Deadlock and Disillusionment: American Politics since 1968

Polarization, divisiveness, and dysfunction are defining features of early 21st–century American politics with no apparent end in sight. How did we get here? Deadlock and Disillusionment: American Politics Since 1968 explores the politics and policy debates, from the Nixon administration to the waning days of the Obama presidency, that have shaped the present–day political landscape. Rejecting the conventional wisdom that the recent political era has been characterized by the rise and primacy of the political right, in this latest volume in the distinguished American History Series, Gary Reichard shows how recent decades have been characterized by a hardening deadlock between the parties and increasing disillusionment in the electorate. Initial chapters take us from Nixon s cynical Southern strategy and the emergent Republican majority, to the Watergate scandal and its aftermath, up through the abandonment of idealism in the late 1970s. Themes explored in the decade of the 80s include the rise of the right–wing politics, culture wars, and Reaganomics followed by a look at the very real costs of trickle down economics. Reichard then traces the deepening divide of the final decade of the twentieth century by exploring such issues as the illusion of a liberal revival, the quest for a post–Cold War foreign policy, and the crises of the Clinton presidency. Coverage of the polarizing politics of the early years of the new millennium includes the divisive resolution of Bush vs. Gore and partisan battles over the war on terrorism. The concluding chapter explores partisanship since 2008 by looking at the politics of hope, government by dysfunction, and the trench warfare that is contemporary politics. Timely and thought–provoking, Deadlock and Disillusionment offers illuminating insights into the roots and evolution of the near permanent state of gridlock that has come to define America s contemporary political era.

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.