Last Chance to Save American Democracy

Last Chance to Save American Democracy
Author: Haven McVarish
Publisher: 5journeys Media LLC
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781735819129

The earth's climate has passed the tipping point. White supremacists are armed and marching. Our government cages immigrant children. The wealthy get all the tax breaks. We can't even agree on wearing masks to stop a deadly pandemic. Many Americans believe that our nation's problems multiply by the day, that those in charge are willing to end our republic to retain power. And they're right. With riveting insight, political strategist Haven McVarish fights back and sets the "democracy revival" agenda. Weaving a set of comprehensive solutions with an organizing plan to get these solutions into law, McVarish creates the strategy we need for 2021. Otherwise, Democratic leaders will squander this last chance to save democracy afforded by the 2020 "blue wave". These bold solutions will neutralize the GOP's attacks on democracy. These attacks include unlimited dark money, extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression and endless weaponized misinformation. McVarish's solutions will also deliver ongoing Democratic majorities and depoliticized courts. All without constitutional amendments. You don't have to feel frustrated and scared. This blueprint lays out a clear path for us to compel Democrats into taking effective action in 2021 before it's too late.

Democracy in America?

Democracy in America?
Author: Benjamin I. Page
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022672493X

America faces daunting problems—stagnant wages, high health care costs, neglected schools, deteriorating public services. How did we get here? Through decades of dysfunctional government. In Democracy in America? veteran political observers Benjamin I. Page and Martin Gilens marshal an unprecedented array of evidence to show that while other countries have responded to a rapidly changing economy by helping people who’ve been left behind, the United States has failed to do so. Instead, we have actually exacerbated inequality, enriching corporations and the wealthy while leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. What’s the solution? More democracy. More opportunities for citizens to shape what their government does. To repair our democracy, Page and Gilens argue, we must change the way we choose candidates and conduct our elections, reform our governing institutions, and curb the power of money in politics. By doing so, we can reduce polarization and gridlock, address pressing challenges, and enact policies that truly reflect the interests of average Americans. Updated with new information, this book lays out a set of proposals that would boost citizen participation, curb the power of money, and democratize the House and Senate.

Republican Rescue

Republican Rescue
Author: Chris Christie
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2021-11-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1982187530

Enough with the infighting, the truth-denying, the wild conspiracy claims, the looking backward, and the refusal to focus on the dangerous Biden agenda. Here’s Chris Christie’s urgent guide for recapturing Republican glory and winning elections again, told with all the New Jersey frankness and news-breaking insights that have made the two-term governor and presidential candidate an indispensable voice and instant New York Times bestselling author. As governor of New Jersey and a key Trump insider and longtime friend, Chris Christie has always been known for speaking his mind. Now that the depressing 2020 election is finally behind us, he shares his bold insights on how a battered Republican Party can soar into the future and start winning big elections again. The wrong answers are everywhere. Dangerous conspiracy theorists. A tired establishment. Truth deniers and political cowards. In Republican Rescue, Christie reveals exactly how absurd grievances and self-inflicted wounds sabotaged Donald Trump’s many successes and allowed Democrats to capture the White House, the House, and Senate in two years—a first for the GOP since the days of Herbert Hoover. In his frank and compelling voice, Christie dissects the last year of the Trump administration—which provoked nothing but conspiracy theories and infighting—and he lays out an honest and hopeful vision, explaining how Republicans can capture the future and save America from today’s damaging Democratic excesses. The core Republican values of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan are as relevant now as they’ve ever been, Christie writes. Opportunity for all. A strong national defense. Leaders we can all be proud of. Americans in charge of their own lives. A federal government that answers to the people—not the other way around. But these Republican ideals need to be reinvigorated with fresh clarity and open arms. Christie watched in horror as some in his beloved party embraced paranoia and explained away violence. Determined to restore the party’s integrity and success, he shows how to build a movement voters will flock to again, a Republicanism that’s blunt, smart, conservative, potent, and perfectly suited for the 21st century.

Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy

Unrigged: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy
Author: David Daley
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2020-03-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1631495763

The “wildly undersold story” (Lawrence Lessig) of the next American revolution, and the inspiring citizen activists fighting to save America’s fragile democracy. Our country is dominated by a political party that has no interest in governing, and that seeks to entrench its power by limiting democracy—going so far as to force people to the polls in the middle of a pandemic. Yet there is hope, as best-selling author David Daley argues in Unrigged, though it doesn’t lie in Congress, gerrymandered statehouses, or even the courts. We must, instead, look to the grassroots. Introducing us to groups that have pioneered innovative organizing methods—often combining old-school activism with new digital tools—Daley uncovers the story behind voting-rights victories nationwide and the new organizations reinventing our politics. The result is a vivid portrait of a new civic awakening, and an essential toolkit for reviving our democracy in the Trump era and beyond.

How to Save a Constitutional Democracy

How to Save a Constitutional Democracy
Author: Tom Ginsburg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2018-10-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 022656438X

Democracies are in danger. Around the world, a rising wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self-rule. In the United States, the tenure of Donald Trump has seemed decisive turning point for many. What kind of president intimidates jurors, calls the news media the “enemy of the American people,” and seeks foreign assistance investigating domestic political rivals? Whatever one thinks of President Trump, many think the Constitution will safeguard us from lasting damage. But is that assumption justified? How to Save a Constitutional Democracy mounts an urgent argument that we can no longer afford to be complacent. Drawing on a rich array of other countries’ experiences with democratic backsliding, Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq show how constitutional rules can both hinder and hasten the decline of democratic institutions. The checks and balances of the federal government, a robust civil society and media, and individual rights—such as those enshrined in the First Amendment—often fail as bulwarks against democratic decline. The sobering reality for the United States, Ginsburg and Huq contend, is that the Constitution’s design makes democratic erosion more, not less, likely. Its structural rigidity has had unforeseen consequence—leaving the presidency weakly regulated and empowering the Supreme Court conjure up doctrines that ultimately facilitate rather than inhibit rights violations. Even the bright spots in the Constitution—the First Amendment, for example—may have perverse consequences in the hands of a deft communicator who can degrade the public sphere by wielding hateful language banned in many other democracies. We—and the rest of the world—can do better. The authors conclude by laying out practical steps for how laws and constitutional design can play a more positive role in managing the risk of democratic decline.

Surviving Autocracy

Surviving Autocracy
Author: Masha Gessen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0593332245

“When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.” —The New York Times “A reckoning with what has been lost in the past few years and a map forward with our beliefs intact.” —Interview As seen on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and heard on NPR’s All Things Considered: the bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist offers an essential guide to understanding, resisting, and recovering from the ravages of our tumultuous times. This incisive book provides an essential guide to understanding and recovering from the calamitous corrosion of American democracy over the past few years. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Masha Gessen has a sixth sense for the manifestations of autocracy—and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate their emergence to Americans. Gessen not only anatomizes the corrosion of the institutions and cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years changed us from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. Surviving Autocracy is an inventory of ravages and a call to account but also a beacon to recovery—and to the hope of what comes next.

It's Time to Fight Dirty

It's Time to Fight Dirty
Author: David M. Faris
Publisher: Melville House
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1612196950

The American electoral system is clearly failing more horrifically in the 2016 presidential election than ever before. In It's Time to Fight Dirty, David Faris expands on his popular series for 'The Week' to offer party leaders and supporters concrete strategies for lasting political reform - and in doing so lays the groundwork for a more progressive future. With equal parts playful irreverence and persuasive reasoning, It's Time to Fight Dirty is essential reading as we head toward the 2018 midterms... and beyond.

American Manifesto

American Manifesto
Author: Bob Garfield
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2021-01-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 164009461X

Do you fear for our democracy? Are you ready to throw in the towel? Don't! This is your guidebook to reassembling our hyperpolarized American society in six (not-so-easy) steps, written by the cohost of WNYC's On the Media. As is often observed, Trump is a symptom of a virus that has been incubating for at least fifty years. But not often observed is where the virus is imbedded: in the psychic core of our identity. In American Manifesto: Saving Democracy from Villains, Vandals, and Ourselves, popular media personality Bob Garfield examines the tragic confluence of the American preoccupation with identity and the catastrophic disintegration of the mass media. Garfield investigates how we've gotten to this moment when our identity is threatened by both the left and the right, when e pluribus unum is no longer a source of national pride, and why, when looking through this lens of identity, the rise of Trumpism is no surprise. Overlaying this crisis is the rise of the Facebook-Google duopoly and the filter bubble of social media, where identity is insular and immutable. But fear not! WNYC's On the Media cohost Garfield has ideas about how we may counter the forces of fragmentation—the manifesto itself: six steps to take to reassemble our fractured society. A quick, fascinating read, American Manifesto offers not only a vision of a country in extremis, but also a plan for how to address the ways in which our democracy is imperiled. Provocative, profound, and sometimes hilariously profane, American Manifesto is a call to action like no other.

