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After two terms of the Bush presidency, the Republican Party faces severe political and policy challenges. Despite a divisive Democratic presidential nomination contest, the GOP’s presumptive nominee is struggling to compete for funds and votes. The outlook in Congress is worse. Since losing majorities in both chambers in 2006, the GOP has suffered a string of special election defeats in supposedly safe House districts and will be hard-pressed to prevent further congressional losses in the fall. The Republican Party seems similarly adrift intellectually.

Can Republicans recover and find a new way to success? In Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam argue that Democrats’ cultural liberalism has made their party inherently hostile to the interests and values of the working class, and the GOP needs a new agenda that speaks to the working class’s social and economic anxieties. Addressing issues from immigration and taxes to health care and the environment, the authors call for the Republican Party to forge policies that focus on strengthening the cultural foundations of social mobility.

On July 8, 2008, AEI will host a presentation of the arguments in their new book, followed by a critical discussion of its themes by Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress. AEI resident fellow David Frum will moderate.

 

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