by Charles Tiefer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2004
An impressive work of argumentation, well timed for the election year, that will cause plenty of head-shaking indeed.
The Bush administration has taken rightist ideology into the realm of the antisocial, borderline illicit, and even illegal in the service of its tiny constituency.
So suggests Tiefer (Law/Univ. of Baltimore), former solicitor of the US House of Representatives, who admonishes a hundred-odd pages into his study: “The guiding rule in understanding politics is always to ask: who benefits? And then: who serves them? And, what do they get in return?” In the matter of Bush’s huge tax cut early in his administration, Tiefer adds, “a Sherlock Holmes is not needed”: the beneficiaries were America’s wealthy, totaling some 1 to 1.5 percent of the population, while the rest of the nation suffered the resultant “economic misery of 2002–2004.” The giveaway was just one of the efforts the administration has made to undo the New Deal, to cut away the social safety net that even Ronald Reagan realized the vast majority of Americans endorsed, and to serve only the very wealthy. The administration has been doing so, writes Tiefer, by making the federal judiciary into an instrument of right-wing activism, so that the court could “assist the unified government in cleansing the statute books of legislation left over from the prior system.” Added to this court-packing activism, Tiefer argues, is Attorney General John Ashcroft’s campaign against constitutionally guaranteed civil rights—to say nothing of his reversal from his confirmation hearing promise that he would not do anything to overturn Roe v. Wade. Ashcroft, Tiefer thunders, “would not let the FBI investigate terrorist suspects’ gun buys—the NRA wouldn’t like that—but sent out the FBI fifty times to demand public-library patron information,” as clear an indication of priorities as there could be. And those are but a few of the charges on Tiefer’s overstuffed docket. “Subversions of the law . . . may just involve straining it and manipulating it in a way that causes voters, if fully informed, to shake their heads,” writes Tiefer.
An impressive work of argumentation, well timed for the election year, that will cause plenty of head-shaking indeed.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-520-24286-6
Page Count: 442
Publisher: Univ. of California
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004
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by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2018
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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by Bari Weiss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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