Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic

by Jay Cost

Overview

A popular columnist for The Weekly Standard, conservative journalist Jay Cost now offers a lively, candid, diligently researched revisionist history of the Democratic Party. In Spoiled Rotten, Cost reveals that the national political organization, first formed by Andrew Jackson in 1824, that has always prided itself as the party of the poor, the working class, the little guy is anything but that—rather, it’s a corrupt tool of special interest groups that feed off of the federal government. A remarkable book that belongs on every politically aware American’s bookshelf next to Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism and The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, Spoiled Rotten exposes the Democratic Party as a modern-day national Tammany Hall and indisputably demonstrates why it can no longer be trusted with the power of government.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062041159
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/15/2012
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.32(w) x 9.06(h) x 1.21(d)

About the Author

Jay Cost writes the twice-weekly "Morning Jay" column for the Weekly Standard and was previously a writer for RealClearPolitic and a popular political blogger. Cost received a BA in government from the University of Virginia and an MA in political science from the University of Chicago. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 All the Toiling Masses: William Jennings Bryan and the Jacksonian Revival 11

2 Bryanism with a Princeton Accent: Woodrow Wilson and the Founding of the Modem Democratic Party 26

3 A Mediator of Interests: FDR and the Establishment of the New Deal Order 44

3 He Just Dropped into the Slot: Harry Truman and the Consolidation of the New Deal Order 75

5 Let Us Continue: JFK, LBJ, and the Apogee of American Liberalism 96

6 They Can Count: Civil Rights and the Development of Black Politics 117

7 There's No Party That Can Match Us: George Meany and the Evolution of Organized Labor 138

8 The Share-Out Runs Its Course: The Election of 1968 and the Splintering of the Democratic Party 155

9 Too Much Hair and Not Enough Cigars: The New Politics and Party Reform 178

10 Hard Choices and Scarce Resources: Jimmy Carter and the Rebellion of the Clients 202

11 A Temporary Triangle: Bill Clinton and the Circumvention of the Clients 223

12 You're on the Menu: Barack Obama and the Triumph of the Clients 246

Conclusion 275

Acknowledgments 285

Notes 287

Index 343

Editorial Reviews

According to conservative Weekly Standard columnist Cost, clientelism is “the exchange of votes for governmental favors between a faction and a party,” and Democrats have signed on so many hungry mouths that demands for “gimme” have overwhelmed the public interest. In this revisionist history, Cost convincingly argues that, in striving to revive the national economy, FDR’s administration created a “Tammany on the Potomac,” which attracted elements of the ruling coalition to “the private benefits they enjoyed from the party’s benevolent protections.” Ironically, Cost says, although Andrew Jackson founded the Democratic Party in 1828 in reaction to rampant government corruption, modern Democrats evoke nothing so much as the venal Republicans of the Gilded Age, and they are “no longer capable of governing for the public good.” Cost suggests that the party has “become a threat to the American republic itself.” The book raises timely concerns in an election year. Agent: Byrd Leavell, Waxman Literary Agency. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Weekly Standard blogger Cost examines what he sees as the dangerous domination of the Democratic Party by special interests. The author looks at how Democratic presidents have handled various groups in the party coalition, including African-Americans, unions, feminists and environmentalists. He argues that Democratic presidents have long catered to such groups with expensive programs, to the detriment of "the public interest"--a practice that has made the party "a threat to the American republic itself." His historical overview is wide-ranging, extensively researched and often engagingly written, but readers who don't share Cost's conservative outlook will not be won over. Often, he seems to conflate "the public interest" with right-leaning policies. He lauds President Clinton for pursuing goals that liberal groups disliked, such as welfare reform and the North American Free Trade Agreement, while deriding Clinton's attempt to allow gays to serve openly in the military as a mere sop to a Democratic constituency. The author also roundly criticizes Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, who shepherded especially large government programs. But Cost saves his harshest words for President Obama, who he claims has "focused relentlessly upon the interests of the party clients over the public good." In particular, the author characterizes the president's health-care reform policies as a massive handout to left-leaning special interests. It is interesting to note that some members of these same groups regularly criticize Obama for not being liberal enough, a fact Cost does not explore. He also doesn't address how Republican Party policies have been influenced by its own coalition groups, which would make for an informative comparison. An impassioned argument that will only appeal to a conservative audience.

Kirkus Reviews