From a reader:

Jonah,
No one sat down to explain the rules to you. Kevin Phillips has credibility because he was a Republican who disagreed with Reagan (primarily because he didn’t understand supply-side economics, didn’t like any of Reagan’s advisers or Reagan himself).
Did Reagan have any extra credibility for abandoning the Democratic party? Does Phil Gramm? Ben Whitehorse Campbell? Of course not. It’s because of the rules. You know as well as anyone that Jim Jeffords could assert anything and it would have to be true, by golly, because he was a Republican and he doesn’t like George Bush.
You have to know the rules.
My freshman year in college, our poli sci class was assigned to read Kevin Phillips drivel “The Politics of Rich and Poor.” Our prof extolled the genius of this guy, and I still wonder where the professor was coming from (I forgot, he was a university professor in Bloomington, Ind.). It’s been more than 10 years since then, but my eyes have just stopped bleeding. Phillips intentionally distorted facts, conveniently forgot other forces at play and continually demonstrated the inability to grasp simple economic concepts. But the professor said that Phillips was a great guy because he called himself a Republican and wrote this book that was supposedly so damning of the Reagan years.
Again, if you want to become all of a sudden an expert on anything, be it tax law, constitutional law, foreign policy, home improvement, Thai food, wine-tasting, auto racing, the motion offense, the 46 defense, horticulture or interior design, just condemn conservatism in a column or better yet, a book.
It worked for David Brock, right?
(Anyway, looking forward to your talk at Valpo.)