UNITED STATES OF OLIGARCHY: How America's Wealthiest Ally with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy, what it says on the tin

UNITED STATES OF OLIGARCHY: How America's Wealthiest Ally with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy
CASEY MICHEL
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A staggering examination of how America's wealthiest infiltrated the government and allied with dictators, transforming the U.S. from democracy to oligarchy.

For years, a small group of billionaires has amassed increasing power, steering American politics for their own benefit. Many of these figures are familiar. There’s Elon Musk, who has used his wealth to help place Donald Trump back in the White House. There’s Mark Zuckerberg, who has used his resources to transform America into his own digital playground. There’s Jared Kushner, who has used family connections to gain more political power than he ever dreamed of.

There is only one word to describe such extreme levels of wealth, avarice, and political control: Oligarchy. But the oligarchs are not working alone. From China to Russia to Saudi Arabia and beyond, many of these men have cultivated alliances with America’s most notorious adversaries, opening the doors for autocrats around the world to sink their teeth into the U.S. Placing profit over patriotism, they have transformed into vectors of influence for some of the world’s most repulsive dictatorships, all of whom are trying to create a world dominated by imperialism and tyranny. Connecting everything from the devastation in Ukraine to destruction in Gaza to destabilization in Greenland, these oligarchs have transformed American policy and American politics into their own private fiefdoms, regardless of what Americans actually want.

In United States of Oligarchy, Casey Michel illuminates a story decades in the making, from the earliest efforts to corral and combat American oligarchs, to the new crop of individuals monopolizing American democracy and making the world safe for dictatorship – all for their own benefit.

The oligarchs have risen, and are attempting to reign. The only question remaining is whether or not it’s too late to stop them.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I have no words. Spoken to introduce hundreds of them. I have no words adequate to the task of conveying the sickened terror this read left me with. More accurate, less punchy....

The U.S. is on a terrible downward slide from a not-great low point we've been heading for the entirety of the twenty-first century. I'm shocked every time I see the receipts Author Michel, a practicing journalist, brings to the table to back up the quite appalling allegations he presents. From the author's bio on St. Martin's Press's website:

His writing on offshoring, foreign lobbying, authoritarianism, and illicit wealth has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Post, among other outlets, and he has appeared on NPR, BBC, CNN, and MSNBC, among other stations. He has also testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the links between illicit financial networks and national security. He received his Master’s degree in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute, and he is currently sanctioned by the Russian regime for his work.

It's obvious from this CV that Author Michel already knew what he was up against, what his story needed to be. As someone who understands the demands of journalism at a high level...look at those bona fides...this story could feel as though it was less a book, more a fattened-up magazine article.

There is some justice in this perception. It really is a topic that badly needs the timeliness of journalistic publishing because the issues addressed are so egregiously impacting the immediate, day-to-day politics of the US. That kind of reporting needs outlets, though, and outlets of the caliber capable of supporting reporting at this level are not common; the ones willing to grapple with the repugnant, malignant spread of The Oligarchy℠ less common still. Their owners are among the...people...reported on.

The book as written is a series of interconnected profiles of people and entities as interconnected as is conceivable for them to be. That they are based in any given country is utterly irrelevant. Their physical locations aren't determinative, their loyalty is to an ideology (greed) and it trumps any other ties. Their ties to each other are the sole important ones, their actions and influence uses make perfect sense through that lens.

As a book-reading experience, Author Michel has made every effort to present his impeccable research in the most fluid manner possible. It works. It's a hard book to put down, though for my health's sake I put it down regularly. I have that visceral response to writing about greed a lot.

It is not a book that will change closed minds, it's too fact-heavy to do that reliably and repeatably. Those with an emotional allegiance to the purported goals of the...people...reported on in here, the safety security prosperity guff they spout, will not come to the sudden understanding that their safety security prosperity is of no interest to the oligarchs, all the safety security prosperity "They" are interested in is "Their" own. It is a book for those who know there's something very bad happening, and they need to know what it is to take effective action.

This is where UNITED STATES OF OLIGARCHY: How America's Wealthiest Ally with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy shines. One can't resist deleterious action without knowing where it's coming from, who's committing it, and it very much helps to have an inkling why. All the way through this chronicle of sordid greed, massive stupidity, and genuine malevolence, Author Michel presents his receipts in such a way as to make we-the-reader better able to see the interconnectedness of the oligarchy.

Because only when your perspective is outside the system can you identify the system's tricks and misdirections, thus its weak points. Cyclops, one eyed as he was, could never comprehend three-dimensional attack.

CITIZENSHIP: NOTES ON AN AMERICAN MYTH, Daisy Hernández reflects on a cultural sea-change

CITIZENSHIP: NOTES ON AN AMERICAN MYTH
DAISY HERNÁNDEZ
The Hogarth Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A provocative, personal, blazingly intelligent examination of one of the most vexing questions facing the United States today—who is, and should be, a citizen?

“How did ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ turn upside down to where we are today? Everyone needs to read this book, citizens and non-citizens alike. Brilliant!”—Sandra Cisneros

"The most comprehensive book on citizenship/immigration I've ever read. A must-read!"—Javier Zamora

In this one-of-a-kind book, Daisy Hernández fiercely interrogates one of the most complicated subjects of contemporary life and citizenship. Braiding memoir, history, and cultural criticism, she exposes the truths and lies of how we define ourselves as a country and a people. Turning to her own family's stories—her mother arrived from Colombia, her father a political refugee from Castro's Cuba—Hernández shows how the very idea of citizenship is a myth and part of the stories we tell ourselves about the American soul and psyche.

Reframing our understanding of what it means to be an American, Notes on Citizenship is an urgent and necessary account of the laws, customs, and language we use to include and exclude, especially those who come from Latin America. With her scholar's mind and memoirist's gift for narrative, Hernández weaves a story both personal and national, while reckoning with our country's ongoing debate about who belongs and providing fresh ways of thinking about citizenship. At once bracing, fearless, and tender, Notes on Citizenship is a powerful portrait of one family's experiences in the borderlands of citizenship and an honest illumination of the country in which we live.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The Supreme Court has heard oral arguments on the deeply contentious topic of ending the age-old concept of "birthright citizenship," very much in the current regime's sights for elimination. Based on the Justice's tenor of questioning the Justice Department's counsel, I don't feel the regime can count on the ruling being in their favor.
This collection of essays has as its core a desire to think through how citizenship has changed in practice. The US Constitution defines citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment, and it's pretty unambiguous about it. (That same amendment gifted us with the legal horror of corporate personhood.) It's been a longstanding desire of racist, fascist scum to make the idea of citizenship into a conditional grant...which, if anyone though about it for a single minute, would mean there's no citizenship for anyone at all.

Author Daisy thinks through the various ramifications of this terrible idea. Once a right is "granted" it can be taken away. That is why every time a law is passed that limits a right, like birthright citizenship, you...you personally...are at risk of losing whatever right it is. If this kakistocracy has not taught you the lesson that believing "they wouldn't/can't do that" is a dangerous illusion, read Author Daisy's essays. They can, and they will, and even court orders will not force the scum to cease and desist from illegal, immoral behavior. Look how many losses in court have been dealt the regime; yet no sign of meaningful compliance, compliance with the *intent* of the orders and laws, exists. This is, in other words, a coup against the form of government we take for granted.

Read these essays, even though the collection feels thematically scattered, because each essay is very clearly argued, and makes excellent points. It is a slowly unfolding disaster but it is unfolding...it's time to pull your socks up and do the work of citizenship.

Follow Author Daisy's example.

FATEFUL HOURS: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, a political analysis of a difficult transition

FATEFUL HOURS: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic
VOLKER ULLRICH (tr. Jefferson Chase)
W.W. Norton (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$35.00 all editions, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: From the New York Times best-selling historian, the riveting story of the Weimar Republic—a fledgling democracy beset by chaos and extremism—and its dissolution into the Third Reich.

Democracies are fragile. Freedoms that seem secure can be lost. Few historical events illustrate this as vividly as the failure of the Weimar Republic. Germany’s first democracy endured for fourteen tumultuous years and culminated with the horrific rise of the Third Reich. As one commentator wrote in July 1933: Hitler had “won the game with little effort. . . . All he had to do was huff and puff—and the edifice of German politics collapsed like a house of cards.” But this tragedy was not inevitable.

In Fateful Hours, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich chronicles the captivating story of the Republic, capturing a nation and its people teetering on the abyss. Born from the ashes of the First World War, the fledgling democracy was saddled with debt and political instability from its beginning. In its early years, a relentless chain of crises—hyperinflation, foreign invasion, and upheaval from the right and left—shook the republic, only letting up during a brief period of stability in the 1920s. Social and cultural norms were upended. Political murder was the order of the day. Yet despite all the challenges, the Weimar Republic was not destined for its ignoble end.

Drawing on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other sources, Ullrich charts the many failed alternatives and missed opportunities that contributed to German democracy’s collapse. In an immersive style that takes us to the heart of political power, Ullrich argues that, right up until January 1933, history was open. There was no shortage of opportunities to stop the slide into fascism. Just as in the present, it is up to us whether democracy lives or dies.

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My Review: This is a complicated subject...how a democracy dies...and, as a result, a complex read. There were a lot of moving parts to the death of the Weimar Republic. It was not inevitable, a foregone conclusion; the economic disasters wrought by the vengeful Treaty of Versailles were even surmountable, as proved by Hjalmar Scacht; given the authority to control hyperinflation, he did so by staying outside the control of the politicians. The personalities, in other words, of the players in the government were largely to blame for that very government's demise.

A hearty share of the blame for the fall was on the Communist Party's plate. Their strong base of disaffected workers and sailors, reeling economically from the kaiser's stupid management of the economy in the war,was frittered away in insistence on Purity and perfect adherence to untested (and, it would turn out, unwise) Soviet policies. This resulted in an uncompromising, self-destructive inflexibility. Doom in politics is always inflexibility. Their rigidity and refusal to support a more center-left candidate led to Paul von Hindenburg, an old-line reactionary, being elected president in 1925. Quite simply, the destruction of the Weimar Republic was inevitable then. Right-wing ultranationalist parties had a friend in high office, one who refused to countenance the suppression of their terrorism.

