54 Rick Perlstein Quotes for You to Enjoy

Rick Perlstein

American Historian

Born: 1969

American Own People Political Time You

Related authors: Carter G. Woodson Daniel J. Boorstin David McCullough Henry Adams James Truslow Adams Robert Fogel Tara Westover Will Durant

Richard M. Nixon honestly believed in his bones that an organized conspiracy of liberal media insiders had literally been plotting against him ever since he broke Alger Hiss in 1948 (he never shifted course, and lost his soul). Rick Perlstein

Soul Conspiracy Lost Honestly Liberal Broke Nixon Plotting Never Had He Since Him Course Shifted Been His Literally Against Richard Organized Media Believed Ever Bones

Liberals tend to stress how marvelous education is, in and of itself, and also adore it as a vessel for genuine equality. (That's me, by the way: Hell, I think we should be spending $50 billion a year to make college education free). Rick Perlstein

Education Me Equality Stress College Free Year Hell Think Spending Liberals Way College Education Adore Tend Marvelous Also Make Genuine How Itself Vessel Should Billion

Fight injustice, that our children might be blessed. Rick Perlstein

Injustice Fight Blessed Our Children Might

I'm just a Bolshevik with a laptop. Rick Perlstein

Just Laptop Bolshevik

Back when I was 16, when I should have been doing normal high school things, I availed myself of my brand new driver's license to spend as much time as possible in Milwaukee's Renaissance Book Shop, a tumbledown five-story warehouse that the city was finally able to close down in 2011 for safety reasons. It was my teenage paradise. Rick Perlstein

Time Myself Book School Safety Paradise Down Teenage Back Spend Finally Possible High License City Able High School Driver New Renaissance Doing Been Normal Brand Close Brand New Shop Warehouse Much Should Reasons Things Milwaukee

The reactionary percentage of the electorate in these United States has been relatively constant since McCarthy's day; I'd estimate it as hovering around 30 percent. A minority, but one never all that enamored of the niceties of democracy - they see themselves as fighting for the survival of civilization, after all. Rick Perlstein

Day Democracy Survival Minority Fighting Relatively States Has-Been Constant See Percent Percentage Civilization Never Since Reactionary Around Hovering Enamored Been After McCarthy Estimate Themselves Electorate United United States

All right-wing antigovernment rage in America bears a racial component, because liberalism is understood, consciously or unconsciously, as the ideology that steals from hard-working, taxpaying whites and gives the spoils to indolent, grasping blacks. Rick Perlstein

Ideology Rage Liberalism Right-Wing Component Blacks Steals Gives Bears Spoils Because Understood America Racial Whites Grasping Hard-Working

Racial rhetoric has been entwined with government from the start, all the way back to when the enemy was not Obamacare but the Grand Army of the Republic (and further in the past than that: Thomas Jefferson, after all, was derided as 'the Negro President'). Rick Perlstein

Government Army Enemy Past President Thomas Thomas Jefferson Back Way Further Has-Been Obamacare Entwined Been Than Rhetoric After In The Past Grand Republic Racial Jefferson Start

While writing books about the past, I think about the present. It's not intentional, but somehow my books end up being written under the sign of a political mood. Rick Perlstein

Writing Political Past Think Books Mood Sign About Somehow Written End Up Intentional Being While Present

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature. Rick Perlstein

Nature Become Books Rather Literary Dozens Second Career Second Nature

I can't summarize my favorite movie, Jacques Tati's 'Play Time.' You just have to see it. Rick Perlstein

Time You Summarize Favorite Favorite Movie See Jacques Just Movie Play

For conservative leaders, making candidates pay them court, publicly and ostentatiously, is a colossal source of their symbolic power before their followers. It's kabuki theater, mostly. Rick Perlstein

Conservative Power Before Pay Followers Colossal Leaders Mostly Court Making Source Candidates Theater Them Publicly Symbolic

Ronald Reagan never did much to make abortion illegal. He did, however, deliver videotaped greetings, fulsome in praise for his hosts, to antiabortion rallies on the Mall. Rick Perlstein

