Our Divided Political Heart (42 page)

The influence of Gordon Wood’s monumental work on the American Revolution, the Constitution, and the early republic is plain throughout these pages, and I have also learned a great deal about the historian’s craft from his superb essays, notably those collected in
The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History
and
The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States
. Wood should in no way be held to account for the use to which I put his work—which, of course, applies as well to the work of the many other historians whose accounts I cite. But since Wood’s writing about the origins of our republic has become close to canonical—a word with which he might be uncomfortable—he is probably accustomed to seeing his work used for many purposes by those holding a variety of views. I can only say that I have tried to be true to what he has written, and that his work on our nation’s Founding is inspiring.

During a visit I made to the University of Virginia, Brian Balogh told me about his book
A Government Out of Sight
, thought it might be of interest in light of what I was working on, and then sent it to me. He could not have been more right, and I can’t thank him enough. It is an enormously insightful book whose importance to my telling of the American story is clear. I have been similarly influenced by my friend and Georgetown University colleague Michael Kazin’s work on Populism and American radicalism. His recent history of the American left,
American Dreamers
, is vital to explaining how those outside the political consensus of their time often change popular understandings, alter the prevailing narrative, and transform the country—even if they never take power themselves. Alan Brinkley’s work has also played an important role here, particularly his fine book on the development of the New Deal,
The End of Reform
, and his brilliant essays in
Liberalism and Its Discontents
and
New Federalist
Papers
. The influence of Eric Foner’s breakthrough work on Reconstruction is also obvious, and his observations in
Who Owns History?
were exceedingly helpful.

Leo Ribuffo, another distinguished historian, has rightly argued that we are rarely mindful enough of the sheer complexity of American history, a lesson I have tried to take to heart, and he has taught me much over the years, through his wit as well as his scholarship. Doris Kearns Goodwin, who was a welcoming young professor when I was in college, has shown that it’s possible to combine deep intellectual seriousness with the vivid historical writing that has made her books so popular. My friend Robert Dallek is gifted in the same way. The late Christopher Lasch grabbed my attention when I was young and held it through the many turns of his brilliant, independent mind. Meeting him late in his life is one of the joys of mine.

A few other works deserve special mention for their influence on this one: Daniel Rodgers’s
Age of Fracture
, Sidney Milkis’s
Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy
, James Kloppenberg’s
The Virtues of Liberalism
, Michael Sandel’s
Democracy’s Discontent
, George H. Nash’s
The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945
, Robert G. McCloskey’s
American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise
, Bill Bishop’s
The Big Sort
, Jill Lepore’s
The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History
(along with her excellent
New Yorker
articles), James Morone’s
The Democratic Wish
, Harold Holzer’s
Lincoln at Cooper Union
, Theda Skocpol’s
Protecting Soldiers and Mothers
, Thomas Frank’s
What’s the Matter with Kansas?
, John Milton Cooper’s
Woodrow Wilson: A Biography
, Robert Bellah and colleagues’
Habits of the Heart
, and Amitai Etzioni’s
The Spirit of Community
. I find it heartening that in recent years a group of younger historians has restored political history to the center of their profession. I’d encourage readers to sample their work in
The Democratic Experiment: New Directions in American Political History
, edited by Meg Jacobs, William J. Novak, and Julian E. Zelizer.

This is not a book of political theory, yet one of the pleasures of writing it was the sojourn it required me to take into the world of philosophers. I have been helped and instructed along the way by conversations with two
exceptional philosophers who are also wise and generous friends, William Galston and Michael Sandel. My own views stand somewhere at the intersection of their respective approaches, though the usual disclaimer—that the ideas here are mine, not theirs—may be especially important to emphasize in the case of these two brilliant thinkers. Michael Walzer, as fine a teacher as he is a philosopher, has influenced my views on almost everything.

