Say what you will about Newt Gingrich, but he was filled with ideas. Most were bad and fundamentally deleterious to the American Dream, but he and his kind churned them out. In short, the reason Democrats lose elections is because they lost their soul. The Republicans may well be evil (rhetorically speaking), but the Democrats have been nihil- an utter black hole. Voters, faced with a choice, will always choose something over nothing- even a bad something.
Thus, while I agree with most of the book’s premises, and acknowledge the historical verity of the facts and claims, it does take two to watusi, and the fact that Krugman places almost no blame on the Democrats for caving in on questions of economics, race baiting, voter fraud and suppression, nor a litany of other areas where they willingly ceded ground to Republicans, the book is sort of a social and economic incompleteness theorem. Whether or not this is so do to willful forest watching or the very timidity of the Democratic Party recapitulated within Krugman (whose columns, it should be noted, have much more bite), is debatable.
But, simply because the problem may not be totally dealt with does not mean the conclusions drawn are wrong. They are mostly correct, and conveyed with an ease that non-economists will be drawn to. The Conscience Of A Liberal is not a book that will be read in fifty years, as a seminal work, but it is a very good explication of the last fifty years, and then some. It does deserve a good reading, especially before this year’s Presidential election. Here’s hoping, though, that his next book does not see Krugman tackling UFOlogy.
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