A continuation of Hanes Walton Jr.’s work on Southern Democratic presidents, Remaking the Democratic Party analyzes the congressional and presidential elections of Lyndon Baines Johnson. This study builds upon the general theory of the native-son phenomenon to demonstrate that a Southern native-son can win the presidency without the localism evident in the elections of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Although ridiculed by contemporaries for his apparent lack of control over formal party politics and the national committee, Johnson excelled at leading the Democratic Party’s policy agenda. While a senator and as president, Johnson advocated for—and secured—liberal social welfare and civil rights legislation, forcing the party to break with its Southern tradition of elitism, conservatism, and white supremacy. In a way, Johnson set the terms for the continuing partisan battle because, by countering the Democrats’ new ideology, the Republican Party also underwent a transformation.

In this penetrating new study, Skocpol of Harvard University, one of today's leading political scientists, and co-author Williamson go beyond the inevitable photos of protesters in tricorn hats and knee breeches to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising.

Widely cited by journalists and bloggers as the man to read to understand the political races, New York Times Magazine writer Matt Bai has written a book about the Democratic Party that's as riveting as it is timely and vital. The Argument takes readers to the front lines of the grassroots progressive movement that is seizing power from the party's weakened D.C. establishment, capturing a colorful cast of donors and power brokers struggling to articulate a direction: an argument. The result is a fascinating, uniquely candid look at present-day politics.

This revised edition features a new afterword, updated through the 2016 election. On February 19, 2009, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli delivered a dramatic rant against Obama administration programs to shore up the plunging housing market. Invoking the Founding Fathers and ridiculing "losers" who could not pay their mortgages, Santelli called for "Tea Party" protests. Over the next two years, conservative activists took to the streets and airways, built hundreds of local Tea Party groups, and weighed in with votes and money to help right-wing Republicans win electoral victories in 2010. In this penetrating new study, Harvard University's Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson go beyond images of protesters in Colonial costumes to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising. Drawing on grassroots interviews and visits to local meetings in several regions, they find that older, middle-class Tea Partiers mostly approve of Social Security, Medicare, and generous benefits for military veterans. Their opposition to "big government" entails reluctance to pay taxes to help people viewed as undeserving "freeloaders" - including immigrants, lower income earners, and the young. At the national level, Tea Party elites and funders leverage grassroots energy to further longstanding goals such as tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of business, and privatization of the very same Social Security and Medicare programs on which many grassroots Tea Partiers depend. Elites and grassroots are nevertheless united in hatred of Barack Obama and determination to push the Republican Party sharply to the right. The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism combines fine-grained portraits of local Tea Party members and chapters with an overarching analysis of the movement's rise, impact, and likely fate.

The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of political parties, yet parties began to form shortly after its ratification. Today, American democracy would not work without them. In Political Parties and Constitutional Government, Sidney Milkis explores the uneasy relationship between the Constitution and the party system to advance a novel argument: political parties arose as part of a deliberate program of constitutional reform. Forged on the anvil of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, parties initially formed as decentralized political associations that engaged the attention of ordinary citizens and held presidents accountable to local constituencies. But as the power of the presidency and the federal government grew, parties shifted their attention from building political support in the states and localities to vying for control over national administration and, in the process, lost their vital connection to the electorate. In the past thirty years, partisan disputes have more often than not involved confrontations between the president and Congress that have undermined the public's respect for American political institutions. With the decline of localized parties, Milkis concludes, there has arisen an administrative politics of rights and entitlements that belittles the efforts of Democrats and Republicans alike to define a collective purpose. Ending with a discussion of possible methods of revitalization and reform, this timely book does much to explain the reasons behind Americans' disenchantment with parties and the party system.

Over the past three decades, the contours of American social, economic, and political life have changed dramatically. The post-war patterns of broadly distributed economic growth have given way to stark inequalities of income and wealth, the GOP and its allies have gained power and shifted U.S. politics rightward, and the role of government in the lives of Americans has changed fundamentally. Remaking America explores how these trends are related, investigating the complex interactions of economics, politics, and public policy. Remaking America explains how the broad restructuring of government policy has both reflected and propelled major shifts in the character of inequality and democracy in the United States. The contributors explore how recent political and policy changes affect not just the social standing of Americans but also the character of democratic citizenship in the United States today. Lawrence Jacobs shows how partisan politics, public opinion, and interest groups have shaped the evolution of Medicare, but also how Medicare itself restructured health politics in America. Kimberly Morgan explains how highly visible tax policies created an opportunity for conservatives to lead a grassroots tax revolt that ultimately eroded of the revenues needed for social-welfare programs. Deborah Stone explores how new policies have redefined participation in the labor force—as opposed to fulfilling family or civic obligations—as the central criterion of citizenship. Frances Fox Piven explains how low-income women remain creative and vital political actors in an era in which welfare programs increasingly subject them to stringent behavioral requirements and monitoring. Joshua Guetzkow and Bruce Western document the rise of mass incarceration in America and illuminate its unhealthy effects on state social-policy efforts and the civic status of African-American men. For many disadvantaged Americans who used to look to government as a source of opportunity and security, the state has become increasingly paternalistic and punitive. Far from standing alone, their experience reflects a broader set of political victories and policy revolutions that have fundamentally altered American democracy and society. Empirically grounded and theoretically informed, Remaking America connects the dots to provide insight into the remarkable social and political changes of the last three decades.

Examining Southern support for Johnson throughout his political career and his transformative leadership of the Democratic Party