Army veterans and the moneyed classes weren't innocent in the fall of the republic. Anger and hatred at the vicious Treaty of Versailles' immiseration of millions of ordinary Germans made a fertile breeding ground for paramilitaries, for well-funded but ineptly led coups against the government, and for the ultimate rise of Hitler and his National Socialist party. (You clocked that last word, right? The post-WWII US rebranded them as "Nazis" because can't have anything remotely resembling socialism getting attention.) The greedy classes were delighted to fund Hitler, in no small part because Hjalmar Schacht...the one banker who succeeded in reducing war reparations payments...was a hero among them and he said to. Sadly, all those "wise heads, leadership material" men wildly miscalculated their influence over Adolf and Co. They were never more than opportunistically interested in Hitler's plans. Rearming Germany was, to them, a way to make immense profits; the war that followed was suicidal on economic terms.

Democracy is fragile. It is always under attack from within by authoritarians, because they can make more money and get their sick fantasy high-control rocks off. The Nazi book-burnings are branded, in the US at least, as burnings of Jewish and dangerous books.

Jewish, for sure; the "dangerous" books, the ones that were "polluting German youth," were Magnus Hirschfeld's works in the Institute for Sexual Science. Weird how you were never taught that, isn't it. And isn't it just so coincidental that the current scum in power are ramping up the rhetoric against sexual and ethnic minorities. Book burning, before some annoying little twidgee says a word, looks a lot worse to people than banning, so they have learned some lessons...but the effect is the same.

A timely read. Not comfortable, not easy, but very very much a book for these times.

And the future, if we can claw one out of "Their" hands.

MUSEUM OF DEGENERATES: Portraits of the American Grotesque, a body of work more like a corpse, a lych-gate for your mind

MUSEUM OF DEGENERATES: Portraits of the American Grotesque
ELI VALLEY
O/R Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$44.95 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Museum of Degenerates invites you to a delirious display of art by one of contemporary America’s most original and incendiary political cartoonists. Eli Valley’s extraordinary work is a scathing indictment of the entire American polity, with a particular focus on the issues of Israel and Judaism at a time when these have moved to the center of public debate and action.

In these pages, Valley tips a homburg to German expressionists such as George Grosz and Otto Dix who featured in “The Exhibition of Degenerate Art,” a 1937 Munich show that sought to ridicule the work of artists critical of Hitler’s fascist regime. In an aesthetic that is strikingly original, Valley also draws on early twentieth-century American Yiddish cartoons and the work of artists who created the helter-skelter exuberance of MAD comics in the 1950s.

Valley’s own art, accompanied here by extensive descriptions of its genesis and context, is a howl of protest against the political, cultural and media elites driving America into an authoritarian abyss. Here is anger, pure and hot, expressed in exquisite detail and, often, disturbingly funny.

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My Review: "Disturbingly funny" from the synopsis above is spot-on. This editorial artwork is disturbing. It can be funny. It disturbed me to find some of it funny. It was a funny kind of disturbing. I'm sure I can recombine those ideas in more apt ways, but I trust my point is made: Épater la bourgeoisie is the modus operandi of this artist. It feels...unsettling, "funny" or weird and certainly unnatural to laugh at the present moment rendered into highly stylized art.

Funny. Sick-making. A moldy shar-pei corpse with a hatespeech ikon in and on it. Somehow it's still funny. Sorta.

Like a zombie movie. Into the fire with you! These zombies don't want braaaiiinnns but roasted flesh.

On every axis I am appalled and offended...less by the artwork than the accuracy of the commentary. Bibi showed his luuuv to the bankster-in-chief by accepting some Gaza deal that kept the dollars flowing. Never mind how ridiculously ineffective it was at justice, or even fairness.

If the revolution needs a poster, let this be it.

I suspect most of y'all are thoroughly turned off by now, so I'll stop. The thing that Eli Valley does is the thing all editorial cartoonists strive to do: exaggerate the ghastly into absurdity. Shock the viewer into recognizing how demented and distorted the discourse he's skewering is. The text of the artist's thought processes and inspirations will make a reasonable person as mad...in all senses...as he is himself.

I'm positive offense is intended by Eli Valley; I'm positive offenseiveness is deployed with purpose, can't say "care" but intent and purpose make up for it. In times of horror, use the horror of the times to motivate the audience to make it stop.

This is not a test. The signal is repeating; the instructions are....

THE PRIVATE IS POLITICAL: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism, what to pay attention to in order to stop "Them"

THE PRIVATE IS POLITICAL: Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism
RAY BRESCIA
NYU Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$35.00 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Exposes the threats to our personal and political identity in the age of surveillance

It has become alarmingly clear that our online actions are less private than we’re led to believe. Our data is routinely sold and shared with companies who want to sell us something, political actors who want to analyze our behavior, and law enforcement who seek to limit our actions.

The Private is Political explores the failure of existing legal systems and institutions to protect our online presence and identities. Examining the ways in which the digital space is under threat from both governments and private actors, Ray Brescia reveals how the rise of private surveillance prevents individuals from organizing with others who might help to catalyze change in their lives. Brescia argues that we are not far from a world where surveillance chills not just our speech, but our very identities. This will ultimately stifle our ability to live full lives, realize democracy, and even shape the laws that affect our privacy itself.

Beyond merely identifying the harms to individuals from privacy violations, Brescia furthers our understanding of privacy by identifying and naming political privacy and the integrity of identity as central to democracy.

