The great virtue of Whiplash! From JFK to Donald Trump: A Political Odyssey, Arnold Steinberg's long but worthwhile memoir, is its well-informed angst about the shortcomings of conservative politics. Steinberg has practiced such politics skillfully for half a century. A true believer in small government and unlegislated social conservatism, he knows how to win—and when and why winning isn't possible. No conservative candidate should hire a consultant who hasn't sat through a week of seminars with Steinberg. Unfortunately, today's Republican or conservative politics is a mess, partly because people like Steinberg are scarce in its major roles.
How did this mess develop? One major theme in Whiplash! is the ongoing tactical stupidity of conservatives and Republicans. Another is many Republican elected officials' failure to understand, let alone hold to, their stated principles. Yet another is the selfishness and flakiness that have always been, it seems, endemic among leaders of the modern American Right.
Steinberg also documents the Left's virulence, especially in California, where he has spent most of his career. He repeatedly illustrates the Democrats', and their special-interest allies', shameless aggression in what is essentially a one-party state. Steinberg fears the nation as a whole is trending in the same basic direction as California. As he writes in his afterword, given the parallels between politics in his early activist years and politics today, “[with] a younger generation fighting the same battles, I feel as if I've been whiplashed by a time warp.”
Refreshingly, he does not emphasize conservative progress in the “battle of ideas” or any other conflict. Although he recounts numerous inspiring wins—such as James Buckley's 1970 election to the U.S. Senate as the Conservative Party candidate, and, in 1996, passage of the California Civil Rights Initiative outlawing reverse discrimination by the state—he also draws some grim conclusions. Steinberg focuses much of his ire on the government, but the American people don't escape blame. “Liberty is sound public policy,” Steinberg notes. “But liberty remains out of fashion in The Culture.” “American democracy,” he later writes, “has become a cult dependent on ignorance and confusion.” “Gender and race,” he warns on the book's last page, “ethnic identity and victimization, multiculturalism and diversity—this madness pervades society.” Right-of-center readers probably won't be infused with optimism while enjoying this memoir. But they might feel better equipped to continue their resistance to the Left. Anger can breed clarity. And one gets the impression that Steinberg remains a happy warrior.
Arnie Steinberg grew up a long time ago, in a land far, far away: Southern California, in the decade preceding Ronald Reagan's triumphant gubernatorial election. He knew some of the people who made that happen; he later knew others who were part of the Reagan presidential campaigns and presidency. His high-level positions in “movement” conservative groups, and his leadership in many successful uphill campaigns, make credible his pronouncements on the many weaknesses of conservative politics, politicians, and officeholders.
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