In this partisan age, it’s become rather fashionable to look back to a bygone age in which the two political parties were able to join together in common purpose, crafting bipartisan legislation and working together for the common good of the nation. Most recently, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has made such an ethos central to his campaign.
As James A. Morone documents in his new book Republic of Wrath: How American Politics Turned Tribal, From George Washington to Donald Trump, this is largely a fantasy, something that we in the depressing tribal present attempt to project backward in order to make the world that we live in make a little more sense. For almost as long as the United States has existed as a republic there have been political parties. And, from the beginning, they were locked in fierce, often vitriolic competition with one another, a competition that would last as each of the present’s two parties assumed their current shape. Indeed, Morone’s book is an especially useful guide to the process by which these transformations took shape, noting such developments as the implosion of the Whigs and the gradual coalescing of the Democratic Party around issues such as suffrage for white men.
What is most surprising in Morone’s account is the fact that, for much of their history, the fiercest debates often occurred within the parties rather than between them. However, this shouldn’t really surprise us, considering the extent to which much of American politics, from the very beginning, was bifurcated along a geographic axis. Thus, it makes sense that both parties would have significant differences about the most fundamental questions: what is the nature of the United States? And who should belong here? These questions would become so important that they would consume much of the 19th Century and eventually lead the nation to war.
Relatedly, Morone’s book also documents the other consistent factor in party alignment and that, of course, is the matter of race. It’s no secret that, for much of the latter part of the 19th and into the early 20th Centuries, it was the Democrats — particularly those in the South — who were the most ardent supporters of racism. At the same time, however, they were also well-knwon as the party that supported immigration (so long as those immigrants came from Europe, of course), while their opponents on the other side of the aisle were all in favor of restricting immigration as much as possible. The Republicans, for their part, made a point of espousing civil rights (though not as adamantly as today’s demagogues and hucksters would have you believe). Slowly but surely, however, they began to turn away from the cause of civil rights, particularly as the 20th Century dawned, when their leaders often explicitly downplayed their devotion to their Black voters.
Given Republicans’ tepidness toward civil rights, it’s not surprising that, as Morone notes, a titanic shift happened during the New Deal, a shift that still has effects today. While African Americans had been a reliable Republican voting bloc for most of the decades following the Civil War, that party’s increasing tepidness toward civil rights, combined with Democrats’ active courting of them, led to a flight of Black voters away from the GOP and into the Democratic Party. A further shift occurred in the 1960s, when the Democrats tied immigration to the issue of civil rights. This transformation was truly titanic, and it’s important to recall that stiff immigration restrictions had choked off the stream that had had such a profound demographic influence on the nation. Now, the Democrats were the party of both immigration and civil rights and, as the 1970s progressed, they increasingly also became the party most explicitly dedicated to women’s rights (and, somewhat more ambivalently, those of the queer community).
And then came the late ’80s and early ’90s, when a charming former actor and governor of California named Robert Reagan imposed his vision on the nation and the functioning of government, imposing a vision of small government that would force even future Democratic presidents to work within his framework. The most significant change, however, came in the early 19990s, when a belligerent and pugilistic congressman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, rose to prominence declaring that there could be no compromise with the enemy by which, of course, he meant the Democrats. The sinister thing is that, regardless of how repugnant and corrosive such a philosophy was and is, it worked. As Morone demonstrates, this was one of the key moments when the current tribalism of American politics really clicked, when each side ceased to see the other as fellow Americans and instead as mortal enemies. Washington was well and truly broken.
Now, there are a few points where Morone indulges in a bit of both-sides-ism (that perennial scourge of the academic elite), and his conclusion in particular leans a little too hard into the idea that both sides are to blame for the current state of affairs in the nation. Nevertheless, he’s created a compelling narrative history, one that helps all of us get a firmer grasp of who we are and how we came to be this way. While I don’t agree with all of his suggestions for how we are to see ourselves out of this tribal morass that has stymied all efforts at crafting policy and legislation, it is rather nice to see someone level-headed at least offering solutions. At a stylistic level, Morone wears his learning lightly, and the book is a genuine pleasure to read. In fact, I couldn’t put it down.
In this troublesome moment, Republic of Wrath is both a history and a warning. While parties have always been a part of the American landscape, in our current age it’s not just that the parties disagree about policy; they disagree about the very nature of reality itself. And, while there has never been a period in which the parties weren’t vying with one another in order to solidify, now it seems as if we are truly in the midst of a zero-sum game.
We can but hope that the future holds something better in store.

Excellent History Lesson. I'm a guy that prides myself in knowing more about American history than most. (Well, let's be honest, my normal line is that I know more about most than most, and that generally holds true - even when people know far more than I do about a given topic.) Anyways... :D This book did a phenomenal job of bringing forth quite a bit of American history that even I wasn't aware of, particularly in my acknowledged weak area between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. For example, despite how heated American political discourse feels at times over the last couple of years in particular, apparently there was a point in the lead-up to the Civil War where *Congressmen* routinely brought knives and guns *onto Capitol Hill*. Indeed, one line Morone quotes from a Congressman of the time is that those that didn't bring a knife and a gun brought two guns! While the ending of the narrative, with Morone's recommendations of how to fix where we find ourselves, is more "your mileage may vary" level, the lead up to that point is a solid look at American history, if hyper focused on the general premise that all conflict came from either race or immigration - which is a bit disingenuous at times, but the analysis here isn't so flawed as to claim absolute exclusivity to the premise. Absolutely a must-read for Americans and really anyone wishing to understand how America has arrived at its current place in time. Very much recommended.

As much as this is a great country in which to live, the title "United States" isn't nearly as true as it sounds.  While we have been and still are united in many ways, there has always been something major that broadened the gap of separation throughout history.  Often this just boiled down to how we saw people different from ourselves and whether we showed them respect.   In his book, James Morone, breaks this down chronologically to show us how we got to where we are.  His chapters are extremely well documented to make a work like this as objective as possible.  In it, we learn why things are "grand-fathered" in, which, no surprise, was not initially a very commendable concept for why it was created.  We read some pretty despicable things our representatives in Washington said over the years about our brethren with different colored skin, and how taking a stand could cost a leader politically due to the current environment in the country.  This work comes highly recommended, especially at this time in history.  Morone says the "Understanding history is the way we build a better present.  It's why we construct museums, confront the past, and topple monuments to white supremacy..." adding that "black history is American history (as) it is an essential part of the nation's founding and its laws, its culture and its mythologies, its past and its present."  You may not always agree with what you read between the covers, but you will learn and expand your context for today.