Chain Reaction: The Impact Of Race Rights And Taxes On American PoliticsThree volatile issues—race, rights, and taxes—drive American politics today. They have come to intersect with an entire range of domestic issues, from welfare policy to suburban zoning practices. In an explosive chain reaction, a new conservative voting majority has replaced the once-dominant Democratic presidential coalition, and a new polarization has pitted major segments of society against one another. How did this massive power shift occur? Thomas Byrne Edsall of The Washington Post and Mary D. Edsall provide answers in this compelling analysis, cited by Newsweek as "one of the book[s] that shape[d] the debate" in the 1992 presidential campaign. |
Contents
Building a TopDown Coalition | 3 |
A Pivotal Year | 32 |
The Fraying Consensus | 47 |
The Nixon Years | 74 |
The Conservative Ascendance | 99 |
The Tax Revolt | 116 |
Race Rights and Party Choice | 137 |
A Conservative Policy Majority | 154 |
The Reagan Attack on Race Liberalism | 172 |
Groups Taxes Big | 198 |
White Suburbs and a Divided Black | 215 |
The Stakes | 256 |
Common terms and phrases
affirmative action affluent agenda American Political became black and Hispanic blacks and whites Bush busing campaign candidates Chicago civil rights movement coalition committed competition conflict Congress Congressional Quarterly conservatism conservative constituencies corporate cratic crime decisively Demo discrimination economic egalitarianism electorate employment equality established ethnic favor federal government force goals Goldwater groups Hispanic House Ibid ideological illegitimacy increasingly interview with author Jesse Jackson labor Lee Atwater legislation liberal Macomb County majority margin ment middle class million minorities Mondale national Democratic party National Election Studies Nixon partisan percent percentage polarization policies poll poor poverty president programs quintile Reagan administration realignment redistributive reform regulatory Republican party rights revolution sector segregation Senate shift social South southern strategy Supreme Court tion traditional underclass union University Press urban values Voting Rights Act wage Wallace Washington welfare white voters workers working-class York