Jonathan Chait's The Big Con

I haven't read it yet, but Jonathan Chait's new book, The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics, sounds pretty good—here's part of Chait's summary from the TPMCafe Book Club:

The Big Con tries to explain how far-right economic ideas have come to dominate the American political agenda over the last thirty years. The book is divided into two parts. The first describes how the Republican Party was transformed, from the moderate Eisenhower-Nixon-Ford party into a party whose central aim is the upward redistribution of wealth. This is a story about the rise of the supply-siders, the transformation of the business lobby, and the overthrowing of the old, responsible Republican elite by right-wing class warriors. (In deference to some of the right-wingers who have graciously agreed to join us, I’ll try to avoid describing them with words like “maniacs.”)

The second half of the book explains how they have managed to get away with it in the face of hostile public opinion. My argument is that the decades after World War II, when there was a broad consensus between the two parties about the role of government, produced a certain style of governing. This style worked for the conditions of the time but is totally unsuited to the new landscape.

Chait—a senior editor at The New Republic—is no populist, but he makes this interesting confession:

There’s something that’s always made me uncomfortable about writing in such starkly class-based terms, and I’ve figured out what it is. The sorts of people who think in terms of class tend to be pretty left-wing. For that reason, people who share my political predilections—generally in favor of the Clinton economic program—tend to steer clear of class when they analyze American politics.

The problem is, the GOP just is driven by class. So if you try to understand modern American politics without understanding class, you’re going to get it wrong. And I think most reporters, pundits, and public intellectuals have been getting it wrong.