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Minority rule the right-wing attack on the will of the people-and the fight to resist it
A riveting account of the decades-long effort by reactionary white conservatives to undermine democracy and entrench their power -- and the movement to stop them. The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy a blatan...
| Main Author: | Berman, Ari (Author) |
|---|---|
| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2024.
|
| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
A riveting account of the decades-long effort by reactionary white conservatives to undermine democracy and entrench their power -- and the movement to stop them. The mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, represented an extreme form of the central danger facing American democracy a blatant disregard for the will of the majority. But this crisis didn't begin or end with Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Through voter suppression, election subversion, gerrymandering, dark money, the takeover of the courts, and the whitewashing of history, reactionary white conservatives have strategically entrenched power in the face of a massive demographic and political shift. Ari Berman charts these efforts with sweeping historical research and incisive on-the-ground reporting, chronicling how a wide range of antidemocratic tactics interact with profound structural inequalities in institutions like the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to threaten the survival of representative government in America. "The will of the people," wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1801, "is the only legitimate foundation of any government." But that foundation is crumbling. Some counter-majoritarian measures were deliberately built into the Constitution, which was designed in part to benefit a small propertied upper class, but they have metastasized to a degree that the Founding Fathers could never have anticipated, undermining the very notion of "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Chilling and revelatory, Minority Rule exposes the long history of the conflict between white supremacy and multiracial democracy that has reached a fever pitch today -- while also telling the inspiring story of resistance to these regressive efforts. |
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| Physical Description: |
369 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780374600211 037460021X |
| Author Notes: |
He has written extensively about American politics, civil rights and the intersection of money and politics. His stories have appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and The Guardian, and he is a frequent political commentator on MSNBC, C-Span and NPR. Berman has also authored several books, including; Give us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, and Herding Donkeys: the Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics. (Bowker Author Biography) |