From Africa to the Heart of the GOP

From Africa to the Heart of the GOP
Author: David O. Agbeti
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2005
Genre: Businessmen
ISBN: 142081060X

This book is a true account of the events on a long ago night when two angels from heaven "visited" me. It is the story of that "angelic encounter" as I experienced it. It happened many years ago, but the impressions are still vivid in my memory. It was not a fleeting glimpse of ethereal beings clothed in cloudy mist. Those angels were "real." If seen from a distance they probably would have seemed like ordinary men. Close up, however, no one could have mistaken them for men. Anyone would have known they were angels who had come down from heaven. During their first appearance, it seemed to me their speech to me lasted a long time. In retrospect that time period probably could have been measured in minutes. That is true even though they seemed like very "long" minutes. They were silent during their brief second appearance; albeit puzzled and inquisitive. These angels had about them a mysterious air of another world. They stood in front of my chair, in my living room with an indescribable and lofty majesty. Their posture and demeanor "spoke" of another sphere of existence. A sphere about which writers have speculated for thousands of years. They somehow "reeked" of an indescribable physical and mental power that was beyond my comprehension. My initial reaction was fright. A fright so great it overwhelmed my senses. I thought they had come to kill me. That was a certainty in my numbed mind. That fear quickly became life threatening. I did not know it at the time but their actions and speech would be forever impressed on my memory. During their first visit, they were extremely anxious to reassure me. They did not wish me to fear them. Their speech was sympathetic and reassuring. They told me they had not come to injure me in any way. They then explained the reason for their "intrusion" into my presence. Nothing that I have found anywhere in literature, except perhaps the bible, tells a similar story. My personality underwent a complete change that night. The brief account of that experience is now told for the first time in the 40 years since that encounter.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

What's the Matter with Kansas?
Author: Thomas Frank
Publisher: Picador
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2007-04-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1429900326

One of "our most insightful social observers"* cracks the great political mystery of our time: how conservatism, once a marker of class privilege, became the creed of millions of ordinary Americans With his acclaimed wit and acuity, Thomas Frank turns his eye on what he calls the "thirty-year backlash"—the populist revolt against a supposedly liberal establishment. The high point of that backlash is the Republican Party's success in building the most unnatural of alliances: between blue-collar Midwesterners and Wall Street business interests, workers and bosses, populists and right-wingers. In asking "what 's the matter with Kansas?"—how a place famous for its radicalism became one of the most conservative states in the union—Frank, a native Kansan and onetime Republican, seeks to answer some broader American riddles: Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where's the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative. Frank answers them by examining pop conservatism—the bestsellers, the radio talk shows, the vicious political combat—and showing how our long culture wars have left us with an electorate far more concerned with their leaders' "values" and down-home qualities than with their stands on hard questions of policy. A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What's the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People. *Los Angeles Times

The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics

The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics
Author: James Oakes
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2011-02-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393078728

"A great American tale told with a deft historical eye, painstaking analysis, and a supple clarity of writing.”—Jean Baker “My husband considered you a dear friend,” Mary Todd Lincoln wrote to Frederick Douglass in the weeks after Lincoln’s assassination. The frontier lawyer and the former slave, the cautious politician and the fiery reformer, the President and the most famous black man in America—their lives traced different paths that finally met in the bloody landscape of secession, Civil War, and emancipation. Opponents at first, they gradually became allies, each influenced by and attracted to the other. Their three meetings in the White House signaled a profound shift in the direction of the Civil War, and in the fate of the United States. James Oakes has written a masterful narrative history, bringing two iconic figures to life and shedding new light on the central issues of slavery, race, and equality in Civil War America.

