A thoughtful consideration of how and why to protect the vote—and, with it, American democracy.
A pertinent study of the possibility of “our next civil war,” which “is stalking us” after the 2020 election chaos and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
“We believe many who cling to grievances about the 2020 election know, deep down, they are wrong,” write Garrett, chief Washington correspondent for CBS, and Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “They know lies are masquerading as truths. They rationalize both as tools in a large enterprise—defeating Democrats, reversing socialism, wokeness, radicalism, and the like.” Under the terms of the Trumpian big lie, Republican legislators are doing everything they can to redistrict, gerrymander, suppress, and otherwise alter the vote so that their minority party will always win, which shows which side of the “power or principle” argument they’re on. However, as the authors demonstrate, the big lie is about more than politics; it’s a moneymaking machine, practically a printing press, for Trump and company, who have raised hundreds of millions on the premise that they were wronged but will return. “Every big con needs its bagmen, and the attempted coup had a rogues’ gallery,” they write of Jan. 6 and its aftermath. “Some wore MAGA hats and carried Gadsden flags. Some wore suits or possessed law degrees and, in some cases, worked inside the White House.” The biggest con man of all remains diligent in his attacks on the democratic process and bloviating attempts to maintain his relevance and possibly regain power, even though he’s lost every legal challenge he’s mounted. But as his former aide Mick Mulvaney noted, “When you are taking your legal advice from My Pillow guy, what do you expect?” Unfortunately for the U.S., despite their bright, vigorous narrative, the authors seem to suggest that things are likely to get worse before they get better.
A thoughtful consideration of how and why to protect the vote—and, with it, American democracy.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63576-784-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Diversion Books
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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