A stark warning to be taken seriously.
A scathing look at the MAGA crowd and the existential threat they pose to American democracy.
As a writer on terrorism and fascism, Nance has previously specialized in two areas: the workings of al-Qaida and the Islamic State and the mindset and actions of Trump and his followers. In this follow-up to The Plot To Betray America, the author blends them to examine the movement he calls “TITUS, the Trump Insurgency in the United States,” whose practitioners and supporters, like the best terrorists, blend into the community and are perfectly content with the thought of killing anyone who disagrees with them—all with the aim “to destroy American democracy and install Donald Trump as dictator.” Trump might like nothing better, or he might have other plans. Regardless, writes Nance, Trumpism is not likely to disappear, especially now that the Republican Party has become its wholly owned subsidiary and is doing whatever it can to dismantle voting rights to disenfranchise its opposition and retain permanent power. Meanwhile, the TITUS tribe, by Nance’s account, is executing a carefully planned four-part strategy that centers on avenging the 2020 election—a matter that could embrace executing opposition politicians. “Violent extremists in the United States and terrorists in the Middle East,” writes the author, “have remarkably similar pathways to radicalization,” pathways that very often wander into the realms of make-believe (as with QAnon’s fevered distortions) by way of online sources. The author digs deep to describe organizations and individuals coordinating with TITUS, including the Proud Boys and a depressingly high number of active-duty police and military-service personnel. That Trump proved a remarkably inept president does not deter these supporters, who form a base that “has become an openly fascist movement”—and, Nance concludes, represent a threat that “America will have to confront for the next generation at the least.”
A stark warning to be taken seriously.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27900-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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