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Mar 16, 2018
Too Dumb to Fail
How the GOP Went from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump
Summary
Political commentator Matt K. Lewis warns his fellow conservatives that their movement is going off the rails in Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump (Hachette, 2016). Lewis chafes at the populist, protectionist and nativist elements that have come to dominate the Republican Party, and argues that conservatives need to reacquaint themselves with the intellectual foundation of their own movement. He argues that many have overlooked how Ronald Reagan's success flowed from his intellectual grounding and cosmopolitan nature. Outlandish conservative media figures who peddle outrageous ideas solely to make a buck attract Lewis' ire, as he charges them with dumbing down their shared ideology. Lewis also tracks how an influx of southerners and evangelicals into the Republican Party created challenges that pulled the party away from traditional conservatism. Overall, Lewis presents an unvarnished yet constructive critique designed to create a conservative movement that can thrive in the twenty-first century.
Bill Scher is a Contributing Editor for POLITICO Magazine. He has provided political commentary on CNN, NPR and MSNBC. He has been published in The New York Times, The New Republic, and The New York Daily News among other publications. He is author of Wait! Don't Move to Canada, published by Rodale in 2006.
