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Democracy in Chains
- The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Finalist for the National Book Award
The Nation's "Most Valuable Book"
“[A] vibrant intellectual history of the radical right.” (The Atlantic)
“This sixty-year campaign to make libertarianism mainstream and eventually take the government itself is at the heart of Democracy in Chains.... If you're worried about what all this means for America's future, you should be.” (NPR)
An explosive exposé of the right's relentless campaign to eliminate unions, suppress voting, privatize public education, stop action on climate change, and alter the Constitution.
Behind today's headlines of billionaires taking over our government is a secretive political establishment with long, deep, and troubling roots. The capitalist radical right has been working not simply to change who rules but to fundamentally alter the rules of democratic governance. But billionaires did not launch this movement; a white intellectual in the embattled Jim Crow South did. Democracy in Chains names its true architect—the Nobel Prize-winning political economist James McGill Buchanan—and dissects the operation he and his colleagues designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority.
In a brilliant and engrossing narrative, Nancy MacLean shows how Buchanan forged his ideas about government in a last-gasp attempt to preserve the white elite's power in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. In response to the widening of American democracy, he developed a brilliant, if diabolical, plan to undermine the ability of the majority to use its numbers to level the playing field between the rich and powerful and the rest of us.
Corporate donors and their right-wing foundations were only too eager to support Buchanan's work in teaching others how to divide America into "makers" and "takers". And when a multibillionaire on a messianic mission to rewrite the social contract of the modern world, Charles Koch, discovered Buchanan, he created a vast, relentless, and multiarmed machine to carry out Buchanan's strategy.
Without Buchanan's ideas and Koch's money, the libertarian right would not have succeeded in its stealth takeover of the Republican Party as a delivery mechanism. Now, with Mike Pence as vice president, the cause has a longtime loyalist in the White House, not to mention a phalanx of Republicans in the House, the Senate, a majority of state governments, and the courts, all carrying out the plan. That plan includes harsher laws to undermine unions, privatizing everything from schools to health care and Social Security, and keeping as many of us as possible from voting. Based on 10 years of unique research, Democracy in Chains tells a chilling story of right-wing academics and big money run amok. This revelatory work of scholarship is also a call to arms to protect the achievements of 20th-century American self-government.
Critic reviews
"[A] remarkably important book...this book is a superb contribution to our understanding of the rise of libertarian notions and right-wing political power in the US. If you wonder how the Supreme Court came to define speech as money or corporations as people, this volume will help you to figure it out.... The melting ice caps, if nothing else, stand as testament to the folly of listening mainly to the rich and powerful." (Bill McKibben, The Times Literary Supplement)
"Democracy in Chains leaves me with hope: Perhaps as books like MacLean’s continue to shine a light on important truths, Americans will begin to realize they need to pay more attention and not succumb to the cynical view that known liars make the best leaders." (New York Times Book Review)
"A remarkable new book which argues that the radical right revolution engineered by Charles and his brother David is not just about accruing political and economic power, but about restricting democracy itself." (The New Republic)
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Why the Right Went Wrong offers a historical view of the right since the 1960s. Its core contention is that American conservatism and the Republican Party took a wrong turn when they adopted Barry Goldwater's worldview during and after the 1964 campaign. Since 1968, no conservative administration could live up to the rhetoric rooted in the Goldwater movement that began to reshape American politics 50 years ago.
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Outstanding, refreshing, inspiring
- By James Adams on 03-19-16
By: E. J. Dionne Jr.
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American Character
- A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good
- By: Colin Woodard
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The struggle between individualism and the good of the community as a whole has been the basis of every major disagreement in our history, from the debates at the Constitutional Convention and in the run-up to the Civil War to the fights surrounding the agenda of the Progressives, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, and the Tea Party.
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Biased Misrepresentation
- By Jay Ehret on 06-24-16
By: Colin Woodard
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Big Agenda
- President Trump's Plan to Save America
- By: David Horowitz
- Narrated by: Ian Patterson
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
One battle is over, but there are many more to come. This book is an indispensable guide to fighting the opponents of the conservative restoration. It identifies who the adversaries are, as well as their methods, motivations, and agenda, including the particular issues with which they will try to advance their destructive goal - and it lays out a strategy to defeat all of it.
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Title doesn't match content.
- By Gigi on 02-12-17
By: David Horowitz
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Rule and Ruin
- The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party
- By: Geoffrey Kabaservice
- Narrated by: Michael Bulter Murray
- Length: 21 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity. Except this development is not new at all.
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Kabaservice doesn't make the case
- By MJE on 01-22-16
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Reason
- Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America
- By: Robert B. Reich
- Narrated by: Robert B. Reich
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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From Robert B. Reich, passionate believer in American democracy and public servant, Reason is a guide to confronting and derailing what he sees as the mounting threat to American liberty, prosperity, and security posed by the radical conservatives, Radcons as he calls them.
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Reason
- By Ron Green on 03-13-05
By: Robert B. Reich
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The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution
- Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic
- By: Ganesh Sitaraman
- Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable - and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America's republic.
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Very well done
- By JLyman on 08-27-17
By: Ganesh Sitaraman
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents
- From Wilson to Obama
- By: Steven F. Hayward
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Academics, journalists, and popular historians agree: our greatest presidents are the ones who confronted a national crisis and mobilized the entire nation to face it. That’s the conventional wisdom. The chief executives who are celebrated in textbooks and placed in the top echelon of presidents in surveys of experts are the bold leaders - the Woodrow Wilsons and Franklin Roosevelts - who reshaped the United States in line with their grand “vision” for America. Unfortunately, along the way, these “great” presidents inevitably expanded government - and shrank our liberties.
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Really enjoyed it
- By Jkc-007 on 02-15-17
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The Audacity of Hope
- Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. Now, in The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics: a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the "endless clash of armies" we see in Congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of "our improbable experiment in democracy".
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My Fellow Conservatives, Give This A Listen
- By Dallas D.L. on 02-12-15
By: Barack Obama
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Audacity
- How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail
- By: Jonathan Chait
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the course of eight years, Barack Obama has amassed an array of outstanding achievements. His administration saved the American economy from collapse, expanded health insurance to millions who previously could not afford it, negotiated an historic nuclear deal with Iran, helped craft a groundbreaking international climate accord, reined in Wall Street, and crafted a new vision of racial progress.
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Good and balanced view of the Obama years
- By Paul on 02-01-17
By: Jonathan Chait
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Hostile Takeover
- Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America
- By: Matt Kibbe
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Hostile Takeover is a rebellious challenge to the "upper management" of government, who are choking American prosperity and liberty. Matt Kibbe exposes the privileged collusion of Washington insiders - and maps out a proven plan for how to return power from the self-appointed "experts" back to the people. Dubbed "one of the Tea Party's masterminds" by Newsweek, Kibbe reveals how grassroots citizens can and will check the federal behemoth and restore the American enterprise.
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An amazing book from an interesting perspective
- By Aaron on 12-28-12
By: Matt Kibbe
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To Make Men Free
- A History of the Republican Party
- By: Heather Cox Richardson
- Narrated by: Heather Cox Richardson
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Republican Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession. While progressive Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower revived Lincoln’s vision and expanded the government, their opponents appealed to Americans’ latent racism and xenophobia to regain political power, linking taxation and regulation to redistribution and socialism. In the modern era, the schism within the Republican Party has grown wider, pulling the GOP ever further from its founding principles.
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Fascinating read!
- By Marsha on 12-27-21
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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The Party Is Over
- How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted
- By: Mike Lofgren
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
There was a time, not so very long ago, when perfectly rational people ran the Republican Party. So how did the party of Lincoln become the party of lunatics? That is what this book aims to answer. Fear not, the Dems come in for their share of tough talk - they are zombies, a party of the living dead. Mike Lofgren came to Washington in the early eighties - those halcyon, post-Nixonian glory days - for what he imagined would be a short stint on Capitol Hill.
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A Great Analysis
- By Dan D on 09-04-12
By: Mike Lofgren
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When Ed Goodwin moved with his parents to Greenwood, Tulsa, in 1914, his family joined a growing community on the cusp of becoming a national center of black life. But, just seven years later, on May 31, 1921, the teenaged Ed hid in a bathtub as a white mob descended on his neighborhood, laying waste to thirty-five blocks and murdering as many as three hundred people. The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the most brutal acts of racist violence in U.S. history, a ruthless attempt to smother a spark of black independence. But that was never the whole story of Greenwood.
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On the face of it, the three characters in this book seem to have little in common—aside from the fact that each committed wartime acts that led some to see them as national heroes, and others as villains. All three were mythmakers, larger-than-life storytellers, for whom the truth was beside the point. Felix Kersten was a plump Finnish pleasure-seeker who became Heinrich Himmler’s indispensable personal masseur—Himmler calling him his “magic Buddha.”
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In the heart of the Scientific Revolution, when new theories promised to explain the affairs of the universe, Britain was broke, facing a mountain of debt accumulated in war after war it could not afford. But that same Scientific Revolution - the kind of thinking that helped Isaac Newton solve the mysteries of the cosmos - would soon lead clever, if not always scrupulous, men to try to figure a way out of Britain’s financial troubles.
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We tend to think of revolutions as loud: frustrations and demands shouted in the streets. But the ideas fueling them have traditionally been conceived in much quieter spaces, in the small, secluded corners where a vanguard can whisper among themselves, imagine alternate realities, and deliberate about how to achieve their goals. This extraordinary book is a search for those spaces, over centuries and across continents, and a warning that—in a world dominated by social media—they might soon go extinct.
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In the earliest days of our nation, a handful of unsung heroes - including women, slaves, and an Iroquois chief - made crucial contributions to our republic. They pioneered the ideas that led to the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, and the abolition of slavery. Yet their faces haven't been printed on our currency or carved into any cliffs. Instead they were marginalized, silenced, or forgotten - sometimes by an accident of history, sometimes by design.
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In We Refuse to Forget, award-winning journalist Caleb Gayle tells the extraordinary story of the Creek Nation, a Native tribe that two centuries ago both owned slaves and accepted Black people as full citizens. Thanks to the efforts of Creek leaders like Cow Tom, a Black Creek citizen who rose to become chief, the U.S. government recognized Creek citizenship in 1866 for its Black members. Yet this equality was shredded in the 1970s when tribal leaders revoked the citizenship of Black Creeks, even those who could trace their history back generations—even to Cow Tom himself.
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If Creek, yet Black, why you aren't still Creek?
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America and Iran
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Distortions Galore
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The Genius of the System
- Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era
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At a time when the studio is making a stunning comeback, film historian Thomas Schatz provides an indispensable account of Hollywood's traditional blend of business and art. Working from industry documents, Schatz traces the development of house styles, the rise and fall of careers, and the making - and unmaking - of movies, from Frankenstein to Spellbound to Grand Hotel. The Genius of the System gives the definitive view of the workings of the Old Hollywood and the foundations of the New.
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A Textbook on Old Hollywood
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Into the Hands of the Soldiers
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Egypt has long set the paradigm for Arab autocracy. It is the keeper of the peace with Israel and the cornerstone of the American-backed regional order. So when Egyptians rose up to demand democracy in 2011, their 30 months of freedom convulsed the whole region. Now a new strongman, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is building a dictatorship so severe some call it totalitarian. The economy sputters, an insurgency simmers, Christians suffer, and the Israeli military has been forced to intervene. But some in Washington - including President Trump - applaud Sisi as a crucial ally.
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may get better, but presentation is off putting
- By Fruggs on 08-28-18
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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
- Native America from 1890 to the Present
- By: David Treuer
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The received idea of Native American history - as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did 150 Sioux die at the hands of the US Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well. Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative.
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excellent text, awful narrator
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What listeners say about Democracy in Chains
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- Karl R. Walko
- 08-21-18
The Anti-Democracy Efforts of the 1%
Must reading for all Americans who believe in a functional democracy which acts in the interest of the common person. The author tracks the history of the right wing attack on functional democracy back to mid-20th century Virginia which saw in the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education a threat to state's rights and the power structure first established through and for slavery and defended by John C. Calhoun against the interest of the majority of Americans.
Through a perverse line of thinking, the philosophical descendants of the slaveholding class describe their actions as protecting liberty. Their actions make it clear that they do not care about the liberty of the many but only the liberty to use their outsized power through the money and property they have obtained to rule over the rest of us.
They fear any organization of Americans that seeks to expand the rights of all Americans, especially labor unions, and seek to destroy them. Their final goal is to rewrite the U.S. Constituion so that the U.S. government is limited to protecting property rights and not much more.
Similar action by extremely wealthy Americans at the start of the 20th century almost led to a revolution in this country during the Great Depression that could have resulted in our becoming a fascist society, not unlike Germany, or communist society, not unlike the Soviet Union.
Again, we are coming to a crossroads where the very nature of our nation is in question. Let's hope this book and books like it ensure that we move in the right direction.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Paul de Jong
- 07-10-17
Important book exposing a big problem
There are a lot of details in the first half and it can be hard to get through, but it is important to understand the roots of the cancer. The last half exposes the frightening reality that is facing us now. You could read the second half first and get the background after getting punched in the face by the truth of what is happening to our country.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Slab Hardcheese
- 06-21-17
the truth exposed .
Finally some well researched light shining into the festering wound that is the current state of the USA political system.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Claudia E. Kidder
- 10-13-19
Terrific book!
I learned a lot from this book. It details the history of Libertarianism, its underlying rational and who it favors. It is a must read book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Pat M
- 12-20-17
A True Nightmare
History can be very dry and so was the robotic voice of the narrator. However as history (in this book) began to unfold and the narrator became more comfortable, reality came to light resulting in a very real nightmare. This book is a ‘must read’ for every concerned United States citizen on the future of democracy!
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- M. R. Kearney
- 02-22-18
exposing libertarian economics for what it is
fascinating read, explains how the right have been so successful at pushing policy despite the unpopularity of their ideas
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- Donald Bullard
- 12-07-17
To the barricades!
Informative. Explains a lot. Leaves me feeling the body politic has cancer. Please get the word out.
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- Doug Lindsay
- 12-07-20
Behind the curtains of the modern Republican Party
Although I am a lifelong liberal I grew up in South Texas surrounded by conservatives and Republicans including my own family. I have discussed and debated politics with many conservatives over the years. I have really noticed a change in the Republican way of addressing and dealing with problems, especially legislatively over the last twenty five years, This book really drew back the curtain on the game plan that started in the 1950's and slowly and steadily evolved. James Buchanan, a somewhat Libertarian economist, felt like the federal governments abilities to legislate around everything from civil rights environmental regulations and especially taxation far exceeded the preferences of many on the far right despite it being within the parameters of the Constitution. The real fear is that the majority of citizens might impose their will legislatively on the wealthy and powerful, a minority, with progressive taxation, social programs and regulations as happened in The New Deal and the Great Society years. In a largely low profile, hidden from public view strategy and with the help of billionaires like the Koch brothers and conservative think tanks they begin a systematic plan to change legislation and the judiciary from municipal, county, state and federal levels largely via lobbying and the American Legislative Exchange Council, otherwise known as ALEC . One of the overriding themes is staying in power by any means necessary. It explains a lot about McConnell's years long obstruction of most of Obama's federal judicial nominees, no matter how qualified, and culminating in the Merrick Garland blockade and recent Barrett ramming through. That is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I also went through Stuart Stevens "It Was All a Lie" and I am working on "The Impostors" currently. All of these books show the same thing from different perspectives. Historically we have expected our governments to attempt to help solve problems of the American people. I believe Republicans have largely walked away from that. A lot of the focus is now on on tribalism and maintaining power. They have much less interest in policy and legislation now. The Republican Party did not even have a platform for 2020 for the first time in GOP history. Watch what they do not what they say.
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- Steven JC
- 02-16-20
Must read, must share
Excellent and necessary information for anyone in the US.
This part is for the required word limit.
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- Melody L Derrick
- 07-31-21
Revealing Account of the Origins of Libertarianism
This is a necessary and terrifying book that details the racist and authoritarian history of Libertarianism and its Billionaire promoters. The chapters on their so called experiments in Chile show the dark future these people want for America. Motivating and a great companion to "Dark Money" and "The Shadow Network".
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