Praise for The Revolt Against the Masses
“The roots of American liberalism are not compassion but snobbery. So argues historian Fred Siegel in The Revolt Against the Masses. Siegel traces the development of liberalism from the cultural critics of the post WWI years to the gentry liberals today, and he shows how the common thread is scorn for middle-class Americans and for America itself. This is a stunningly original—and convincing—book.”
— Michael Barone, senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics
“Fred Siegel’s superb The Revolt Against the Masses should be required reading for those who wonder how liberal elites came to dominate our culture, overriding the will of the people. Siegel’s book is history at its best and most relevant.”
— Roger L. Simon, Academy Award–nominated screenwriter, author, and founder of PJ Media
“In The Revolt Against the Masses, Fred Siegel reveals the intellectual underpinnings of today’s ascendant gentry liberalism, which leaves old-fashioned liberals, including, I suspect, Siegel himself, politically homeless. The increasingly anti-democratic character of liberalism also undermines much of the reason we became progressives in the first place, which was to help the middle and working classes. The gentry’s stridency and hypocrisy—what’s OK for them is not for everyone else—is utterly transforming liberalism today. The progressives portrayed in this book are not so much the heirs of Jefferson or Jackson or even Roosevelt, as they are the American heirs of the worst high-toned Tories.”
—Joel Kotkin, author of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050
“The Revolt Against the Masses is . . . a tour de force of reinterpretation of their pioneering role in the forging of liberal ideology. Siegel’s book is nothing less than a brilliant frontal assault on our understanding of the very nature of liberalism. The Revolt Against the Masses can have the kind of impact that great works of history like Richard Hofstadter’s books had in the 1940’s and 50’s. It is the power of Fred Siegel’s dazzling intellectual history to have shown us how we got here from the beginning of the modern era. The 1920s, it seems, are still with us.”
— Ron Radosh, National Review
“Siegel has put together an eminently readable and entertaining work with a novel and persuasive thesis. This is, at its core, a subversive work of deconstruction. . . . The Revolt Against the Masses is immensely readable. Its thesis is fresh, contrarian, and relevant to the contemporary debate. And, best of all, it is thoroughly demonstrated. Highly recommended.”
—Jay Cost, The Washington Free Beacon
“Siegel is a proven master of synthesis. . . . What historian Fred Siegel seeks to do with his refreshing and stimulating new book is to challenge the [liberal] narrative, overturn its hegemony, and begin the process of modifying and even replacing it. The Revolt Against the Masses should be read widely, by Democrats and Republicans alike—at least by those among them who genuinely care about what is being done to the middle and working classes.”
—Wilfred McClay, Claremont Review of Books
“The Revolt Against the Masses is one of the most important books written about American politics in the past fifty years.”
—Chris Whalen, Breitbart
“The Revolt Against the Masses is an important book, a first-rate intellectual history that clearly and crisply explains much of the political and cultural dysfunctions roiling the United States today. Siegel’s well-researched analysis of the liberal abandonment of self-government and individual freedom—a betrayal of the Constitutional order justified in the main by social prejudice, class snobbery, and bad Continental philosophy—is a brilliant exposition of a century of bad ideas that have led to today’s bloated Leviathan state, these days on track to bankrupt the treasury and diminish our freedom.”
—Bruce Thornton, Defining Ideas
“In a remarkable book . . . the ultimate payoff is his depiction of Obama as the incarnation of the philosophy’s disdain for conventional life, including the president’s penchant for ‘authoritarian liberalism.’ In that America, rights are given and taken by government experts.”
—Michael Goodwin, New York Post
“Mr. Siegel has done a terrific job of turning a long chapter of intellectual history, much of it containing dense arguments about government policy and cultural theory, into a narrative with forward drive.”
—Barton Swaim, The Wall Street Journal
“Fred Siegel’s rich new history of liberalism, “The Revolt Against the Masses,” makes an original argument and offers sparkling insights—albeit insights many liberals will be loath to hear—in pungent and pugnacious prose.”
—Daniel DiSalvo, The Washington Times
“Siegel is an erudite and often brilliant scholar at the Manhattan Institute. His new book is a fascinating look at the recent history, and the many, many contradictions, of American liberalism.”
—Mark Judge, The Daily Caller
The Revolt Against the Masses
How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class
© 2013, 2015 by Fred Siegel
Preface, Postscript, and Appendix II © 2015 by Fred Siegel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Encounter Books, 900 Broadway, Suite 601, New York, New York, 10003.
First American edition published in 2013 by Encounter Books, an activity of Encounter for Culture and Education, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt corporation.
Encounter Books website address: www.encounterbooks.com
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
First paperback edition published in 2015.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGUED THE HARDCOVER AS FOLLOWS:
Siegel, Frederick F., 1945–
The revolt against the masses : how liberalism has undermined the middle class / by Fred Siegel.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-59403-796-2 (ebook) 1. Middle class — United States — History — 20th century. 2. Liberalism — United States — History — 20th century. 3. United States — Politics and government — 20th century. I. Title.
HT684.S54 2013
320.51’30973—dc23
2013007444
Dedicated to the memory of Frank Macchiarola
1941–2012
Catholic Democrat, mensch, great Brooklynite
Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition