Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and The Fracturing of America” represents one of the most interesting historical works today.It is not because there is some new information available on President Richard Nixon that was never known before. Perlstein does not reveal what happened in the missing minutes of the Watergate tapes. Perlstein’s work is interesting because of what it reveals about us as citizens of this country. It discusses what has happened to America’s political process and how politicians win our votes.In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson won the presidency with 61 percent of the popular vote and 485 electoral votes. According to the political analysts of the day, it was because the U.S. was “more united and at peace with itself than ever.”According to Perlstein, it seemed a permanent liberal consensus had been formed.Nine months later in 1965, riots broke out in Watts, Ca. The next year, liberals who rode Johnson’s coattails were voted out of Congress. By 1968 rioters had begun taking to the streets at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The permanent liberal consensus the analysts had predicted was all but destroyed.Perlstein states the figure central to all of the elections from 1964 until 1972 was Nixon.The political language that Nixon took nationally was rooted in the “angers, anxieties, and resentments” that had taken hold of the nation throughout the 1960s. What is more interesting is that Nixon — despite what Americans may think of him today — was slow to come to this realization. Nothing was inevitable in that time when a man could become president by preying upon our worst fears as American citizens.How did Nixon come to this realization?It was the 1966 election and, most notably, the rise of Ronald Reagan to the governorship in California. Perlstein asserts Reagan won his election by providing the electorate with a political outlet for their outrage. Until Reagan’s election, these fears had not seemed like voting issues. This happened simultaneously with Republican candidates defeating LBJ liberals by promising to return to “law and order” — a need that many Americans believed in.In an article in Time magazine, a Chicago ad salesman said, “I’m getting to feel like I’d actually enjoy going out and shooting some of these people. I’m just so goddamned mad. They’re trying to destroy everything I’ve worked for.” In 1968, Nixon’s election was remarkably close.He began his first term of office as a minority president. The way he achieved victory pointed the way for a new political alignment depending on the conservative majority in the South and Southwest. Perlstein believes these people were angry because of destabilizing movements like those challenging the “Vietnam War, white political power and virtually every traditional cultural norm.”Unfortunately these villains could not guarantee Nixon the political majority he wanted in the 1970 congressional elections. Nixon blamed this defeat on the antics of his enemies. If these people were his enemies, they must simultaneously be America’s enemies. As such they all had to be destroyed because they were certainly out to destroy him.This mindset served Nixon well. In 1972 he won almost 61 percent of the popular vote and 520 of 538 electoral votes.”Nixonland” puts forth the idea that millions of Americans recognized the balance of forces the exact same way. The U.S. believed it was engulfed in a battle between the forces of darkness against the forces of light. The problem was most citizens disagreed over which side was which.This perspective still holds true — with one subtle difference.It is the Republican Party which may lose its permanent political consensus.Since 1968 and Nixon’s first presidential election victory — despite President Bill Clinton’s two terms of office — only two Democratic candidates have been able to capture the elusive 50 percent plus one in an open election. And, of the two candidates who accomplished this, only one moved into the White House.  The first was Jimmy Carter in 1976 and the second was Vice President Al Gore, who won the popular vote yet lost the electoral college in 2000.No matter which candidate wins Tuesday, one thing is certain. America deserves better than the rhetorical promises it has received.Republicans must realize a victory for Sen. Barack Obama is not the end of the world. It will not translate into the now-infamous cartoon in The New Yorker coming true. The keys to the White House are not being given to Osama bin Laden. Planned Parenthood is not going to partner up with McDonald’s and offer a free abortion with the purchase of a supersized Big Mac.Democrats are going to have to do a little soul searching as well. An election of Sen. John McCain is not a continuance of President Bush. The middle class will still not get overlooked and overburdened. Medical care will continue to be available to all Americans despite their personal wealth, or lack thereof.Our political system is imperfect, but it remains better than any other system in the world.It is time America demands someone worthy of the office they aspire to and not the lesser of two evils.—-Contact Matt McEntire at [email protected]