A well-argued, if occasionally disorganized, vision of political politeness.
A podcaster and professional poker player calls for a return to civil discourse in this political commentary.
Like most political liberals, Elwood was devastated by President Donald Trump’s election in 2016. In his anger and confusion, he says, he turned to social media, posting “long winded, righteous” screeds on how voting for Trump “represented a failure of a basic morality test.” He even designed a line of “Trump is Garbage” bumper stickers that he sold online. Looking back on his initial response to the election, Elwood notes that while he wanted people to feel “judged and shamed” for electing Trump, his rhetoric made his Republican acquaintances even more entrenched in their support of the president. The author, writing as someone who’s fought in the trenches of America’s culture wars, says that the “fog of war” has blinded both sides of the aisle and has fostered a “vicious cycle” in which “extreme emotions help create extreme beliefs, which in turn create extreme emotions.” As a retired professional poker player, Elwood is a keen observer of human behavior who’s written multiple books on how to read other people’s “tells.” He now hosts a podcast, People Who Read People, that focuses on human behavior and psychology. Drawing on his lifelong fascination with the human psyche, Elwood encourages those on the political left to make a sustained effort to understand Trump supporters. For instance, he notes how many liberals see Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric as explicitly racist, but some Hispanic Trump supporters interpret the same rhetoric differently.
The author asserts that having contempt for Trump may be “warranted,” but he cautions against making broad accusations against rank-and-file Republicans, which may make them retreat to more extreme beliefs. Understanding one’s political rivals, he writes, “doesn’t mean agreeing, or supporting, or condoning” them. Elwood acknowledges the role that Trump played in ratcheting up extreme rhetoric nationwide, but he argues that it is up to his opponents to create an alternative narrative that eschews “contempt and fear.” In addition, he makes an effective case for why combative discourse erodes the public trust. The final chapter offers practical advice on encouraging depolarization; he urges readers, for example, to push back on extremism on their own side of the political aisle and to “engage with the other side’s more rational beliefs.” Three appendices offer resources for further reading and examples of what the author sees as polarizing language. Readers on the right may disagree with Elwood’s personal politics (“Trump is a very dangerous person”), and those on the left may disagree with his neoliberal emphasis on civility. Still, the book does make compelling arguments, based on astute observations and backed by solid research. This brief, accessible book is complemented by an array of full-color diagrams, charts, and screenshots from X (formerly known as Twitter). Its conversational writing style makes for an engaging read, but the lack of clear divisions between chapters makes its stream-of-consciousness approach a bit dizzying at times.
A well-argued, if occasionally disorganized, vision of political politeness.Pub Date: April 14, 2024
ISBN: 9798987528358
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Via Regia
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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