Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country

by E. J. Dionne Jr. Narrated by Adam Barr

Overview

This program includes an introduction read by the author.

New York Times bestselling author and Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. sounds the alarm in Code Red, calling for an alliance between progressives and moderates to seize the moment and restore hope to America's future for the 2020 presidential election.

Will progressives and moderates feud while America burns? Or will these natural allies take advantage of the greatest opportunity since the New Deal Era to strengthen American democracy, foster social justice, and turn back the threats of the Trump Era?

The United States stands at a crossroads. Broad and principled opposition to Donald Trump's presidency has drawn millions of previously disengaged citizens to the public square and to the ballot boxes. This inspired and growing activism for social and political change hasn't been seen since the days of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies and the Progressive and Civil Rights movements. But if progressives and moderates are unable-and unwilling-to overcome their differences, they could not only enable Trump to prevail again but also squander an occasion for launching a new era of reform.

In Code Red, award-winning journalist E. J. Dionne, Jr., calls for a shared commitment to decency and a politics focused on freedom, fairness, and the future, encouraging progressives and moderates to explore common ground and expand the unity that brought about Democrat victories in the 2018 elections. He offers a unifying model for furthering progress with a Politics of Remedy, Dignity, and More: one that solves problems, resolve disputes, and moves forward; that sits at the heart of the demands for justice by both long-marginalized and recently-displaced groups; and that posits a positive future for Americans with more covered by health insurance, more with decent wages, more with good schools, more security from gun violence, more action to roll back climate change.

Breaking through the partisan noise and cutting against conventional wisdom to provide a realistic look at political possibilities, Dionne offers a strategy for progressives and moderates to think more clearly and accept the responsibilities that history now imposes on them. Because at this point in our national story, change can't wait.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

“An exquisitely timed book...'Code Red' is a worthwhile exploration of the shared goals (and shared enemies) that unite moderates and progressives. But more than that, it is a sharp reminder that the common ground on which Dionne built his career has been badly eroded, with little prospect that it will soon be restored.” - New York Times Book Review

“Highly engaging, intellectually sound, and morally grounded” -Washington Monthly

“The Washington Post columnist and NPR commentator offers a passionately reasoned argument for why both progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party must put aside differences to defeat Donald Trump in 2020...A well-argued and persuasive treatise by a deeply concerned journalist and citizen.” -Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Veteran political analyst E. J. Dionne, in his valuable new book, [Code Red], got this exactly right: We have no responsible Republican Party anymore. ... If the country is going to be governed responsibly, that leadership can come only from Democrats and disaffected Republicans... It is crucial, therefore, argues Dionne, that moderate and progressive Democrats find a way to build a governing coalition together.” —Thomas Friedman, The New York Times

"Fascinating." —David Leonhardt, The New York Times

"Highly engaging, intellectually sound, and morally grounded... Dionne implores Democrats to recognize their divisions, debate them honestly, be more flexible, and ultimately forge some strategic consensus around a progressive but not extreme vision." —Washington Monthly

“The Washington Post columnist and NPR commentator offers a passionately reasoned argument for why both progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party must put aside differences to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.… A well-argued and persuasive treatise by a deeply concerned journalist and citizen.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Democrats closely following the early stages of the 2020 presidential race will find this reasonable, evidence-based account to be a valuable source of information.” —Publishers Weekly

“American political discourse is perhaps more divided than it has been at any time in the country’s history. Republicans versus Democrats, alt-right versus far left: the chasm runs wide and deep… Dionne urges progressives and moderates to find common, rather than shaky, ground for the good of the country and their party’s survival.” —Booklist

Praise for E.J. Dionne, Jr.

“The insights of this award-winning journalist with unique access to politicians make wonderful reading.” —The Washington Post on Why the Right Went Wrong

“[The authors’] sense of possibility offers a refreshing and very American contrast to today’s dystopia.” —Financial Times on One Nation After Trump

“That his bold prediction cannot be dismissed as mere whistling past the graveyard of liberalism is a tribute to Mr. Dionne's thoroughness as a reporter and rigor as a scholar, qualities manifested in his 1991 book, Why Americans Hate Politics.... They Only Look Dead is a luminously intelligent and quietly passionate polemic that deserves to alter the terms of American political debate.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A thrilling book, from one of America’s most universally respected minds. You should buy it.” —Rachel Maddow on Our Divided Political Heart

Kirkus Reviews

2019-11-25
The Washington Post columnist and NPR commentator offers a passionately reasoned argument for why both progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party must put aside differences to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

Seizing on the momentum of the 2018 midterm elections, Dionne Jr. (Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism From Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond, 2016, etc.) is both articulate and enthusiastic about the need for the two liberal sides to work together, and he readily admits that he sounds like "a perhaps unwelcome counselor attempting to ease a family quarrel." The success of the 2018 elections ("Democrats received 25 million more votes than they had in 2014") underscores how the alliance of progressives and moderates, interested in protecting health care and reforming politics, can serve as the "model for the alliance that must come together again in 2020 and beyond." The author discusses the important mobilization of African American and Latinx voters, young people, and, especially, suburban women, many of whom have been disgusted by Trump's "white ethno-nationalism, his lies, his extremist rhetoric, his self-centered irrationality." Indeed, the election was very much about Trump, though not in the way he had hoped. Systematically, the author shows why bipartisanship, once the catchword, is not currently viable with the growing homogeneous, anti-immigrant Republican Party, which looks nothing like the "decent pragmatism" of the party of presidents Lincoln, Eisenhower, or even Nixon. The author then pursues the "crooked path" of the progressive story in America and the resurgence of democratic socialism in reaction to Reaganism and the continued rise of inequality even after the Clinton and Obama years. Indeed, writes Dionne, the "socialist" proposals of universal health care, free college, and even the Green New Deal are not radical. Moreover, a Democratic coalition is needed to repair the many fractured relationships with American allies.

A well-argued and persuasive treatise by a deeply concerned journalist and citizen.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171924874
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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