican establishment for control of the GOP. In Deeply Divided, McAdam and Kloos depart from established explanations of the conservative turn in the United States and trace the roots of political polarization and economic inequality back to the shifting racial geography of American politics in the 1960s. Angered by Lyndon Johnson's more aggressive embrace of civil rights reform in 1964, Southern Dixiecrats abandoned the Democrats for the first time in history, setting in motion a sustained regional realignment that would, in time, serve as the electoral foundation for a resurgent and increasingly more conservative Republican Party.

A Nation Divided: The Conflicting Personalities, Visions, and Values of Liberals and Conservatives

Download A Nation Divided: The Conflicting Personalities, Visions, and Values of Liberals and Conservatives PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Vernon Press
ISBN 13 : 1622737350
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (227 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Nation Divided: The Conflicting Personalities, Visions, and Values of Liberals and Conservatives by : Anthony Walsh

Download or read book A Nation Divided: The Conflicting Personalities, Visions, and Values of Liberals and Conservatives written by Anthony Walsh and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2019-10-02 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Activists have long claimed that “the personal is political”, but this book posits the converse: that the political is personal. The United States today is bitterly divided. It is less an aspirational melting pot of immigrants and more a salad bowl made up of distinct, often clashing flavors. The successive elections of two divisive presidents—one committed to the perennial leftist dream of “fundamental change” and the other to a conservative vision of “Making America Great Again”—have exacerbated what is arguably the greatest rift in politics since the election of Abraham Lincoln. Taking inspiration from Coleridge’s belief that all humans are temperamentally destined to follow the path of Plato the Idealist or Aristotle the Realist, this book examines the political divide in terms of these temperamental differences. Liberals’ and conservatives’ views of human nature have a large bearing on the political policies they espouse, but their temperaments and personalities have the most significant impact. This book analyses the personality traits of liberals and conservatives in terms of the “Big Five” model—openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Conservatives are found in almost all studies to be more conscientious, agreeable, and extroverted, while liberals are found to be more open to new experience and neurotic. The political divisions I explore in this book are all essentially fueled by personality differences. There is a deepening divide between liberals and conservatives in the battle for America’s soul: one side seeks to steer the nation sharply to the left into socialist selfdom, whereas the other side desires a wealthy and free America under the watchful eye of God’s providence. A preponderance of academic texts belongs to the liberal tradition. Conservatives have long lacked a comparable intellectual tradition of their own, although an incipient one is now beginning to form. This book, while maintaining a measure of scholarly distance, is unashamedly written from a conservative point of view.

Polling Matters

Download Polling Matters PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Grand Central Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0759511764
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (595 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Polling Matters by : Frank Newport

Download or read book Polling Matters written by Frank Newport and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2004-07-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Gallup Organization-the most respected source on the subject-comes a fascinating look at the importance of measuring public opinion in modern society. For years, public-opinion polls have been a valuable tool for gauging the positions of American citizens on a wide variety of topics. Polling applies scientific principles to understanding and anticipating the insights, emotions, and attitudes of society. Now in POLLING MATTERS: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People, The Gallup Organization reveals: What polls really are and how they are conducted Why the information polls provide is so vitally important to modern society today How this valuable information can be used more effectively and more...

Still a House Divided

Download Still a House Divided PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400839769
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Still a House Divided by : Desmond King

Download or read book Still a House Divided written by Desmond King and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-22 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why race remains the central political issue in America today Why have American policies failed to reduce the racial inequalities still pervasive throughout the nation? Has President Barack Obama defined new political approaches to race that might spur unity and progress? Still a House Divided examines the enduring divisions of American racial politics and how these conflicts have been shaped by distinct political alliances and their competing race policies. Combining deep historical knowledge with a detailed exploration of such issues as housing, employment, criminal justice, multiracial census categories, immigration, voting in majority-minority districts, and school vouchers, Desmond King and Rogers Smith assess the significance of President Obama's election to the White House and the prospects for achieving constructive racial policies for America's future. Offering a fresh perspective on the networks of governing institutions, political groups, and political actors that influence the structure of American racial politics, King and Smith identify three distinct periods of opposing racial policy coalitions in American history. The authors investigate how today's alliances pit color-blind and race-conscious approaches against one another, contributing to political polarization and distorted policymaking. Contending that President Obama has so far inadequately confronted partisan divisions over race, the authors call for all sides to recognize the need for a balance of policy measures if America is to ever cease being a nation divided. Presenting a powerful account of American political alliances and their contending racial agendas, Still a House Divided sheds light on a policy path vital to the country's future.