Abortion Deliver Never He Hosts Make Praise Reagan However His Mall Did Ronald Reagan Much Illegal Rallies

Somehow, failures in the public sector are always judged as systematic. The private sector thus exists to ride to the rescue - and their failures are only judged anomalies. A pretty nice arrangement for investors. The only people who suffer are the citizens. Rick Perlstein

People Ride Nice Sector Systematic Citizens Pretty Somehow Only Investors Thus Failures Judged Always Arrangement Private Exists Private Sector Public Rescue Who Public Sector Suffer

Empirical debunking cannot reach the deepest fear of the reactionary mind, which is that the state - that devouring leviathan - will soon swallow up all traces of human volition and dignity. The conclusion is based on conservative moral convictions that reason can't shake. Rick Perlstein

Dignity Conservative Fear Mind Will Convictions State Moral Shake Volition Soon Empirical Reach Reactionary Traces Conclusion Up Human Cannot Swallow Which Reason Based Deepest

Let there be a special place in Hell for pundits who make predictions. Rick Perlstein

Hell Pundits Make Place Predictions Special Who Special Place

When downed American pilots were first taken prisoner in North Vietnam in 1964, U.S. policy became pretty much to ignore them - part and parcel of President Lyndon B. Johnson's determination to keep the costs of his increasingly futile military escalation in Southeast Asia from the public. Rick Perlstein

Determination First Prisoner Military Increasingly Lyndon President Futile Pretty Parcel Costs Johnson Part Taken Part And Parcel Policy Became Pilots Were His Escalation Southeast Southeast Asia North American North Vietnam Public Asia Them Much Vietnam Ignore Keep

For a movement supposedly devoted to conserving the past, conservatives are oh-so-splendid at forgetting their own past. Rick Perlstein

Past Own Conservatives Conserving Supposedly Devoted Forgetting Movement

Call it Camelot's revenge: the class of court scribes who made it their profession to uphold a make-believe version of America free of conflict and ruled by noble men helped Nixon get away with it for so long - because, after all, America was ruled by noble men. Rick Perlstein

There's no question that Kennedy was an utter failure as a passer of laws during his proverbial thousand days. Rick Perlstein

Failure Thousand Laws No Question Days Proverbial His Question Utter Kennedy

What is considered 'conservative' and what is considered 'liberal' changes in any given era. Rick Perlstein

Conservative Changes Liberal Considered Given Era Any

Here's an irony of the history of conservatism's relationship with business and business's relationship with conservatism: 'Wall Street' used to be the right-wing industrialists of the forties and fifties' greatest term of derision. (Wall Street was the place that humiliated them by forcing them, hat in hand, to beg for capital). Rick Perlstein

Relationship History Business Forcing Conservatism Humiliated Right-Wing Hat Term Greatest Hand Beg Wall Wall Street Irony The History Of Place Them Capital Fifties Forties Derision Used Street Here

Lyndon B. Johnson thought he'd have the boys home from Vietnam by Christmas - for four Christmases in a row (he never shifted course, and lost his presidency for it). Rick Perlstein

Christmas Home Thought Lost Presidency Lyndon Johnson Never He Course Boy Shifted His Vietnam Row Four

Conservatives are time-biders. And they understand, as Corey Robin explains in his indispensable book 'The Reactionary Mind,' that the direction of human history is not on their side - that is why they are reactionaries - because, other things equal, civilization does tend towards more inclusion, more emancipation, more liberalism. Rick Perlstein

History Book Mind Corey Other Conservatives Side Liberalism Emancipation Direction More Civilization Tend Indispensable Towards Equal Reactionary Robin Because Understand Does His Human Explains Human History Inclusion Why Things

Personally, speaking as a historian and a storyteller, when it comes to inaccuracy in historical fictioneering, I follow the Shakespeare principle: I'm willing to overlook gobs of mistaken detail if the poetic valence is basically correct. Rick Perlstein

Correct Willing Detail Follow Shakespeare Poetic Mistaken Principle Overlook Historian Historical Inaccuracy Storyteller Personally Speaking Basically

Rick Perlstein Quotes

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