The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama (Paperback)
Summer 2012 Reading Group
“The Pioneer Woman is at it again, but this time she's not dishing up recipes, rather she's giving us the juicy details of her courtship and her first year of marriage with her own 'Marlboro Man.' It's not your conventional fairy tale. Ree went from designer clothes and spa days to becoming the hard working wife of a cowboy on an isolated ranch. But through it all, it's still clear that she landed one major prince. She traded her glass slippers for cowboy boots--and she couldn't be happier!”
— Jackie Blem, Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, CO
Description
In The Backlash, Liberal columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter Will Bunch goes behind the scenes of America’s new extreme right-wing minority to explore how their campaign of misinformation, their distortion of President Obama, and their collective fear of the future combine to pose a very real threat to our democratic system. From health care reform to immigration policies, The Backlash is a gripping investigation into the emerging voice of the dangerous American right wing.
About the Author
Will Bunch is national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of several books, including Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Paranoia Politics and High-Def Hucksters in the Age of Obama, and the e-book The Bern Identity: A Search for Bernie Sanders and the New American Dream. He has won numerous journalism awards and shared the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting with the New York Newsday staff.
Praise For…
“Persuasive…compelling.” — Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
“The Backlash is not an attack on the movement. It’s a plea for the people inside the movement to realize they’re being taken advantage of...it identifies the “pyramid of hucksters” and “needless anxieties” that distort economic angst into a crisis of faith in government and the press. — Slate
“An exquisitely written expose of a frightening political force that is shaping our elections, our society and our world.” — David Sirota, New York Times bestselling author and nationally syndicated columnist
“Chart(s) the darker fringes of the populist extreme that have acquired a new energy since the election of Barack Obama...a sobering account.” — Los Angeles Times
“Always compelling, but often disturbing, The Backlash is an essential contribution to our understanding of what’s happening right now on the political scene and what we might expect in the years to come.” — David Brock, author of the best-selling Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of An Ex-Conservative
“A read on the wild side...[The Backlash is] an often revealing and scarily sobering midterm report that provokes a prime question: If political extremism and paranoia become more pronounced, will the ideological and partisan pendulum continue to swing - and never stop to solve the nation’s problems?” — Philadelphia Inquirer
“…For liberals or moderates seeking to understand current far right events, the book will fascinate, and likely frighten.” — Publishers Weekly
“An eye-opening, journalistic account of the activities and political views of the backlash...entertaining and engaging” — Library Journal
“An insightful close-up look at the individuals and social forces that promise to churn American politics in the face of huge social and demographic changes. ” — Booklist
“Extraordinarily readable, vividly real-to-life and broad-in-scope view of the Tea Party movement - this book could have been a movie.” — Truthout.org