Disconnect

Download Disconnect PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806184809
Total Pages : 339 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Disconnect by : Morris P. Fiorina

Download or read book Disconnect written by Morris P. Fiorina and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-03-30 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Red states, blue states . . . are we no longer the United States? Morris P. Fiorina here examines today’s party system to reassess arguments about party polarization while offering a cogent overview of the American electorate. Building on the arguments of Fiorina’s acclaimed Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, this book explains how contemporary politics differs from that of previous eras and considers what might be done to overcome the unproductive politics of recent decades. Drawing on polling results and other data, Fiorina examines the disconnect between an unrepresentative “political class” and the citizenry it purports to represent, showing how politicians have become more polarized while voters remain moderate; how politicians’ rhetoric and activities reflect hot-button issues that are not public priorities; and how politicians’ dogmatic, divisive, and uncivil style of “debate” contrasts with the more civil discourse of ordinary Americans, who tend to be more polite and open to compromise than their leaders. Disconnect depicts politicians out of touch with the larger public, distorting issues and information to appeal to narrow interest groups. It can help readers better understand the political divide between leaders and the American public—and help steer a course for change.

The Reunited States of America

Download The Reunited States of America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781458794376
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (943 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Reunited States of America by : Mark Gerzon

Download or read book The Reunited States of America written by Mark Gerzon and published by . This book was released on 2016-02-29 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our country's motto is ''''E Pluribus Unam - ''''out of many, one'''' - but you'd never know it now, says activist Mark Gerzon. The United States seems hopelessly divided. In the past, Americans could disagree without demonizing each other. But now healthy partisan debate has been replaced by brutal political brawling, where nothing but winning matters. Loyalty to party has replaced love of country. The solution, says Gerson, is to become transpartisan. This doesn't mean adopting a new set of political beliefs. ''''Transpartisan'''' is an adjective, not another ism. You can be a transpartisan Democrat, a transpartisan Republican, or a transpartisan independent. It is about the how, not the what, a way of conducing politics and solving problems that is the opposite of the hyperpartisanship destroying our country. If you're open to learning instead of insisting you already have all the answers; if you're open to change instead of remaining where you've always been; if you're open to working with people you disagree with instead of vilifying them; if you're open to finding new solutions instead of clinging to the same old positions; in short, if you place country above party, you are a transpartisan! Gerzon describes the roots and core beliefs of the movement, and uses real - world examples to show how transpartisans are already making a difference all over America. This book, at its core, is about what has made America great - and what can restore that greatness if we seize the opportunities before us.

Broken News

Download Broken News PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Center Street
ISBN 13 : 1546002812
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (46 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Broken News by : Chris Stirewalt

Download or read book Broken News written by Chris Stirewalt and published by Center Street. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of America’s most experienced and exemplary journalists has written an unsparing analysis of the dreadful consequences -- for journalism and the nation -- of ‘how the news lost a race to the bottom with itself.’” -- George F. Will In this national bestseller, Chris Stirewalt, a former Fox News political editor, takes readers inside America’s broken newsrooms that have succumbed to the temptation of “rage revenue.” One of America’s sharpest political analysts, Stirewalt employs his trademark wit and insight to reveal how these media organizations slant coverage – and why that drives political division and rewards outrageous conduct. The New York Times wrote that Stirewalt’s book "is an often candid reflection on the state of political journalism and his time at Fox News, where such post-mortem assessments are not common..." Broken News is a fascinating, deeply researched, conversation-provoking study of how the news is made and how it must be repaired. Stirewalt goes deep inside the history of the industry to explain how today’s media divides America for profit. And he offers practical advice for how readers, listeners, and viewers can (and should) become better news consumers for the sake of the republic.

