Thread by @PaulHRosenberg

Feeling crazed? Want some distance? My author interview re "Conservatism: The Fight For A Tradition" explores a broader historical framework (2 centuries 4 countries) for understanding Trump: 1/10
salon.com/2020/10/24/how…

Conservatism is first a fight against the modern world, but also has an internal fight between those who accommodate to it ("liberal conservatives") & those who resist it (the "hard right") as well as specific historical factions. 2/10

Regarding the first fight, "What conservatives reckon they're resisting has changed as modern liberal life has changed". They fought both liberalism ("which lays out the feast") & democracy ("which draws up the guest list"): 3/10

Those were the fights conservatives engaged with in the first of 4 period covered (1830-1880). Next (1880-1945) was a period of "adaptation, compromise and catastrophe". Compromise first: 4/10

Then catastrophe: 5/10

The third period (1945-1980) is describe as "political command and intellectual recovery": 6/10

And the fourth period (1980-now) is "the contest for supremacy between liberal conservatism and the hard right". He describes "liberal conservatism" thus: 7/10

And here's what he says about the "hard right": 8/10

This is only a broad overview of the book's terrain. Each era has two chapters: on politics and ideas, with rich insights in both. 9/10

With a week+ till Election Day, I don't expect folks to read the book. But read the interview & see why you should prepare to read it afterwards. We need to understand the war we're in: 10/10
salon.com/2020/10/24/how…