One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported

by E. J. Dionne Jr., Norman J. Ornstein, Thomas E. Mann

Overview

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER

A call to action from three of Washington's premier political scholar-journalists, One Nation After Trump offers the definitive work on the threat posed by the Trump presidency and how to counter it.

American democracy was never supposed to give the nation a president like Donald Trump. We have never had a president who gave rise to such widespread alarm about his lack of commitment to the institutions of self-government, to the norms democracy requires, and to the need for basic knowledge about how government works. We have never had a president who raises profound questions about his basic competence and his psychological capacity to take on the most challenging political office in the world.

Yet if Trump is both a threat to our democracy and a product of its weaknesses, the citizen activism he has inspired is the antidote. The reaction to the crisis created by Trump’s presidency can provide the foundation for an era of democratic renewal and vindicate our long experiment in self-rule.

The award-winning authors of One Nation After Trump explain Trump’s rise and the danger his administration poses to our free institutions. They also offer encouragement to the millions of Americans now experiencing a new sense of citizenship and engagement and argue that our nation needs a unifying alternative to Trump’s dark and divisive brand of politics—an alternative rooted in a New Economy, a New Patriotism, a New Civil Society, and a New Democracy. One Nation After Trump is the essential book for our era, an unsparing assessment of the perils facing the United States and an inspiring roadmap for how we can reclaim the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250293633
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

E.J. Dionne, Jr., is a columnist for The Washington Post, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and professor at Georgetown University. E.J. is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Why the Right Went Wrong.

Norman Ornstein is Resident Scholar the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing editor and columnist for National Journal and The Atlantic. He is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.

Thomas E. Mann is a resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.

Table of Contents

Foreword: A Manifesto for Turning Back Trumpism

Introduction: When a Crisis is an Opportunity: The Perils of Trumpism and the Call to Engagement

Part One: Trump and Trumpism

Chapter One: Trumpian Misconceptions: What Trump's Election Meant, What It Didn't, and Why Trumpism Doesn't Own the Future

Chapter Two: When the Truth Doesn't Matter: The Crisis of the Media and the Rise of "Alternative Facts"

Chapter Three: Bad Behavior: The Disappearing Norms of American Politics

Chapter Four: A Penchant for Authoritarianism: How Trump Intimidates Opponents, Promotes Kleptocracy, and Challenges the Rule of Law

Chapter Five: Phony Friend of the Working Class: Trump, "Populism," and the New Politics of the Far Right

Chapter Six: Race, Immigration, Culture, or Economics? The Complicated Motivations of the Trump Voter

Part Two: The Way Forward

Chapter Seven: With Opportunity and Justice for All: Building a New Economy

Chapter Eight: Yearning to Breathe Free: Discovering a New Patriotism

Chapter Nine: Our Little Platoons: The Urgency of a New Civil Society

Chapter Ten: What 'Draining the Swamp' Really Looks Like: Bringing a New Democracy to Life

Chapter Eleven: "Show Up, Dive In, Stay at It": Building One Nation After Trump

Editorial Reviews

If someone had hibernated through the 2016 election, woke up early this year and logged onto Twitter or turned on cable news and wondered, what the hell happened?, this would be the book to read. One Nation After Trump devotes considerable space to tackling the unprecedented nature of Trump's election and presidency—his vulgarity, racism, authoritarianism, cronyism and reverence for America's longtime enemies. But the book is particularly useful in showing how, despite all the talk of Trump as an aberration in American politics, his rise reflects the longer-term trends that have shaped the modern Republican Party: the four-decade war on the "liberal media"; the delegitimatization of political opponents; the appeals to racism and xenophobia; the hostility to democratic norms…The book is less a rallying cry and more a sober examination of how someone so obviously unfit and unqualified to be president could be elected anyway, and the authors make skillful use of social science research to better understand the Trump phenomenon. Their observations defy easy conclusions.

The New York Times Book Review - Ari Berman

If you’re still baffled by how Donald Trump got to live in the White House, or you want to make sure that no one like him ever lives there again—or both—One Nation After Trump is your must-read book for 2017.” —The Guardian

“If someone had hibernated through the 2016 election, woke up early this year and logged onto Twitter or turned on cable news and wondered, what the hell happened?, this would be the book to read. ... [An] important book.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[A] good-spirited and thoroughly readable exercise in envisioning a better America.” —The Washington Post

"A trio of acclaimed political scholars and journalists ... offer a unified voice of sanity in a world gone mad. ... A breath of hope but also a serious call to action: everyone needs to take part." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2017-08-07
A trio of acclaimed political scholars and journalists do their best to encourage those bemoaning the path of America's government.Dionne (Why the Right Went Wrong, 2016, etc.), Ornstein, and Mann (co-authors: It's Even Worse than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism, 2012, etc.) offer a unified voice of sanity in a world gone mad, and their arguments are well-supported by citations of other political writers. On the question of whether Trumpism is a new phenomenon, they point out that the radicalization of the Republican Party has been underway for nearly three decades, and the hatred of the liberal media began with Nixon and Agnew. Now, conservatives have delegitimized the traditional media and empowered the worst and most reckless journalists on the right. To call the writers at Breitbart et al. opinion journalists is wrong; it isn't journalism if it's not based on facts. Much of our current situation can be traced to Newt Gingrich's pernicious influence and the polarization he introduced and proliferated. Centralizing power in the Speaker of the House's office and the drive for a majority sent a message that ideological commitments would always outweigh evidence. Trumpism is best understood as a protest movement reacting to the long-term changes in our social, economic, religious, and political lives. The authors also note a difference between nationalism, always a power situation, and Trump's populism, more a style than a philosophical orientation. They trace the various elements of his rise, but there is no single reason why Trump is president. Ultimately, the authors seek to develop a new concept of patriotism, a new sense of civic-mindedness, a new civil society, and a new democracy. Of course, this is all exceedingly difficult in the current climate, but the authors are seasoned guides and provide good jumping-off points for moving beyond the noxious atmosphere of Trumpism. A breath of hope but also a serious call to action: everyone needs to take part.

Kirkus Reviews