The State of Our Disunion ― The Obama Years

Professor Emeritus Goodheart cites, for starters, the need for loosening the grip of ideology in the political arena. He quotes the founding father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke (1729-1797): “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in a half hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in an hundred years”. While the well-being of a nation depends upon common agreements and understandings among its citizenry as well as the freedom to debate differences, our nation is as deeply divided as it has ever been. He aims to understand how and why we have reached our current state of disunion by listening to the voices on both sides of the political divide, and reminds that it is always possible for one and the same person to be an advocate for change in certain matters but want institutional preservation in others. Ten chapters and coda are: the President and his base; the principle of political compromise; media narratives and their narrators; presidential debates and the media; Obama’s executive action on immigration; the Constitution: dead or alive; between liberty and equality; does the past repeat itself?; the uncertainty principle; on progress. There are works cited. Annotation c2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)