Up from conservatism

by Michael Lind

For nearly a decade, Michael Lind worked closely as a writer and editor with the intellectual leaders of American conservatism. Slowly, he came to believe that the many prominent intellectuals he worked with were not the leaders of the conservative movement but the followers and apologists for an increasingly divisive and reactionary political strategy orchestrated by the Republican party. Lind's disillusionment led to a very public break with his former colleagues on the right, as he attacked the Reverend Pat Robertson for using anti-Semitic sources in his writings. In Up From Conservatism, this former rising star of the right reveals what he believes to be the disturbing truth about the hidden economic agenda of the conservative elite - and about their cynical "culture war" strategy for acquiring and maintaining political power. From the Civil War to the civil rights revolution, the southern elite combined a low wage, low-tax strategy for economic development with a politics of demag