"When 'America Felt Itself to Be Losing Out'"

"In Ganz's account, the 1992 election was a transition point, announcing the first major rumblings of discontent with the post-1970s policy consensus: Challengers to the established order questioned welfare restraint, deregulation, and deference to the private sector on foundational questions of economic management and resource distribution. As the national mood soured, the two-party system received its strongest challenge in nearly a century; civil unrest exploded across the country’s biggest cities; and radical voices, especially on the right, grew in popularity."

At The New Republic, Aaron Timms reviews John Ganz's When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s.