How the Alger Hiss Case Explains the Tea Party
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Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Many Americans have forgotten, ornever learned about, the Alger Hiss case. One of the mostdramatic trials of the 20th century, it helps explain not onlythe rise of McCarthyism in the early 1950s and the presidenciesof Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, but also the contemporaryroles of Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz and the Tea Party.
The Hiss case casts light on why conservatives and liberalsare suspicious of each other, on their different attitudestoward elitism, on their understandings of patriotism and on theparallel universes in which they seem to live.