Thoughts on Before the Storm

I just finished Rick Perlstein’s Before the Storm, and it is worthy of praise. Perlstein does a wonderful job of providing a sympathetic yet balanced view of Goldwater’s presidential campaign, and his treatment is a wonderful example of a historian providing an honest treatment to a figure with whom he disagrees. The unseriousness and disarray of the Goldwater Campaign is astounding, and it really provides insight into how Johnson could win in a landslide and yet abstain from running for reelection in four years to avoid a sure shellacking. Perlstein’s examination of the 1964 primary and its context really provides some useful insights on the current state of the Republican Party and its factions. Those who imagine that the Republican Party is facing some new unprecedented division would do well to read Perlstein’s account and see the strife between the grassroots elements of the party and centers of gravity on the east coast. Finally a reading of Before the Storm would provide some well-needed enlightenment to those who imagine that administrations either do not weaponize the governments they administer or have only recently started doing so. Weaponizing and, thereby, corrupting governmental offices is an old story and one which should be constantly brought to light and condemned.