Twilight of the Elites

Download Twilight of the Elites PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307720462
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Twilight of the Elites by : Chris Hayes

Download or read book Twilight of the Elites written by Chris Hayes and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful and original argument that traces the roots of our present crisis of authority to an unlikely source: the meritocracy. Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters. How did we get here? With Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it. Mixing deft political analysis, timely social commentary, and deep historical understanding, Twilight of the Elites describes how the society we have come to inhabit – utterly forgiving at the top and relentlessly punitive at the bottom – produces leaders who are out of touch with the people they have been trusted to govern. Hayes argues that the public's failure to trust the federal government, corporate America, and the media has led to a crisis of authority that threatens to engulf not just our politics but our day-to-day lives. Upending well-worn ideological and partisan categories, Hayes entirely reorients our perspective on our times. Twilight of the Elites is the defining work of social criticism for the post-bailout age.

Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968

Download Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107158435
Total Pages : 381 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968 by : Boris Heersink

Download or read book Republican Party Politics and the American South, 1865–1968 written by Boris Heersink and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces how the Republican Party in the South after Reconstruction transformed from a biracial organization to a mostly all-white one.

Democracies Divided

Download Democracies Divided PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Brookings Institution Press
ISBN 13 : 081573722X
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (157 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Democracies Divided by : Thomas Carothers

Download or read book Democracies Divided written by Thomas Carothers and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A must-read for anyone concerned about the fate of contemporary democracies.”—Steven Levitsky, co-author of How Democracies Die 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Why divisions have deepened and what can be done to heal them As one part of the global democratic recession, severe political polarization is increasingly afflicting old and new democracies alike, producing the erosion of democratic norms and rising societal anger. This volume is the first book-length comparative analysis of this troubling global phenomenon, offering in-depth case studies of countries as wide-ranging and important as Brazil, India, Kenya, Poland, Turkey, and the United States. The case study authors are a diverse group of country and regional experts, each with deep local knowledge and experience. Democracies Divided identifies and examines the fissures that are dividing societies and the factors bringing polarization to a boil. In nearly every case under study, political entrepreneurs have exploited and exacerbated long-simmering divisions for their own purposes—in the process undermining the prospects for democratic consensus and productive governance. But this book is not simply a diagnosis of what has gone wrong. Each case study discusses actions that concerned citizens and organizations are taking to counter polarizing forces, whether through reforms to political parties, institutions, or the media. The book’s editors distill from the case studies a range of possible ways for restoring consensus and defeating polarization in the world’s democracies. Timely, rigorous, and accessible, this book is of compelling interest to civic activists, political actors, scholars, and ordinary citizens in societies beset by increasingly rancorous partisanship.

Loathing Lincoln

Download Loathing Lincoln PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807153850
Total Pages : 634 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Loathing Lincoln by : John McKee Barr

Download or read book Loathing Lincoln written by John McKee Barr and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most Americans count Abraham Lincoln among the most beloved and admired former presidents, a dedicated minority has long viewed him not only as the worst president in the country's history, but also as a criminal who defied the Constitution and advanced federal power and the idea of racial equality. In Loathing Lincoln, historian John McKee Barr surveys the broad array of criticisms about Abraham Lincoln that emerged when he stepped onto the national stage, expanded during the Civil War, and continued to evolve after his death and into the present. The first panoramic study of Lincoln's critics, Barr's work offers an analysis of Lincoln in historical memory and an examination of how his critics -- on both the right and left -- have frequently reflected the anxiety and discontent Americans felt about their lives. From northern abolitionists troubled by the slow pace of emancipation, to Confederates who condemned him as a "black Republican" and despot, to Americans who blamed him for the civil rights movement, to, more recently, libertarians who accuse him of trampling the Constitution and creating the modern welfare state, Lincoln's detractors have always been a vocal minority, but not one without influence. By meticulously exploring the most significant arguments against Lincoln, Barr traces the rise of the president's most strident critics and links most of them to a distinct right-wing or neo-Confederate political agenda. According to Barr, their hostility to a more egalitarian America and opposition to any use of federal power to bring about such goals led them to portray Lincoln as an imperialistic president who grossly overstepped the bounds of his office. In contrast, liberals criticized him for not doing enough to bring about emancipation or ensure lasting racial equality. Lincoln's conservative and libertarian foes, however, constituted the vast majority of his detractors. More recently, Lincoln's most vociferous critics have adamantly opposed Barack Obama and his policies, many of them referencing Lincoln in their attacks on the current president. In examining these individuals and groups, Barr's study provides a deeper understanding of American political life and the nation itself.