I have also received enormous help and guidance from James Kloppenberg, an intellectual historian whose work I discovered in the course of writing this book, before I had ever met him, and who has since become a warm friend. Jim read an early partial draft of this book, and he did the two things you would hope a friend might do: first he expressed genuine excitement about and support for what I was up to, and then he offered a slew of valuable suggestions and friendly criticisms.

Thanks, as well, to two insightful British politicians and thinkers: the Rt. Hon. Michael Gove, M.P., for a brilliant conservative communitarian take on the movie
High Noon
, and Lord Stewart Wood, for his wisdom on Labour Party communitarianism.

I have been very fortunate to be connected to three extraordinary institutions, and all of them were very supportive as I was writing, thinking, and rewriting: the
Washington Post
, where I write a twice-weekly column; the Brookings Institution; and Georgetown University, where I make my home at its Public Policy Institute.

As I was working on this book, a few of the ideas I was grappling with snuck into my
Washington Post
column; I’m grateful I was able to give them a first airing there. Even more, I am lucky to have a chance through the column and blogging to be in the middle of our country’s political debate at what I really do believe is a moment of decision. My thanks to Fred Hiatt, Jackson Diehl, Autumn Brewington, Vince Rinehart, Lisa Bonos, Marisa Katz, Steve Stromberg, Helen Jones, Crystal Davis, Trey Johnson, and Jim Downie on the
Post
’s editorial and op-ed pages. Particular thanks to Alan Shearer, James Hill, Richard Aldacushion, and Karen Greene at the
Washington Post
Writers Group. I am indebted to so many other people at the
Post
, and I have thanked many of them in earlier books. (In fact, I ask all the friends and colleagues thanked in earlier books to consider
themselves thanked again.) Here I will confine myself here to thanking Steve Luxenberg, a brilliant writer and editor. He knows the many reasons for my gratitude. It’s hard to imagine a truer friend.

At Brookings, special thanks to Tom Mann for encouraging me to join its ranks; to Darrell West, the vice president of the Governance Studies program; to Strobe Talbott, our president; and to so many wonderful colleagues too numerous to list here.

I feel similar gratitude to all of my Georgetown colleagues. Here I will mention the university’s president, Jack DeGioia; Ed Montgomery, dean of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute; Judy Feder, the former dean who brought me to GPPI; and the spectacular (and overworked) GPPI staff, including Kerry Pace, Jennifer Blanck, and Joe Ferrara, now President De-Gioia’s chief of staff. Thanks also to my teaching assistants at Georgetown, all of whom are destined to become important public intellectuals: Sam Potolicchio, Conor Williams, David Buckley, and Elliot Fulmer.

This book might never have been written without my agent, Gail Ross, who is as devoted to her authors, to book publishing, and to American politics as anyone I’ve met. She also has a particular affection for journalists, which may be hard for others to understand but which we journalists appreciate. I thank her for all she’s done. It was Gail who introduced me to Anton Mueller of Bloomsbury, and there hangs the tale of this book.

Anton is a force of nature. He is always thinking, always coming up with ideas, which he then examines from many different angles. He rejects some, embraces others—and then looks around for new ones. I got to know him because he came to me with a suggestion for a book. About a week after we discussed it, he called to talk about some passionate thoughts I had offered about community and individualism.
That
, he said, was the book I should write, and this is the result. Working with Anton has been a magnificent adventure. He bore with me through several drafts, always trying to sharpen my arguments and expand my view, always mindful of how the news (such as the rise of Occupy Wall Street) related to the case I was making. A highly practical editor, he’s also a searcher along for the journey, and it is a joy to share it with him. My thanks also to Rachel Mannheimer, Anton’s thoughtful assistant, who made sure everything happened as it should, and on time.

