It is a lesson of the sixties: liberals get in the biggest political trouble - whether instituting open housing, civilian compliant review boards, or sex education programs - when they presume that a reform is an inevitable comcomitant of progress. It is then they are most likely to establish their reforms by top-down bureaucratic means. A blindsiding backlash often ensues.

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (ed. Simon and Schuster, 2010) - ISBN: 9781451606263