The Private is Political empowers consumers by outlining a roadmap for a comprehensive privacy regime, leveraging various institutions to collectively safeguard privacy rights.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Author Ray Brescia is well-known for his activities in public-interest legal matters. If anyone knows, from long professional experience, what "Their" endgame is with the surveillance-capitalism regime we have so blithely and unthinkingly accepted, it is him.

His chosen format of shorter chapters that read like trimmed law-journal essays, copious notes, and a solid, real-world grounding in where and why there are leverage points on both sides of his argument, Author Brescia is doing everyone on the internet a huge favor. While we have been dreading state surveillance, corporations sell us the very tools that, in state hands, would have the MAGAts in the streets. Google is not a state entity, but arguably has even more data about you than Amazon. Both want to pick your pockets after picking your brain so hard there's little left in it they do not directly know, or can with high confidence infer.

Author Brescia's gift is laying out the steps of gaining his knowledge. He understands the systems of lawmaking and enforcement, sees the careful designs for encroaching on our personal autonomy, and leads the reader along as he pulls aside decades of distracting obfuscation to show us what the plan truly is.

There might still be time to heed Author Brescia's warnings. I'll leave it to you to spend your time, even your treasure if you have it, learning some pressure points you can use or demand your legislators use.

LAUNCHING LBJ: How a Kennedy Insider Helped Define Johnson's Presidency, history told by a fine man's daughter

LAUNCHING LBJ: How a Kennedy Insider Helped Define Johnson's Presidency
HELEN O'DONNELL
Skyhorse (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$16.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Kenneth O'Donnell was JFK's Chief of Staff, among the group known as Kennedy's "Irish Mafia." O'Donnell was with President Kennedy through his entire time in office... and he was on Air Force One in Dallas on November 22, 1963, at Jacqueline Kennedy's side, as Lyndon Johnson got sworn in as the 36th President of the United States.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, LBJ asked Ken O'Donnell to stay on and work with him through the first nine months of his administration, to help the country transition and heal, and to help Johnson set his own agenda for his presidency. Although they were political adversaries, they developed a mutually respectful rapport, and Ken helped LBJ find his voice, starting with his work in voting rights and developing the civil rights agenda. Ken O'Donnell was a prolific diarist and note taker, and in 'Launching LBJ', his daughter Helen, a respected historian and journalist in her own right, takes her father's journals and fills in the gaps to create an unprecedented, inside look at the early days of President Lyndon Johnson's regime.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: How does the country switch leaders in a crisis? It's not something we do on the regular, so each time there's much to be reinvented to meet the circumstances of the moment.

This assassination took place in my youth, and was a steady drumbeat in politics as I became aware of the entire field. The day itself I, all of three years old, was aware something REALLY BIG had happened because my mother ran into our family room, shouting "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" at the TV, which was momentous in my little world because she was *not* a woman to swear or curse. Not long after that, and just as momentous in my little world, my teenaged sisters came home early, excitedly chattering to each other...a thing they never did...so it was a Day of Wonders indeed.

It was astounding how much changed that day, and how deeply felt that event was even in my household. My parents were politically to the right of Hitler, had never said a single good word about Kennedy, and my Texan mother despised LBJ, "a damn communist" to her New-Deal-hatin' self. (She was a teen, and later a new mother, in the run-up to WWII.)

I think Author O'Donnell is around my age, her parents were a bit younger than mine and she was born in about 1956 as far as I can tell. O'Donnell père died in 1977 after his first wife died of complications from alcoholism, a problem that took his life as well. So I read his book aware that the writer was approaching it as more or less a family history, a chance to know her dad better. Enviable access to primary written sources aside, her name and pedigree opened doors to people who might otherwise not have bothered to speak to an historian from outside the Kennedys' charmed circle.

LBJ would've known that feeling well. He needed O'Donnell père's insider status to get his staff-running feet under him as he focused his initial efforts on healing his traumatized country. O'Donnell, no fan of LBJ, was nonetheless an honorable sort. He helped craft LBJ's startlingly successful assumption of JFK's ambitious, previously doomed, social agenda. It was partly his planning and partly LBJ's long Senate career that taught him where the bodies were buried and who buried 'em that came together to launch one of the twentieth century's most sweeping and successful reforms of sclerotic Federal social spending agendas. I'm not inclined to uprate the book because it is less about the nuts and bolts of the effort and more about the personalities...it falls into a kind of gauzy "weren't they something special" attitude that grates on me, smacks of worshipful attitudes I don't share.

It is largely Johnson's legislative success that is being dismantled today. It was won by the blood of one not-very-honorable man and the sweat of several very honorable ones, eg Kenneth O'Donnell. We sit passively watching as the current administration and its partisan GOP lackeys destroy the greatest society we could create.

Resist.

THE SOCIALIST AWAKENING: What's Different Now About the Left, & THE POLITICS OF OUR TIME: Populism, Nationalism, Socialism

THE SOCIALIST AWAKENING: What's Different Now About the Left (Columbia Global Reports series)
JOHN B. JUDIS
Columbia University Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$12.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: John Judis is the author of one of the seminal books about the 2016 election, The Populist Explosion, which has sold 38,000 copies and was named One of six books to help understand Trump's win by The New York Times and The Economist called it "Well-written and well-researched, powerfully argued and perfectly timed." Judis is also the author of The Nationalist Revival, published in 2018, which was highly acclaimed and has sold over 9,000 copies. EJ Dionne in The American Prospect called it essential reading.

