Skip navigation
London Review of Books

The Triumph of Plunder subscriber-only content

James Morone

  • Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson by Gore Vidal

American conservatives are fond of jeremiads. Everywhere they look, they see flabby morals and flagging virtue. Children? We used to punish them for whispering in class, now they come to school with guns. Families? No one wants to get married any more, except the gays. Government? Never so bloated and corrupt. Our allies? Never so pusillanimous or venal. It’s quite a trick to seize power in every corner of American politics – as conservatives have in the past decade – only to announce loudly that things were never worse.

subscriber-only content Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.

James Morone is a professor of politics at Brown University and the author of Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History. His next book will be George Washington’s Revenge.