I don’t often listen to the pundits, and I’m not familiar with the book you mention, but...
AMEN!!! to the rest of your post! :)
There is an American Spirit, and Newt is tapped in. I only pray he can hang on and is ready for this role... He definitely seems to me to be! :) The people have been yearning for this for a while now - Obama and the left tapped in to that in 2008, but they were “using” those who were too desperate to know better that it was all shallow wordplay on Obama’s part for his whole “Hope and Change” campaign.
Newt doesn’t need any fancy slogans or to tell people what they are missing in their leaders - he exemplifies it in his actions and people respond to it because it’s REAL. He doesn’t make cliche promises, and I wouldn’t want that anyway. Reagan did the same thing and that’s why the response in 1980 was so powerful in that election (at least that’s what I’ve come to learn about it - I was too young to know why everyone loved the guy so much! LOL However, I do remember the feeling his election evoked - as a child I could see a change around me and on TV even if I didn’t understand why.)
“I’m not familiar with the book you mention, but...”
“Ameritopia” by Mark Levin. Excellent. He describes the philosphical underpinnings of the statist mindset - such as Plato, Hobbes, Marx - the idea that if we just get the “right” people in power that a utopia can be created, with equal outcomes for all. We know how that always turns out. Levin contrasts that with the philosphy that inspired the founders - Burke, Montesquieu, Toqueville - belief in the value of the individual, natural law, God-given unalienable rights, private property, etc. He traces how the statist mindset has gradually taken over our institutions - and how to fight it. If we don’t understand what the ideas are that we are fighting it’s harder to combat them. Levin does a GREAT job of laying out the history of statism - its a must read for all thinking Americns. It’s 40% off on Amazon - just came out last week and already #1, I believe, on the NY Slimes bestseller list - or if it’s not, it soon will be, just as “Libery and Tyranny” was. Please read it, everybody!!!