Both titles have been popular as course adoptions Judis is a veteran political reporter who examines national and global political trends through a nonpartisan lens. He specializes in speaking truth to liberals, wrote EJ Dionne in The Washington Post. Through his long career in progressive journalism, Judis has made a habit of seeing things that others were missing. With his new book examining the new socialism of the left, he once again provides a clarifying look at one of the biggest political trends of our time. Completes Judis's political trilogy explaining the Trump era.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I read this book, and I believed it was true. I do not now know if its analysis of Millennials is accurate, and thus what happened in November 2024 was an anomaly of some sort...read "the results were manipulated like they were in 2016"...or if Author Judis is just like the rest of us elitists on the left who just want to believe as much as Fox Mulder wanted to believe.

Maybe I'm an idiot (stop snickering) but I choose door number optimism.

My generation, like the one before us and the one immediately after, fell for the capitalist lies about socialism = totalitarianism, thus flat refused to see the way socialism rescued capitalism from a full-on leftist rebellion during the Great Depression, and created the most powerful economy in the history of the planet, and reduced immiseration on a scale so epic that the Economic Royalists have spent forty-five years fighting back all the gains made so their power will once again be unchallenged and unshared.

I am deeply distressed that the plan is succeeding still, accelerating even, as they roll out the fascist facets of their controlling regime. All it took was repeating the old lies about Others that regularly succeed in scaring the crap out of the delicate little manbabies who can't tolerate anyone not looking/acting/thinking exactly like them.

So reading this book felt a little like masochism. It also felt a lot like a call to arms, a path marked towards reclaiming the future from the tech scum of the Nerd Reich before it becomes nigh-on impossible.

Don't shirk your part in the battle for the future. #ReadingIsResistance

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



THE POLITICS OF OUR TIME: Populism, Nationalism, Socialism (Columbia Global Reports)
JOHN B. JUDIS
Columbia University Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$19.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The distinguished political analyst John Judis has brought out a book with Columbia Global Reports during each of the last three national political seasons: The Populist Explosion in 2016, The Nationalist Revival in 2018, and The Socialist Awakening in 2020. Together, these books chart the rise during the second decade of the twenty-first century of new and unexpected political movements in the United States and Europe that arose in the wake of the Great Recession, the conflict with al-Qaeda and ISIS, and encroaching climate change.

Judis has revised and updated these three books, and written a new introductory essay that seeks to explain the tumultuous last decade—most notably, Donald Trump's presidency and the response to a global pandemic and recession. This volume is an indispensable guide to understanding the deeply rooted disenchantment that gave rise to populist parties and politicians on the right and left—and to the global changes that have transformed the politics of our time.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Tendentious revisions and introductory essays, all with a cautiously hopeful tone.

Might shoulda waited until 2025 to assess the project in either its success or its failure.

Necessary reading...this omnibus edition is very useful indeed. I'm not at all sure Author Judis is related to Cassandra; I'm thinking more Pandora. But let's look at this editorial project for what it offers: Hope, faith in the malleability of the politically naïve in our direction not just theirs.

John B. Judis is able to point to the reasons for why we are where we are. That is an excellent starting point to get onto a new path.

THE POPULIST EXPLOSION: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics, & THE NATIONALIST REVIVAL: Trade, Immigration, and the Revolt Against Globalization

THE POPULIST EXPLOSION: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (Columbia Global Reports series)
JOHN B. JUDIS
Columbia University Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$8.16 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the author of THE POLITICS OF OUR TIME

What’s happening in global politics, and is there a thread that ties it all together?

There is, and it is called populism.

What is populism? And why have populist parties and candidates suddenly sprung up and even gained power in the United States and Western Europe? The emergence of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, France's Marine LePen, Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, and the Alternative for Germany are signs that an older consensus about politics and government is breaking down.

John B. Judis, one of America's most respected political analysts, tells us why we need to understand the populist movement that began in the United States in the 1890s and whose politics have recurred on both sides of the Atlantic ever since. The Populist Explosion is essential reading for anyone hoping to grasp a global political system that is only just beginning what will be a long-running and highly consequential readjustment.

Featured as one of "Six Books to Help Understand Trump's (2016) Win" by The New York Times

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: A very interesting read that boils the toxic goo of this moment in history's outrage and grievance into an easy-to-swallow dose. The author's a reputable source of wisdom for leftists for over fifty years. See his Wikipedia page. His take on the issue of seething rage and outrage at being derided, ignored, and exploited among huge swaths of the world's people is well worth your effort to read attentively; it is arguably the reason we are where we are on many fronts.

No one will ever convince me that 45 thought up the campaign that returned him to the White House. There are very, very rich and powerful and canny people who want him where he is. Those are the people who redesigned the way his campaign looked. The slide from populism into fascism, as Judis defines that term, has accelerated. The 2024 man is clearly modeled on Orban and Putin, Cult-of-Personality rulers who have created cadres of supporters who do the leader's bidding. This is something that has developed since this book was written. Judis defines fascism, then says unequivocally in this book that 45 is not one. That is simply not...or no longer is...true.