10 Steps to Repair American Democracy

10 Steps to Repair American Democracy
Author: Steven Hill
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015-12-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317264363

In 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy Steven Hill addresses the problems plaguing the US political system, outlining his ten-step program to improve American democracy. He proposes specific reforms to give voters more choices at the ballot box, boost voter turnout, reduce Senate 'filibustering' and end excessive corporate dominance. In the face of mounting cynicism about the US political system, 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy is a refreshing blueprint for how to resurrect the Founders' democratic vision. It will change the way you think about US politics.

Democracy in One Book or Less

Democracy in One Book or Less
Author: David Litt
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2020-06-16
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 0062879383

“Wry, quickly readable, yet informed and edgy . . . whimsy and pop culture, enlisted toward the end of knowledge.” — The Atlantic “Brings Dave Barry-style humor to an illuminating book on what is wrong with American democracy — and how to put it right. . . . Litt’s playful stories and fun facts explode common wisdom. . . . In the book’s strongest contribution, Litt shows how radically our democracy has been altered in recent decades [, making] the case that nearly all of these negative trends are occurring by design.” — Washington Post “Strikingly timely. . . . [Litt] offers ways to fix governmental ills that stymie all Americans and does so with a breezy and accessible wit.” — The Guardian “Remarkably prescient and applicable. It's rare to feel good about the way things are going, but Litt's book will get you there.” — Elle, “23 Books That Will Put You in a Good Mood, Guaranteed” “Litt’s book laces his signature humor into his exploration of American Democracy and how it has transformed over the years.” — Time, “45 New Books You Need to Read This Summer” “Casts a welcome, cleansing beam of light on a subject that has become increasingly murky and frustratingly confusing . . . Litt has a breezy, often conversational tone, but that in no way diminishes the force of his argument. Politics has changed, and not in a good way. But there are ways American democracy can be fixed, and it is to Litt’s credit that he offers practical albeit challenging solutions to the problems confronting our system of governance.” — Booklist (starred review) “[A] snappy and well-informed dissection of the current state of American democracy. . . Both optimistic and clear-eyed, this quip-filled call to action will resonate strongly with young progressives.” — Publishers Weekly “A pleasure to read, even in its darkest moments, and refreshingly optimistic about the future of the republic.” — Kirkus Reviews “Hilarious and incisive. If you want to understand what happened to America and how to change it, Democracy in One Book or Less will make you laugh and think, all at the same time.” — David Axelrod, former senior advisor to Barack Obama and author of Believer: My Forty Years in Politics “You think you know about politics and the motivations and machinations of Washington—and then you read this book. A wildly entertaining and informative journey that peels back the curtain on how the Beltway functions, David Litt’s latest is a must-read for anyone who can’t look away from the ‘what’ of the news and wants to understand the ‘why.’” — Amie Parnes, co-author of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign “If you want to understand how our government really works without having a panic attack or a migraine, read this book. The way David tells stories about politics is funny, informative, and, most important, hopeful. David Litt dares to remain inspired, and that is what the conversation around politics needs most.” — Ilana Glazer, co-creator and co-star of Broad City “I’m so relieved to have this book at this moment in our political climate, a guide to our democracy when we so desperately need one.” — Abbi Jacobson, co-creator and co-star of Broad City and author of I Might Regret This “David Litt’s book is equal parts how-to, historical, and hilarious as he takes us through the trials and travails of how the electorate and democracy in general works—and sometimes doesn’t—yet still lovingly shows us that it’s worth it all the same. A warm, pithy, and inspiring read.” — Keegan-Michael Key “I always look forward to David Litt’s fiercely intelligent and funny take on the current state of things. If ever there was a time we needed a hilarious and thought-provoking look at how our democracy got to this point—and how we can save it—it’s now!” — Billy Eichner “Democracy in One Book or Less is by turns funny and illuminating. Litt combines his trademark humor and witty writing with an urgent call to fix American democracy. It’s a tragicomedy that makes you a better citizen while you laugh and shake your head in disbelief at our broken system.” — Brian Klaas, assistant professor of global politics at University College London and columnist for the Washington Post