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9781108476911

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Reviews

'In Red State Blues, Matt Grossmann, one of the nation's most astute political scientists, challenges fundamental orthodoxy in much of academia and the media. He argues that the Republican revolution that swept over state after state at the behest of the Koch Brothers, ALEC and other architects of the insurgency was in practice of relatively minor consequence. The conservative movement ran into a brick wall the electorate's demand for public services. Grossmann demonstrates that the twenty-year political upheaval from 1994 to 2014 produced policy change only at the margins - primarily by restricting abortion providers and union organizing - while budgets and state programs continued to grow. Grossmann goes against the grain in this wise and illuminating book.' Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times 'How much did the conservative and Republican electoral revolution change actual policy in the fifty American states? Maybe not as much as you think. Matt Grossmann's Red State Blues is pretty much the perfect book on this question.' Tyler Cowen, George Mason University 'If you are a liberal who despairs about the seemingly total Republican takeover of states across the country, guess what: It might not be as bad as you think. Employing creative and original research techniques, Matt Grossmann carefully demonstrates that many of the conservative movement's apparent gains are not translating into transformative policy outcomes. This book offers a series of X-Rays of our current political and ideological impasses, revealing hidden structural factors that have frustrated the grand conservative project, while allowing for under-the-radar liberal advances you didn't know were happening.' Greg Sargent, The Washington Post 'In Red State Blues, Matt Grossmann, one of the nation's most astute political scientists, challenges fundamental orthodoxy in much of academia and the media. He argues that the Republican revolution that swept over state after state at the behest of the Koch Brothers, ALEC and other architects of the insurgency was in practice of relatively minor consequence. The conservative movement ran into a brick wall the electorate's demand for public services. Grossmann demonstrates that the twenty-year political upheaval from 1994 to 2014 produced policy change only at the margins - primarily by restricting abortion providers and union organizing - while budgets and state programs continued to grow. Grossmann goes against the grain in this wise and illuminating book.' Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times 'How much did the conservative and Republican electoral revolution change actual policy in the fifty American states? Maybe not as much as you think. Matt Grossmann's Red State Blues is pretty much the perfect book on this question.' Tyler Cowen, George Mason University 'If you are a liberal who despairs about the seemingly total Republican takeover of states across the country, guess what: It might not be as bad as you think. Employing creative and original research techniques, Matt Grossmann carefully demonstrates that many of the conservative movement's apparent gains are not translating into transformative policy outcomes. This book offers a series of X-Rays of our current political and ideological impasses, revealing hidden structural factors that have frustrated the grand conservative project, while allowing for under-the-radar liberal advances you didn't know were happening.' Greg Sargent, The Washington Post

Author Information

Matt Grossmann is Director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University and Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center. A regular contributor to FiveThirtyEight, he has published analysis in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Politico and hosts the Science of Politics podcast. He is the author of Asymmetric Politics (with David A. Hopkins, 2016), Artists of the Possible (2014), and The Not-So-Special Interests (2012).

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