Theory Recommendation Request - A lot of liberals/Dems in my life are facing crises of political consciousness watching the police collaborate with the protestors to attack "a sacred symbol of American democracy." This is a fantastic chance to move them left, but I'm hesitant to recommend anything that's too heavy.
What are some good entry-level works that are accessible to people that think the West Wing and Jon Ossoff are unironically good? Keep in mind things like S&R are disqualified because Lenin is pretty stigmatized in their brains. Need something more vanilla/unknown.
I recently read The Reactionary Mind, which I think serves the purpose of being (a) pretty vanilla, in that the cover is pretty inoccuous-looking and it's written by a guy who's a professor and a journalist, but (b) gets at the heart of what conservativism, neoliberalism, and fascism have in common -- the motivation to preserve traditional hierarchies. There's a newer edition that has a final chapter about Trump, putting him in the context of the history of right-wing movements, which might be good for liberals who think he just popped up out of nowhere. I quoted the book yesterday in a phone call with my mom in which she wondered out loud "Why do these people love Trump so much when he doesn't care about them at all?"
From Wikipedia: 'Robin argues that rather than being about liberty, limited government, resistance to change, or public virtue, conservatism is a "mode of counterrevolutionary practice" to preserve hierarchy and power.' Which is not necessarily obvious to your average liberal.
Good advice. My family often wonders the same thing, and I'll try and use the hierarchy bit to make the point about motivation. It's also useful for calling out Libs that refuse to embrace any kind of re-distributive policies.
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