The truth is, though, understanding the way the people who voted for the redesigned 45 chose this path is something we all need to make the effort to do. The world is not going to end soon. *My* world will; most of my friends' and descendants and countrymen's worlds will too; so I'm quite clearly motivated to be focused on the topic. How we can make the world better for the largest number of people now alive is another strong motivator to get into this topic. I very strongly disapprove of the mental illness of hoarding and greed that constitutes our current economic system. I know this is a common opinion. The canny operators who redesigned the campaign that landed 45 back in power knew there needed to be a hook they could hang a future movement on.

Populism will not survive contact with the stated goals of this group's plan for power. Fascism will.

Learn how we got here, apply these rules to the world to come, and resist.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



THE NATIONALIST REVIVAL: Trade, Immigration, and the Revolt Against Globalization (Columbia Global Reports series)
JOHN B. JUDIS
Columbia University Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$10.92 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Why Has Nationalism Come Roaring Back?

Trump in America, Brexit in the U.K., anti-EU parties in Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, and Hungary, and nativist or authoritarian leaders in Turkey, Russia, India, and China -- Why has nationalism suddenly returned with a vengeance? Is the world headed back to the fractious conflicts between nations that led to world wars and depression in the early 20th Century? Why are nationalists so angry about free trade and immigration? Why has globalization become a dirty word?

Based on travels in America, Europe, and Asia, veteran political analyst John B. Judis found that almost all people share nationalist sentiments that can be the basis of vibrant democracies as well as repressive dictatorships. Today's outbreak of toxic "us vs. them" nationalism is an extreme reaction to utopian cosmopolitanism, which advocates open borders, free trade, rampant outsourcing, and has branded nationalist sentiments as bigotry. Can a new international order be created that doesn't dismiss what is constructive about nationalism? As he did for populism in The Populist Explosion, a runaway success after the 2016 election, Judis looks at nationalism from its modern origins in the 1800s to today to find answers.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Much like The Populist Explosion, this 2018 book is a higher-level explainer to ground you in the essentials of nationalism's rise and development.

Post-WWII globalist institutions, created to combat the toxic fascist-infected nationalism running rampant today, have come a cropper in combating the nightmarish reality of resurgent and toxic nationalism—ironically because the institutions were using the weapons of the fascists, shame, Othering, and punishment, against them.

The force that is today's nationalist/fascist movement proves the weapons they themselves used ultimately hastened their own end.

The force of nationalism, like the force of populism, cannot be repressed forever, nor can it be reasoned out of people; it must be accounted for, if not exactly accommodated, in the politics of the twenty-first century. These are emotional responses to triggering events that make followers feel insecure. It cannot be stated enough that facts disproving emotive claims are ineffective in the face of passionately held feelings.

The points made in this book, that nationalists are not all wrong and the liberal elites are not listening to them could not be clearer in 2024. This US election was disastrously mishandled, manipulated by some very clear-sighted and goal-directed people, and need not have resulted in the the awful way that it did. Author Judis is very clear about how we fell into the trap we did; the job now is making the changes, personal, political, and societal, that need making to prevent the incoming administration from throwing US and by extension global society into far worse channels than we're already headed into.

An excellent companion read to The Populist Explosion and a worthy exploration of forces we as a society need to comprehend and harness to productive use.

THE SOCIALIST MANIFESTO: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, never more trenchant than today

THE SOCIALIST MANIFESTO: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality
BHASKAR SUNKARA
Basic Books
$15.00 trade paper, purchased from the author's magazine website

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A "razor-sharp" introduction to this political and economic ideology makes a galvanizing argument for modern socialism (Naomi Klein)—and explains how its core tenets could effect positive change in America and worldwide.

In The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara explores socialism's history since the mid-1800s and presents a realistic vision for its future. With the stunning popularity of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Americans are embracing the class politics of socialism. But what, exactly, is socialism? And what would a socialist system in America look like?

The editor of Jacobin magazine, Sunkara shows that socialism, though often seen primarily as an economic system, in fact offers the means to fight all forms of oppression, including racism and sexism. The ultimate goal is not Soviet-style planning, but to win rights to healthcare, education, and housing, and to create new democratic institutions in workplaces and communities. A primer on socialism for the 21st century, this is a book for anyone seeking an end to the vast inequities of our age.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: William M. Tweed said this about the way the US does politics:

I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating. As quoted in Understanding American Government (2003) by Susan Welch, p. 224

No good came from trying to talk sense into the Democratic Party; their loss on 5 November 2024 was catastrophic. It was not the resounding mandate the Nerd Reich and its tech scum boosters portray it as. The margin was not huge, but the impact will be *immense*, far-reaching, and vastly immiserating for millions.

It did not need to happen, even in the teeth of forty years of the carefully disguised radical coup orchestrated by the wealthy and powerful against the rest of us. The way to beat the radicals is not to appease or identify with them; it is to present an alternative to them.

This will never happen in the two-party system.

I wanted this not to be true, but this idiotic result has driven the last nail in the coffin of my faith in humanity, my trust in the US institutions of politics, and my desire to support the least-worst politicians in hopes they'll do some of the Right Thing. They won't.

Now what?

Now this, and before someone says "But socialism!" or even stupider "that's Communist!" I'll remind all y'all that the monster you've been Pavlovianly conditioned to fear and hate is totalitarianism relabeled to scare you away from realizing the socialist demands the owners hate were already met...to a degree...and they're the exact things your newly elected scum were put in place to destroy. When the way you live gets worse, do not open your yap. You either voted for, or decided not to vote against, this exact result.

