Jon A. Shields

Joshua M. Dunn Sr.

Conservative Professors in the Progressive University

Passing on the Right

Stephanie Muravchik

Why did so many traditionally "blue" communities break for Donald Trump in 2016? Will they do so again in 2020? Looking for answers, Muravchik and Shields lived in three such "flipped" blue communities, finding that these voters still like the Democratic Party, but it's not the party many of this book's readers will recognize. In these communities, some of the most beloved and longest-serving Democratic leaders are themselves Trumpian--grandiose, combative, thin-skinned, nepotistic. Indifferent to ideology, they promise to take care of "their people" by cutting deals--and corners if needed. Stressing loyalty, they often turn to family to fill critical political roles. Trump strikes a familiar figure to these communities, resembling an old-style Democratic boss. Although Trump's Democrats have often been pictured as racists, Muravchik and Shields find that their primary political allegiances are to their town or county--not racial identity. They will spend an extra dollar to patronize local businesses, and they think local jobs should go to their neighbors, not "foreigners" from neighboring counties--who are just as likely to be white and native-born. When these citizens turn their attention to the nation and their place in it, their thinking is informed by their sense of belonging in their town. Thus, America first reflects a way of imagining political community that resonates by analogy to the social and political life in the places they live. The good news for Democrats is that the appeal of Trump does not yet extend to the rest of the GOP. The Democratic Party can reclaim its historic place as the home of working and lower-middle-class Americans. The first step is to gain a better understanding Trump's Democrats.

Trump's Democrats

Pietro S. Nivola

Federal policies have made great progress protecting the environment. But the policies sometimes have imposed inordinate costs on local governments. Managing Green Mandates describes how various federal environmental directives do not suit diverse conditions at the local level, and compel local communities to spend their revenues on reducing relatively minor risks to the public health. While policymakers have thrown far-reaching requirements at the feet of local authorities, the federal government is providing them less aid to comply with the increasingly stringent standards. The burden of these underfunded mandates can further disadvantage many overtaxed municipalities. Pietro Nivola is a senior fellow in the Governmental Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of The Laws of the Landscape: How Politics Shape Cities in Europe and America (Brookings 1999). Jon Shields is a graduate student in the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Local Rigors of U.S. Environmental Regulation

Managing Green Mandates

Few seem to think conservatives should become professors. While the left fears an invasion of their citadel by conservatives marching to orders from the Koch brothers, the right steers young conservatives away from a professorial vocation by lampooning its leftism. Shields and Dunn quiet these fears by shedding light on the hidden world of conservative professors through 153 interviews. Most conservative professors told them that the university is a far more tolerant place than its right-wing critics imagine. Many, in fact, first turned right in the university itself, while others say they feel more at home in academia than in the Republican Party. Even so, being a conservative in the progressive university can be challenging. Many professors admit to closeting themselves prior to tenure by passing as liberals. Some openly conservative professors even say they were badly mistreated on account of their politics, especially those who ventured into politicized disciplines or expressed culturally conservative views. Despite real challenges, the many successful professors interviewed by Shields and Dunn show that conservatives can survive and sometimes thrive in one of America's most progressive professions. And this means that liberals and conservatives need to rethink the place of conservatives in academia. Liberals should take the high road by becoming more principled advocates of diversity, especially since conservative professors are rarely close-minded or combatants in a right-wing war against the university. Movement conservatives, meanwhile, should de-escalate its polemical war against the university, especially since it inadvertently helps cement progressives' troubled rule over academia.

Jon A. Shields

Books

Your next favorite book is out there