Boot's honesty about himself is what saves this "written in the first person" no-no of a literary method, because it provides a broader explanation of why Republicans are too often so selfishly proselytizing: they can be exceptionally arrogant.
Boot conflates ideology with political identity, and labels with personal choice, suggesting that his "high-brow" intelligence energized his political conclusions. The reality seems more like his political identity was "chosen"/crafted by him in response to his family situation, and not his analytical capacity.
This is not to say that his insight isn't smart and passionate--and correct. Its just that if he doesn't get to the heart of the origins of his "political identity", he is doomed to fail even in his abdication of his role in the Republican Party. Read the book, and ask yourself if his political identity really wasn't "developed" by him as a surrogate for his absent father, who gave him, when he was a boy, a subscription to National Review.
To not immerse himself in the thoughts of the white male authors of that journal, while living with his "California-bohemian" mother, would effectively be a rejection of his father---or at least an admission that Pop was failing Boot as a parent.
Boot also fails to see that his position as a privileged straight white male is exactly what allowed him to express, for example, "anti-political correctness" arguments without any sort of social, academic, or career costs. If it weren't for his arrogance, he would have been able to make the analysis and conclude--as a young man, that his political identity was wrapped in--and shielded by, any number of "-isms". And so if he doesn't deal with his arrogance, he is destined to make the same mistake, but just with a different political membership.
Reduced to its most basic truth, Boot reveals how political idealism (of any "flavor") is, terrifyingly, over-generalized in order to accommodate its "usefulness" in ruling over The Masses.
