How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good

by Steve Phillips

Overview

The bestselling author pulls no punches on what America needs to defeat white supremacy

National political commentator Steve Phillips’s “politically charged and thoughtfully reasoned” (Kirkus Reviews) How We Win the Civil War helped chart the way forward for progressives and people of color, arguing that Democrats must recognize the nature of the fight we’re in, which is a contest between democracy and white supremacy left unresolved after the Civil War. Combining a powerful grasp of history with Phillips’s trademark, no-nonsense political critique, this “spirited and persuasive . . . rousing call for change” (Publishers Weekly) argues that we will not overcome until we govern as though we are under attack—until we finally recognize that the time has come to finish the conquest of the Confederacy and all that it represents.

With a new preface laying out what is at stake in the 2024 general election, Phillips delivers razor-sharp prescriptions for the new political season, including specific guidance for politicians, policymakers, and ordinary citizens alike. “A foundational contribution to the emerging field of multiracial democracy” (Spencer Overton), How We Win the Civil War is the essential political book for 2024 and beyond—showing us how to rid our politics of white supremacy, once and for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620978603
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	03/12/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	999 KB

About the Author

Steve Phillips is a New York Times bestselling author, columnist, and leading national political thought leader. He is the author of the New York Times and Washington Post bestselling Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (The New Press); he is also the founder of Democracy in Color, a political media organization dedicated to race, politics, and the multicultural progressive New American Majority. Phillips is the host of “Democracy in Color with Steve Phillips,” a color-conscious podcast on politics. He is regular columnist for The Nation and The Guardian. He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Introduction: A Choice Between Democracy and Whiteness 1

Part I We Are Still in a Civil War

1 The Confederacy: From Surrender to Success 19

2 The Twentieth Century, Part One: 50 Years, One Battle Plan 48

3 The Twentieth Century, Part Two: 50 More Years, Same Battle Plan 76

4 Fear of a Black President 110

5 Make America White Again 134

Part II How We Win

6 The Liberation Battle Plan 165

7 Georgia: "That's Not One We Expected" 181

8 Arizona: "You Tried to Bury Us. You Didn't Know We Were Seeds" 205

9 Virginia: "Alone Among the States of the Confederacy" 234

10 San Diego: "Transformed Within Less Than a Generation" 256

11 Texas: "The Task at Hand Is Epic" 278

Epilogue: Once We Win-Creating a New Social Contract 309

Acknowledgments 325

Notes 333

Editorial Reviews

Praise for How We Win the Civil War:
“Politically charged, thoughtfully reasoned.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Spirited and persuasive, this is a rousing call for change.”
—Publishers Weekly

"How We Win the Civil War is well positioned to shape election outcomes, policy outcomes, and debates about the future of multiracial democracy.”
—ACS Expert Forum

“Steve Phillips reminds us that the Civil War was a war for democracy, and that the struggle against racism in American society and politics has always been a struggle for democracy. He shows, further, that in our own time, we can save democracy from right wing authoritarianism by mobilizing Black, Latino, and Asian American voters rather than chasing the elusive ‘middle’ of the electorate. It’s not only good politics, it’s a strategy that has worked.”
—Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question

"How We Win the Civil War by Steve Phillips is a seminal and urgent work. It is both a practical guide and a call to our moral imagination to rise to the challenge of completing the unfinished business of America. It is truly valuable for anyone committed to building a multiracial democracy that leaves no one behind."
—Senator Cory Booker

From the Publisher

2022-08-10
It’s 2022—high time, Phillips urges, to finally defeat the Confederacy.

We must choose “between democracy and whiteness,” writes Phillips, author of Brown Is the New White. The democracy of which he writes is an anti–White supremacist, multiracial, and multicultural one. The Whiteness is that of the Confederate constitution, exemplified by the declaration of the Confederacy’s vice president that “the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.” Though there’s some stridency to Phillips’ argument, it’s not hyperbolic. The emergence of a neo-Confederate White supremacist movement, abetted by the Trump administration, and recent Republican efforts to suppress the ethnic-minority vote are of a piece with the past. Phillips characterizes this continuity as the product of a “Confederate Battle Plan” that has five major planks, including never giving an inch while insisting, say, that elections have been stolen and White people disenfranchised, as well as “rewriting the laws so that they don’t lose again.” Inimical to a true multiracial democracy, this battle plan has been refined and sharpened—and it’s in place today. Against it, Phillips proposes a “Liberation Battle Plan” with components that include the demand that Democrats stop trying to accommodate and compromise with those “who are waging an unrelenting, centuries-long war in defense of their cherished belief that America should be a white nation.” Leading this battle in its most recent skirmishes are Black activists, particularly Black women such as Georgia’s Stacey Abrams. These leaders “don’t look like the traditional white male model of intelligence and competence,” but they are obviously capable of unexpected victories, aided by smart use of hard data and clearly defined plans of attack, all in the interest of arriving at “a social contract for the society we want to live in.”

A politically charged, thoughtfully reasoned call to rally around the flag—and not the Stars and Bars, to be sure.

Kirkus Reviews