A review by marisbest2
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump by Corey Robin

4.0

There’s something about this book that utterly fails to be convincing in terms of describing real phenomenon. Listening to this book, you'd get the sense that the modern Conservative movement is propelled by ideology that just so happens to be patriarchal, racist and anti-worker. It takes ideology to be the first cause, implicit values (ie hierarchy, racism, ruling class etc) to be the derivative second cause and then throws up its hands about Trump (and to a lesser extent the populist parts of the Tea Party). But since the book came out, it's become pretty untenable to believe that the primary driver is ideology. Ideology may have created the modern conservative movement and GOP but it does not explain the sustained nature of popular and GOP support for Trump and Trumpism. Any such explanation much at least explore identity, teams and political incentives of the major players and the role of media.

In terms of history and ideology though, this book does a good job even if the author really really really hates Ayn Rand