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Realigners

Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Introduction read by the author.
An eye-opening new history of American political conflict, from Alexander Hamilton to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

These days it seems that nobody is satisfied with American democracy. Critics across the ideological spectrum warn that the country is heading toward catastrophe but also complain that nothing seems to change. At the same time, many have begun to wonder if the gulf between elites and ordinary people has turned democracy itself into a myth. The urge to defend the country's foundations and to dismantle them coexist—often within the same people. How did we get here? Why does it feel like the country is both grinding to a halt and falling to pieces?
In Realigners, the historian Timothy Shenk offers an eye-opening new biography of the American political tradition. In a history that runs from the drafting of the Constitution to the storming of the Capitol, Shenk offers sharp pen portraits of signal characters from James Madison and Charles Sumner to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama. The result is an entertaining and provocative reassessment of the people who built the electoral coalitions that defined American democracy—and a guide for a time when figures ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to MAGA-minded nationalists seek to turn radical dreams into political realities.
In an era when it seems democracy is caught in perpetual crisis, Realigners looks at earlier moments when popular majorities transformed American life. We've had those moments before. And if there's an escape from the doom loop that American politics has become, it's because we might have one again.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 20, 2022
      Historian Shenk (Maurice Dobb) spotlights in this immersive account politicians and activists who have “a power that’s unique to modern democracies: the ability to form electoral coalitions that bind millions of people together in a single cause.” The “realigners” profiled span U.S. political history from James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to Barack Obama. Also included are Charles Sumner, whose fervent abolitionism captured the hearts and minds of his fellow Republicans; W.E.B. Du Bois, whose quest to “compel Americans to live up to their supposed ideals” laid the groundwork for the civil rights era; and anti-feminist crusader Phyllis Schlafly, “the First Lady of the American right.” The formation of white majorities at the expense of Black Americans’ political ambitions is a recurrent theme: Democratic Party founder Martin Van Buren fashioned an alliance between “the planters of the South and the plain republicans of the North” in the 1820s, while “Dollar” Mark Hanna and other Republican leaders accepted “the restoration of white supremacy” in the South with Jim Crow. Though Shenk offers a valuable framework for analyzing American politics, his choice of realigners feels somewhat arbitrary—Franklin Roosevelt gets sidelined in favor of Du Bois and journalist Walter Lippman in chapters on the New Deal coalition. Still, this is an astute and stylish history that speaks to present-day concerns over partisan polarization. Illus. Agent: Edward Orloff, McCormick Literary.

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  • English

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