It is your fault.

Now let's figure out what we can begin to do to make a few gains. Start by reading Bhaskar Sunkara's clear, cogent, carefully reasoned manifesto. If you're still reeling from the evidence of how immensely successful the scumbags' propaganda, misinformation, and misdirection were, here's a shred of hope to cling to. Here's a possibility that you already know works...you who receive "benefits" aka your own tax money returned to you (not some gift as the radical right wants you to believe) better than anyone...so lean into it.

Don't feel like you can do anything, don't want to think about it, are just too drained to give it your attention? That's their system for making you passive at work. If you won't do the work, spend your money to support those who will, and that shit-sure ain't the Democrats.

Support a real change for the better. Read this book to learn what that can mean.

KLAXON READS: DAY OF RECKONING: How the Far Right Declared War on Democracy, & THE COURT V. THE VOTERS: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights

THE COURT V. THE VOTERS: The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights
JOSHUA A. DOUGLAS
Beacon Press
$29.95 hardcover, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: An urgent and gripping look at the erosion of voting rights and its implications for democracy, told through the stories of 9 Supreme Court decisions—and the next looming case

In The Court v. The Voters, law professor Joshua Douglas takes us behind the scenes of significant cases in voting rights—some surprising and unknown, some familiar—to investigate the historic crossroads that have irrevocably changed our elections and the nation. In crisp and accessible prose, Douglas tells the story of each case, sheds light on the intractable election problems we face as a result, and highlights the unique role the highest court has played in producing a broken electoral system.

Douglas charts infamous cases like:

Bush v. Gore, which opened the door to many election law claims

Citizens United, which contributed to skewed representation—but perhaps not in the way you might think

Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the vital protections of the Voting Rights Act

Crawford v. Marion County Elections Board, which allowed states to enforce voter ID laws and make it harder for people to vote

The Court v. The Voters powerfully reminds us of the tangible, real-world effects from the Court’s voting rights decisions. While we can—and should—lament the democracy that might have been, Douglas argues that we can—and should—double down in our efforts to protect the right to vote.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I share the author's concerns over the ugliness our current Court has enabled to flourish and entrench itself in our country.

But the remedy, the true solution to the problem, lies in your control, not the Court's. You vote for the president of the United States of America, who nominates the Justices; you vote for the Senators who advise on and consent to the appointment of them. If you do not like the current Court, it is down to you and your (non-)votes.

There are enforcements of rules contra the Justices and their brazen flouting of even the most basic norms of judicial conduct not happening now that could happen if there is enough public pressure on Congress to act. The hideous horror of the 2024 election cycle is a very convenient smokescreen behind which inactivity's awful price is coming due. There are calls to expand the Supreme Court, as was done a hundred years ago, to match the number of Justices to the number of districts...thirteen, up from nine in 1891...in the Federal justice system. Right-wingers are *desperate* to prevent this. It would almost guarantee a liberal or moderate majority on the Court. But the single most important change needed is eliminating lifetime appointments for all Federal judges, which will require a Constitutional Amendment. That will be HUGELY difficult, no matter when we do it. It is another thing the current roiling atmosphere of hatred and distrust virtually guarantees that the status quo will remain, as long as the democratic institutions remain active.

All of which is just to touch on some of the immense stakes in this election.

Vote against the further degradation of the citizen's only remaining lever to use against the fascist billionaires and their economic pals of the Nerd Reich: hold your nose if you must, violate your principles if that's what it takes, but take the affirmative action of going to your designated polling place and casting your vote against Donald Trump and JD Vance. Love Harris or loathe her, she will not enable a furtherance of the coup enshrining the fascists into power.

It really is your last chance to vote.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


DAY OF RECKONING: How the Far Right Declared War on Democracy
MIKE WENDLING
Pluto Press
$19.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The United States has become an almost unrecognizable country—with millions in thrall to conspiracy theories, toxic populism, and the far right edging closer to total power—a dire threat to civil society and democratic institutions.

While the MAGA movement was in remission due to Donald Trump's defeat in 2020, the fascist fringes have not just survived but have continued to thrive and burrow into the mainstream. The January 6th Capitol Riot prosecutions have done little to curb their enthusiasm for mayhem. Trump's base in the Republican Party is committed to their candidate like never before. The institutionalization of racist voting suppression and the outdated logic behind the Electoral College means he could take back the White House. Apocalyptic messaging ensures the alt-right, anti-government, anti-LGBT, and white nationalist groups see the next election as a life or death struggle and are uniting to back the one person they can all agree on—guaranteeing another chaotic election.

In this chilling exposé, Wendling encounters Capital rioters, Covid deniers, QAnon supporters, and Proud Boys and uncovers the roots of a movement that threatens to shatter the foundations of democracy.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Told in tendentious, apocalyptic tones, this aptly labeled exposé of the late-stage progress of the fascist-billionaire/Nerd Reich's long-running, carefully coordinated reversion of the US to conditions prevailing a century-plus ago presents a very persuasive case...if you're not looking for academic rigor. That is not the remit of this book.

What you'll get here is primary sources telling their stories of regretted participation (Mrs. Alex Jones), and stories with legs about the perpetrators of the media rejiggering of our cultural norms...stuff that makes a positive difference to know, and to see synthesized in one place, but that is meant to inform you and awake you from denial. If you want a dissertation-level, fact-checked, peer-reviewed tome, seek elsewhere.

