roadtodisaster_cover.jpg E quipped with fresh insights from the fields of cognitive science and psychology, Brian VanDeMark’s Road to Disaster: A New History of America’s Descent Into Vietnam examines how Lyndon Johnson and his Vietnam advisors, “best and the brightest,” as David Halberstam’s famously called them in his seminal work, unspooled the decisions that cost the lives of more than 58,000 Americans. VanDeMark, an associate professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, has taught courses on the Vietnam War for nearly 30 years. As a young historian, he assisted Robert McNamara, Lyndon Johnson’s Secretary of Defense, with his controversial 1995 memoir on the war and got to know other senior advisors like Clark Clifford, McNamara’s successor. After Vietnam, Americans embraced a less jaundiced view of veterans and military service, but VanDeMark also tells The American Prospect that the contemporary polarization that now runs deep in...

If moderate Republicans ever coalesce around a standard-bearer determined to draw a bright line between Trumpism and difficult issues on which people of good will can disagree, that person could emerge as an important force in a country in dire need of healing and leadership. Governor Charlie Baker could have been a contender for such a spot. Running for a second term, the Massachusetts Republican has bipartisan appeal in a Democratic state that likes its Republicans reasonable. On the national scene, the former health-insurance industry executive emerged as a behind-the-scenes point-person, working with other governors to protect the Affordable Care Act. Bay State voters also have long supported fiscal conservatives/social liberals like Baker to serve as a counterbalance to the state legislature’s longstanding Democratic supermajority. But Trumpism has seeped into body politic in the so-called liberal bastion of Massachusetts. Baker’s attempts to stage-manage this...