Former Nixon aide, now nice and thoughtful guy (yes, true story), John Taylor has a new blog post about Rick Perlstein's book Nixonland (2008). (H/t Maarja Krusten for the link.) In his post, Taylor takes issue with Perlstein's portrayal of Nixon. Taylor writes:
In Nixonland, historian Rick Perlstein argued that Richard Nixon's class resentments inspired him to bait the privileged elites he hated (plus win a whole bunch of elections) using wedge issues such as anti-communism, race, and law and order, igniting the hyper-partisanship that roil our politics today.That was and remains hard for Nixonites to swallow, since today's mainstream conservatives are far to Nixon's right.
I haven't presented much of Taylor's argument here, because my disagreement isn't with his argument, but with his portrayal of Nixonland. I think a lot of readers of the book have missed its point, and constructed a strawman Nixonland to agree with or to attack.