Sue Warga was a magnificent copy editor. The copy-editing process isn’t typically seen as fun, but it was with Sue. I have what might be called a communitarian approach to copy editing, which is a glorified way of saying that I love to talk things through, going back and forth with copy editors over particular problems, whether grammatical or conceptual. Sue operated with both great efficiency and a warm spirit (often working between her daughter’s lacrosse games). I offer her my gratitude. I also want to thank Laura Phillips, an excellent production editor who sped this book to print with efficiency and understanding.

It’s impossible to give adequate thanks to Emily Luken. Em is generally referred to as my “assistant,” but she is really many things at once: a brilliant editor, a shrewd political analyst, a subtle diplomat, a gifted organizer, a tough-minded thinker, a savvy publicist, a warm friend, and a deeply moral and ethical citizen. She sees around corners, anticipating problems before they arise, and keeps our show on the road. And she did all this over the last year while planning her wedding to the delightful Edward Yardley, my candidate as a future prime minister of New Zealand.

Both this book and my life were enriched by spectacular interns who were happy to research matters as diverse as the thinking of the Whigs and the subtleties of the individual mandate in the health care law. They also helped clarify my thinking on many issues. So thanks to Sally Bronston, Emma Ellman-Golan, Kristen Gendron, Adam Mandelsberg, Max Nacheman, Amanda Nover, Joshua Pollack, Amanda Ravich, Jacob Silverman, Elizabeth Valentini, Matthew Waring, and Ross Tilchin. Particular thanks to Victoria Glock-Molloy, who was with me during the final months as I was finishing; she did heroic work on many fronts, notably by tracking down those elusive endnotes.

Thanks also to my sister, Lucie-Anne Dionne Thomas, her husband, Drew, and her daughter, Kim. Lu and I learned about community, its joys, and its obligations from our very loving parents, and also from the people of our hometown, Fall River, Massachusetts, a place my heart still honors.

Finally, in a book that speaks a great deal about community, I can’t find adequate words to thank the most important community in my life: Mary Boyle and our children, James, Julia, and Margot. One of my most treasured memories will always be of the great snowstorm in February
2010. Everyday work life stopped, and most people in our region were shut in by snow drifts and slick roads. It was during that storm that I began writing this book, and I did so amidst the merry sounds of the many friends our kids brought to our home. One night we counted nineteen of them who stayed for a spaghetti dinner. James, Julia, and Margot have brought a joy to our life that passes all understanding—and I am absolutely persuaded that they and their friends will keep America’s promise as part of a great reforming generation.

Mary is the original communitarian. Her approach to life—learned in a Brooklyn neighborhood from a warm, welcoming, thoughtful, and boisterous family—is outlandishly generous, loving, loyal and grounded. On top of that, she’s both smart and wise. We met twenty-five years ago on Patriots’ Day. That may explain some of the patriotic sentiments in this book. It certainly explains why I celebrate April nineteenth every year—in honor of the heroes of Lexington and Concord, of course, but primarily, I’ll admit, in gratitude for Mary.

Bethesda, Maryland
February 2012

5
“all one thing”:
Abraham Lincoln, “A House Divided” speech at Illinois Republican Convention, 16 June 1858,
http://www.ushistory.org/documents/housedivided.htm
.

7
“literally out of any old nation that comes along”:
G. K. Chesterton, “What Is America?” from
What I Saw in America
,
http://libertynet.org/edcivic/chestame.html
.

8
“I bailed out a bank”:
Ezra Klein, “The Wonkiest Signs from Occupy Wall Street,” Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog,
Washington Post
, 17 October 2011.

8
“the United States has gone from being”:
Alexander Stille, “The Paradox of the New Elite,”
New York Times
, 22 October 2011.

9
“there is surging sentiment among voters”:
Richard McGregor, “Obama Takes Risky Stance Against the Rich,”
Financial Times
, October 28, 2011.

9
Citizens United
:
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
, 21 January 2010.

11
“that the only thing we can do”:
Barack Obama, “Address by the President to a Joint Session of Congress,” 8 September 2011,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/08/address-president-joint-session-congress
.