A useful explanation for political stalemate—and a cry for reform to let younger voices have their say.
On the origins of Congressional gridlock.
Generations pass, old people depart, young people arrive. So why, given this logical order of time, do party leaders in Congress seem to be unable or unwilling to let their young colleagues have a share of the power? Public policy researcher Kornberg examines three Congressional classes—1974, 1994, and 2018—when a great number of incoming representatives were “younger, less experienced, and came from diverse backgrounds,” all campaigning on the promise of change. When the 1974 class arrived, it was in response to Watergate, a Democratic wave focused on campaign reform. Democratic leadership responded by putting these first-term legislators on important committees, sometimes even at the head, with the result, Kornberg writes, that “votes were allowed on legislation that otherwise might have been blocked by previous, all-powerful chairs.” When Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America class arrived in 1994, GOP leadership took much tighter control of the reins, with most reforms “led by Gingrich rather than the freshmen” and with Gingrich relying on GOP freshmen to support him uncritically rather than share out power. This marks a progression to the present, in which legislators increasingly cling to the party line; as Kornberg notes, when Medicare passed in 1965, it was with the support of 237 Democrats and 70 Republicans, “while Obamacare passed in 2010 with no Republican votes.” First-termers now have little sway and hold few influential committee assignments, thanks to ossified, big-donor-beholden party hierarchies—a lack of power that many try to get around by building their presence on social media “as a way to change public opinion on issues and raise money online.” Given the rise in political violence, though, many prefer to duck and cover just at a time, Kornberg urges, when “Trump’s threats to weaken Congress could galvanize the new class.”
A useful explanation for political stalemate—and a cry for reform to let younger voices have their say.Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781421454580
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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SEEN & HEARD
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
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