Well aimed at a suddenly jolted aware, smart layperson, this is a short and easy read. Not many words will send one to the dictionary. Few ideas here are going to be hard to grasp, and the few you'll run into that aren't geberally already familiar are researchable on Wikipedia with solidly reliable results. (Yes, I did it myself to be certain.)

Is your second cousin showing signs of coming out from the anesthesia of outrage dripped into them by red-meat right outlets? Here's a very good source of opening of the eyes. I can but hope that I know enough people with a spare twenty and some needy recipients in their orbit to get this to some young men the scum are targeting, in order to arrest his slide into fascism.

Before the election is better, but any time is good.

THE POLITICS OF GEN Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy...if they have the chance

THE POLITICS OF GEN Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy
MELISSA DECKMAN
Columbia University Press
$26.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Progressive activism today is increasingly spearheaded by the nation’s youngest voters. Gen Z—those born between 1997 and 2012—has come of age in a decade of upheavals. They have witnessed the election of Donald Trump, the murder of George Floyd, and the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, and they have lived under the constant threats of mass shootings and climate change. In response, left-leaning Zoomers, particularly women and LGBTQ people, have banded together to take action.

This book tells the story of Gen Z’s growing political participation—and why it is poised to drive U.S. politics leftward. Bringing together original data and compelling narrative—including nearly one hundred interviews with Gen Z activists and several national surveys—political scientist Melissa Deckman explores the world of youth-led progressive organizing, highlighting the crucial importance of gender and sexuality. She reveals why women and LGBTQ Zoomers are participating in politics at higher levels than their straight male peers, creating a historic “reverse gender gap.” Deckman takes readers inside Gen Z’s fight for a more inclusive and just future, sharing stories of their efforts to defend reproductive rights, prevent gun violence, stem climate change, and win political office.

A deep dive into the politics of Gen Z, this book sheds new light on how young voters view politics and why their commitment to progressive values may transform the country in the years ahead.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The US presidential election is a few weeks away. Many of my Boomer peers are, I fear, going to be very angry, and the young men they've knowingly toxified will take to the streets.

It will be futile.

The long-term trend, "the arc of the moral universe," is not on their side. This book shows that the overall age cohort, absent the targeted and radicalized men we insultingly call "incels" and other dismissive and emasculating nicknames, isn't getting the authoritarian message. They aren't doing what we did, sitting down at our desks and shutting our mouths, because the stupid greedy oldsters at the top stopped "sharing" the wealth. (That our labor created, but never mind that for now.)

You take away people's stake in the system, you throw away the stick you can beat them back into line with. The Jesus freaks and their multivarious co-religionists in the control cult have realized this and gone full theocracy in response. And the grim truth is staring at them from every young person's eyes: "NO." The word they hate the most. Good for the youth, I say. Stonewall in 1969 was my signal that I could say no. George Floyd's murder, #BLM #MeToo Roevember are theirs.

But the money is still going to do its bloody, vicious, destructive best to stay on top. The Russians, with their collaborators the City men in London, are swimming in money. These are deeply illiberal people with A LOT TO LOSE. Read some Bill Browder and Jessikka Aro, study up on Alexei Navalny and his fate, look into the reason the felonious (thirty-four convictions!) Cheeto-dusted grifter got installed in government housing in 2016. Hoping that'll happen at a different Pennsylvania address again soon...preferably White Deer, Pennsylvania, this time...like me? Pay sustained attention to this existentially threatening election.

That said, there's a lot of work to be done to mend fences with this embittered cohort of people. As Psychology Today reports in their article on the topic that refers to the author and her findings, "Gen Z Americans are interested in addressing specific issues rather than defending a party position. Whether or not they identify as liberal or conservative, they agree on the need for effective government solutions to major social challenges. The disagreements over more or less government intervention that underlie the polarized American political landscape of today are less visible amongst them."

If that is not a blaring klaxon for oldsters to Pay Bloody Attention I can't imagine what else could be. The existence of the GOP and the Democratic Party are not divinely ordained. This sclerotic duopoly is not the only possibility of goverment organization for the young who have witnessed the venality and callousness of both sides to the burgeoning crises around the world. I have to take a half-star off for the author's choice to leave this tendentious conclusion out of the book.

I do not want to understate the stakes of 45's hand-picked Supreme Court's ruling on Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215. This last-ditch effort to reduce women's right to full citizenship, ie bodily autonomy, as a means of social control, is probably going to galvanize young women to vote in large numbers. Thank all those useless gods for that. Every other facet of this horrible travesty of justice is sick-making.

The diversity of the activism of this age cohort is ethnic more than gender-based. The efforts to undermine the intent of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are meant to reduce the access to voting of the most radicalized women in this generational cohort.

The young could save us from the vast right-wing conspiracy referenced by Hillary Clinton in 1995, the one determined to reinstall the convicted felon in charge of the most powerful machinery of coercion on the planet, achieving their aim. I'm hopeful they can. The obstacles put on the way of their ability to do so, the deliberate and carefully calculated efforts to hive off the angriest, thus most likely to take action, young men from the predominant attitudes of their peers, could work...but only if we ignore their reality.

Don't sleepwalk into 1933 Germany's fate The threat to democracy, flawed and fucked-up as it is, is real.