What is Reddit's opinion of The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

(interesting overview of the book from amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1590179021/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_e.cNyb8A290F8)

We don’t understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today’s political dramas are unintelligible to us.

The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motivated by highly developed ideas.

Lilla begins with three twentieth-century philosophers—Franz Rosenzweig, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss—who attributed the problems of modern society to a break in the history of ideas and promoted a return to earlier modes of thought. He then examines the enduring power of grand historical narratives of betrayal to shape political outlooks since the French Revolution, and shows how these narratives are employed in the writings of Europe’s right-wing cultural pessimists and Maoist neocommunists, American theoconservatives fantasizing about the harmony of medieval Catholic society and radical Islamists seeking to restore a vanished Muslim caliphate.

The revolutionary spirit that inspired political movements across the world for two centuries may have died out. But the spirit of reaction that rose to meet it has survived and is proving just as formidable a historical force. We live in an age when the tragicomic nostalgia of Don Quixote for a lost golden age has been transformed into a potent and sometimes deadly weapon. Mark Lilla helps us to understand why.

Obama was a highly dignified man, there is no doubt about that. He had many social graces which created a standard in your mind. Lets revisit some previous presidents.

President Jefferson described President Adams as a > "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Very presidential eh?

Presidential George W. Bush wore cowboy boots with the Royal seal of the House of Windsor on the sole when he met the Queen of England. He constantly embarrassed the United States with his harebrained verbal oopsies.

President Clinton received and gave oral sex to an intern while in office.

Trump is intentionally baiting you, and baiting everyone else. He is intentionally saying things that will offend sensitive individuals, it has purpose and intention. That purpose and intention is to reverse the course we are on towards political correctness. If you have an interest, you should read The Shipwrecked Mind, it really lays out the idealism of both the liberal and conservative crowds.

This intentional baiting, or trolling is a whole movement in the media/politics/social issues.

Edit: I wanted to add this tidbit because it means a lot to me. We have a lot of very graceful, dignified people in our country who are well educated and well spoken. We often forget the roots we came from though, we are the fruit of the lower classes from all over the world. Robert Downy Jr. hit this right on the nose during an interview in France.