Summary Of Nancy Maclean's Democracy In Chain

Nancy Maclean’s book Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America credits Charles Koch’s manipulation of American politics to the early history of the “radical right’s” master plan to take over American politics. Overestimating economist James McGill Buchanan role in the upsurge of the libertarian movement, Maclean having painted a portrait of an uncompromising and arrogant man, theorizes that there exists a need to expose James Buchanan’s underlying secretive, political establishment; an establishment, that she credits with the implantation of the “radical right’s” polarized plan to change the rules of American democratic governance. However, her desire to unfairly illustrate Buchanan’s policy beliefs

In politics, polarization refers to an instance in which an individual’s stance on a given subject is reflective of their identification with a particular political party or ideology. Through her writing, Maclean’s aim is to slander the “radical right’s plan” to overrule a majority outcome in favor of protecting the minority. A conclusion that is evident through her efforts to capitalize on the American desire for polemical books, provoking her to commit the scholarly misdeed of capitalizing on her audience’s emotion to gain support for her unfair portrayal of Buchanan. Her chief villain is an economist that she argues that although he has not been recognized as a central influence on the libertarian movement, James Buchanan’s politics are centered on early public choice

And yet, somehow, all he saw in the Brown decision was coercion” (Maclean, XIII). In the statement above, Maclean is presenting her negative portrayal of Buchanan on his negative reception of government intervention on a high profile case, which in this situation happens to be slavery and the desegregation of Virginia. When you capitalize on the negative trauma created by American history, such as segregation, you hold your argument true based on the emotion your audience will portray after hearing your argument, creating a fallacy in your argument (insert citation). In the statement made by Maclean, he centers her portrayal of Buchanan on the general consensus that most people today would oppose segregation and slavery, effectively creating a support for her portrayal of Buchanan. Yet, her portrayal of Buchanan supporting the segregation of Virginia has no factual basis. If her audience is to rely solely on her portrayal of Buchanan’s introduction to politics, then Buchanan’s later political career being sired by his desire to defend segregation on the basis of unwarranted government intervention on private life, then more evidence should be presented as to why Buchanan was a supporter of segregation must be