American Carnage

American Carnage
Author: Tim Alberta
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 891
Release: 2019-07-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0062896369

New York Times Bestseller “Not a conventional Trump-era book. It is less about the daily mayhem in the White House than about the unprecedented capitulation of a political party. This book will endure for helping us understand not what is happening but why it happened…. [An] indispensable work.”—Washington Post Politico Magazine’s chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insider’s look at the making of the modern Republican Party—how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover from the unlikeliest of insurgents: Donald J. Trump. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: they had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party’s base. Yet Obama’s progressive agenda, coupled with the nation’s rapidly changing cultural identity, lit a fire under the right. Republicans regained power in Congress but spent that time fighting among themselves. With these struggles weakening the party’s defenses, and with more and more Americans losing faith in the political class, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to launch his campaign in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment. Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the GOP can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America’s current turmoil. Loaded with explosive original reporting and based on hundreds of exclusive interviews—including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell—American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of a political era.

The Conservative Heart

The Conservative Heart
Author: Arthur C. Brooks
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0062795503

New York Times–Bestseller: “A thinking person’s primer for a conservative politics of human flourishing.” —George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Conservative Sensibility Arthur C. Brooks, one of the country’s leading policy experts and a former president of the American Enterprise Institute, offers a bold new vision for conservatism as a movement for happiness, unity, and social justice—a movement of the head and heart that boldly challenges the liberal monopoly on fairness and compassion. Drawing on years of research, Brooks presents a social justice agenda for a New Right—an inclusive, optimistic movement with a positive agenda to fight poverty, promote equal opportunity, extol spiritual enlightenment, and help everyone lead happier and more fulfilling lives. Firmly grounded in the four “institutions of meaning”—family, faith, community, and meaningful work—it is a call for a government safety net that actually lifts people up and offers a vision of true hope through earned success. Clear, well-reasoned, accessible, and free of vituperative politics, The Conservative Heart is a welcome strategy for conservatives looking for fresh, actionable ideas—and for politically independent citizens who believe that neither side is adequately addressing their needs or concerns. “Brooks calls attention to an image problem facing today's conservatives and offers his solution . . . highly readable.” —The New York Times Book Review

Why the Right Went Wrong

Why the Right Went Wrong
Author: E.J. Dionne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 560
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1476763801

With a new postscript on the 2016 presidential primaries, this is the story behind today's headlines. In an absorbing narrative, E.J. Dionne Jr. illuminates the history of Republican politics from the Barry Goldwater era through the Reagan Revolution to the crisis of the 2016 presidential election. With that perspective and contemporary reporting, he explains the unrest and discontent on the Right and the Republican Party's bitter civil war while illustrating why a radicalized conservatism has made governing our country so difficult.--back cover.

When Republicans Were Progressive

When Republicans Were Progressive
Author: Dave Durenberger
Publisher:
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2018-09-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781681340784

A history of a remarkable political party that saw government as a practical tool for creating conditions in which individuals can thrive--and why its practices are needed today.

Coming Home

Coming Home
Author: Vernon Robinson
Publisher: Humanix Books
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2020-01-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1630061433

No one would ever argue that America has not had deep, ugly flaws, slavery and segregation being by far the most notable. But, thanks to great leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Americans bled and died to bring such hideous tragedies to an end. Today, conservative activists Vernon Robinson and Bruce Eberle see a new threat the American republic – the radical left. The once great Democratic Party has been hijacked by radical leftists who spurn traditional American values, and seek to impose cradle to grave government control over our lives. Coming Home is not about just resisting these radicals, but triumphing over them – with a landslide victory for Donald Trump. Why are the authors of this book so certain that Donald Trump can route the radical left in 2020? The answer is a secret that they learned from the 2016 presidential campaign: black Americans not only gave Donald Trump his margin of victory in Pennsylvania, but they also did the same thing in the key state of Michigan. In reality, it was black Americans who made the election of President Trump possible. Tracing the historic events that caused black American disenfranchisement from the GOP, Coming Home also provides a strategic roadmap to persuading a crucial 20% or more of black Americans to vote for Donald Trump in 2020 – and ensure a second term.