Dave Witzig Normal Community High School

To start off I'll admit I'm not much of a political scientist. I would rather read a biography of a general, musician, or sports star then about our political past. Politics has always bothered me from the fact that it seems like it is such a game as recent examples of Trent Lott birthday speech, the Clinton presidency and polls, and Jesse Jackson showing up in Decatur sticking up for a student who beat someone up. Are politicians really out for the best interests of Americans or are they trying to make their party (and themselves) look good? Politics confuses me.

To further confuse me I read H.W. Brands's The Strange Death of American Liberalism. His title is misleading according to his own statements. Throughout his book he gives examples of how Americans are more conservative and want less government. Brands writes, "Distrust of government came over on some of the first ships from England" (1). The only times Americans wanted the federal government to be more active was during times of national security issues like the Cold War. Brands asserts that the Cold War was the reason liberalism was popular. His examples include: Truman giving aid in the Marshall Plan, Eisenhower building a highway system and giving money for education after Sputnik, and LBJ's Great Society. Throughout these times the American government said "Trust us." Brands writes, "Historically, what had made each wartime expansion of government tolerable was the general understanding that it was temporary" (49). That gets me back to his title. Why is the death of liberalism strange? What is strange about it? If, as he writes, Americans give the government more power in times of crisis why does it surprise him that liberalism died in the 1990s? Maybe his title should have been "The Strange Life of American Liberalism" and then explain how liberalism shows up for a while then Americans go back to their mistrust of government. His title doesn't make sense to me.

A big question is how his ideas fit into post-September 11, 2001. In his afterward he writes, "What government does well they are willing to let governments do. In the past this has been national security and, secondarily, what could be hung on the security theme" (177). As we know our government has been doing many law enforcement activities that in the past would have caused protests. His words bring more questions to mind does he classify Ronald Reagan's cold war policies and present President Bush's saber rattling as liberalism? Most consider both these men as staunch conservatives. They would be considered conservatives in his preface on page VII but throughout the book their increase of government spending and power as liberalism (am I right on this?). I wonder if he will add on a chapter in new edition of
his book.

One way I will use this in my classroom is to help students understand what conservative and liberalism mean. They may hear it on the news or read it in the newspapers but what does it mean as it has to do with political views. Maybe they need to understand themselves if they are more conservative or more liberal and what are their parents? Their grandparents? I bet most say they are moderate.

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