Deadlock and Disillusionment

List of Illustrations vii
 
Preface ix
 
Introduction: 1968--The End of an Era 1
 
1 The Politics of Cynicism, 1968-1974 5
 
The Shaping of a New Majority 7
 
Conservatism as Reform 16
 
The Politics of War and Détente 19
 
Watergate and Its Aftermath 30
 
2 The Futility of Moderation, 1974-1976 43
 
The Politics of Forgiveness 44
 
President as Political Prisoner 48
 
Détente Derailed 53
 
3 Dashed Hopes, 1976-1980 60
 
Fractured Majority 61
 
Threading the Needle 73
 
The Abandonment of Idealism 78
 
4 Dogma and (More) Disappointment, 1980-1988 89
 
The Rise of the Right 90
 
Reaganomics 96
 
Culture Wars and Party Politics 107
 
Reagan's World 117
 
5 Squandering the Inheritance, 1988-1992 136
 
Succession by Hardball 137
 
The Bills Come Due 144
 
New World (Dis)Order 153
 
6 The Deepening Divide, 1992-2000 171
 
The Illusion of Liberal Revival 172
 
The Politics of Triangulation 187
 
Quest for a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy 200
 
Crises of the Clinton Presidency 212
 
7 The Politics of Polarization, 2000-2008 221
 
Ultimate Deadlock: Bush v. Gore 222
 
The Politics of Anti?]terrorism 233
 
Imagined Mandate 248
 
The Politics of Certitude 262
 
8 The Politics of Red and Blue, since 2008 277
 
The Politics of Hope 279
 
Government by Dysfunction 296
 
The Politics of Trench Warfare 315
 
Conclusion: Deadlock and Disillusionment 328
 
Bibliographical Essay 335
 
Index 355

Gary W. Reichard is Provost / Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of History at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. In addition to teaching post-World War II United States history at the college level, Reichard has taught the history of American political parties and the history of American immigration and ethnicity. He is the author of The Reaffirmation of Republicanism: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Eighty-third Congress and Politics as Usual: The Age of Truman and Eisenhower (2nd Ed.), and is a former member of the Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians.