How America Works...and Why It Doesn't

A Brief Guide to the US Political System

By: William Cooper

Narrated by: Jeff Harding

Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Twenty-first-century America isn’t working the way it’s supposed to.

This book explains why.

Americans in the twenty-first century are becoming increasingly untethered from both reality and the essential principles and traditions that have shaped the nation’s historic success. A big part of why America isn’t working is because far too many Americans neither know nor care how it’s supposed to work.

©2024 William Cooper (P)2024 Boldwood Books

Critic reviews

“William Cooper is an insightful and thought-provoking writer about US politics. He deserves to be widely read.” Thomas Plate, former Editorial Page Editor, Los Angeles Times

"In How America Works . . . and Why It Doesn’t, William Cooper gives a thoughtful, readable guide to what ails American democracy. Required reading for any student of political science.” Uri Kaufman, author of Eighteen Days in October

“William Cooper logically and authoritatively takes you step by step through all the reasons a President Trump couldn’t imprison his enemies, pardon his friends, overrule judges, weaponize the Department of Justice, prosecute Joe Biden, or order the military to enforce his unconstitutional actions” Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Partisanship fuels personal convictions more than ever in our society, and convictions fuel mysided thinking and other cognitive biases. At no time have we needed this discussion of bias and partisan thinking more than now.” Keith E. Stanovich, author of The Bias That Divides Us

“William Cooper presents an insightful, sensitive, and accessible account of the trials that face American democracy in the twenty-first century. This fair- and broad-minded volume makes compelling reading for those who are looking to build a better democracy.” Alexander Yen, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford

So near very good

While many of us will agree with Cooper's construction of much of the happenings in our country, he gives equal weight to missteps and grievances on both sides. But in reality the balance of wrong/bad actors is heavily weighted on one side and his denial of that detracts from reliance on his story.

A great book!!

The best explanation of today's America on the shelves. A thoughtful and nonpartisan assessment of the American polity.

I found this very informative and interesting

Since I was a child, I have had trouble with history and politics for a few reasons. For one, the way history was taught to me was traditional, limited, and boring. For another, it seemed that politics tended to be polarizing, although not nearly as bad as it is now, and I was never sure who I could trust. And even if I trusted a politician, it didn't mean that they would be good at the job. Jimmy Carter comes to mind. Thankfully, he has done a ton of good since he left the presidency!

But back to this book. This is sort of a cliff notes primer about the US Political System and while it focuses a lot on more recent events and how we got to where we are today, he goes back into the history of the beginnings of our country and how the constitution with the amendments came to be. He does his best to be nonpartisan and points out times when both the Democrats and the Republicans did things that were not really for the best interests of our country, but rather for the gain of their party. For example, even though he is clear about the danger that Trump poses for our country, he also discusses the Democrats falsely accusing him of Russian collusion to help him win the election without the appropriate proof, and in the long run, that does not really help. Another example involves his argument about cancel culture, which I didn't entirely agree with.

By the end, I had the sense that the author was more left leaning, which is fine with me, but I think in an effort to remain nonpartisan, there were some things (like the cancel culture) that he pulled in that didn't feel very convincing to me. The previous example about the Democrats charging him without sufficient proof carried more weight for me, and some of the other examples he gave of how the Democrats did not help themselves by doing such and such made sense to me. Still, it was apparent to me that while he tried to keep the book nonpartisan, he definitely leans left, and perhaps he should have just stated that at the beginning. One can lean one way and still point out the shortcomings of one's own party.

I very much appreciated the history lessons he included about our political system because much of that I either didn't remember or was never taught. I liked how he connected certain decisions made decades ago to the current situation we find ourselves in, although obviously it has never been just one thing. I also am fully convinced that we need to find an alternative to the Electoral College although I have no idea how that would work. I would be interested in the author's thoughts about what he thinks would have to happen in order for such a thing to happen. I just recently listened to Congressman Jamie Raskin speak about the need to eliminate the Electoral college, but once again, I don't actually know what needs to happen to do such a thing (other than convince everyone in Congress that it has to happen?).

In terms of the narration, I thought Jeff Harding did a solid job with the narration. I'm not familiar with his work, but his voice worked very well for this book.

Overall, I thought this was a clearly written, succinct account of our political system that I found very helpful in giving me perspective and better understanding. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to better understand our political system without getting bogged down in the weeds. It really is aptly subtitled, "A Brief Guide to the US Political System."