The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution

In The Hardhat Riot, David Paul Kuhn tells the fateful story of when the white working class first turned against liberalism, when Richard Nixon seized the breach, and America was forever changed. It was unthinkable one generation before: FDR's forgotten man siding with the party of Big Business and, ultimately, paving the way for presidencies from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. This is the story of the schism that tore liberalism apart. In the shadow of the half-built Twin Towers, on the same day the Knicks rallied against the odds and won their first championship, we experience the tumult of Nixon's America and John Lindsay's New York City, as festering division explodes into violence and Nixon's advisors realize that the Democratic coalition has collapsed, that this is their chance, because these, quite candidly, are our people now. In this riveting story--rooted in meticulous research, including thousands of pages of never-before-seen records--we go back to a harrowing day that explains the politics of today. We experience an emerging class conflict between two newly polarized Americas, and how it all boiled over on one brutal day, when the Democratic Party's future was bludgeoned by its past.

About the Author :
Bob Souer is a full-time professional storyteller, voice actor, and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has narrated broadcast and nonbroadcast projects for corporations and ministries across North America. His voice has been heard on PBS, the History Channel, the Military Channel, and many other networks. He has also narrated radio and television programs for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, D. James Kennedy Ministries, SIM, and Compassion International. David Paul Kuhn is an author, reporter, and political analyst. He has served as a senior and chief political writer across the political-media landscape, from Politico to RealClearPolitics to CBS News, as well as written for the Atlantic, Washington Post Magazine, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, National Review, New Republic, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications, and regularly appears on networks ranging from BBC to Fox News. He has covered four presidential campaigns and reported on events from the epicenter of the collapse of the World Trade Center to North Korean backroom nuclear negotiations. Earlier in his career, he covered the eastern United States for the Tokyo-based Yomiuri Shimbun, the world's most widely circulated newspaper. Kuhn is the author of, most recently, The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution-a riveting book (Jill Lepore, The New Yorker), perhaps the best book ever on how Democrats lost the white working class (political strategist James Carville), a truly captivating read (Robert Guest, The Economist), that is crucial for anyone seeking to understand the politics of 2020 (Tom Edsall, the New York Times).

Review :
"A compelling narrative." -- "New York Times" "A riveting account of...[a] clash on the streets of New York [that] came to symbolize the irreconcilable division taking shape in the rest of the country." -- "Wall Street Journal" "Riveting." -- "New Yorker" [An] outstanding new book...combining eyewitness reports with his own gifted storytelling to craft...a clear-eyed and non-polemical work of history." -- "National Review"