Coauthored by Atlantic Monthly
writers Douthat and Salam, this book (like David Frum's Comeback
) is part of a movement to reconstruct the Republican Party's core principles and reinvigorate the conservative electorate. The authors' strategy is to win back the working class through a combination of prudent government intervention and entrepreneurship. Relying on a bevy of sociological analysis, class scrutiny and historicism—a style resembling New York Times
columnist David Brooks's, but stripped of his literary flair—Douthat and Salam take a nuts-and-bolts approach, perhaps because their book is prescriptive rather than observational, policy advocacy not entertainment. Whether or not readers will agree with the tenor of their arguments, rarely have moderate conservative ideas been so intelligently streamlined and so self-consciously pruned of conservatism's hairier iterations. The real holes in the text are the lack of cogent discussions on immigration and the war against radical Islam—the very issues currently shaping working-class politics in America. Nevertheless, this book is stuffed with fresh and brilliant ideas and presents a solid domestic conservative agenda to win over blue-collar workers. (July)
