Donkey Work

What happened to the Democratic Party after the 1960s? In many political histories, the McGovern defeat of 1972 announced the partys declineand the conservative movements ascent. What the conventional narrative neglects, Patrick Andelic submits, is the role of Congress in the partys, and the nations, political fortunes. In Donkey Work, Andelic looks at Congress from 1974 to 1994 as the Democratic Partys stronghold and explores how this twenty-year tenure boosted and undermined the partys response to the conservative challenge.If post-1960s America belongs to the conservative movement, Andelic asks, how do we account for the failure of so much of the conservative agendaespecially the shrinking of the federal government? Examining the Democratic Partys unusual durability in Congress after 1974, Donkey Work disrupts the narrative of inexorable liberal decline since the 1970s and reveals the ways in which liberalism and conservatism actually developed in tandem. The book traces the evolution of ideologies within the Democratic Party, particularly the emergence of neoliberalism, suggesting that this political philosophy was as much an anticipation of Americas right turn as a reaction to it; as factions vied for control of the party, Congress itself both strengthened and weakened liberal resistance to the conservative movement. By putting the focus on Congress and legislative politics, in contrast to the presidential synthesis that dominates US political history, Andelics book offers a new, deeply informed perspective on two turbulent decades of American politicsa perspective that alters and expands our understanding of how we arrived at our present political moment.