Download Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid AudioBook Free
People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn’t holding. There is only one thing which almost everyone agrees: there is certainly something very wrong in Washington. The country is being run by pollsters. Few politicians are able to win the voters’ trust. Blame abounds and personal responsibility is nowhere to be found. There's a cynicism in Washington that appalls those in every state, red or blue. The question is: Why? The more urgent question is: What can be done about any of it?
Few people are more qualified to deal with both questions than Joe Klein.
There are numerous loud and opinionated voices on the political scene, but no person sees or writes with the clarity that this respected observer brings to the table. He has spent a lifetime enmeshed in politics, studying its nuances, its quirks, and its own decline. He is as angry and fed up as ordinary people, so he has made a decision to do something about it—in these pages, he vents, reconstructs, deconstructs, and reveals how and just why our leaders are less thinking about leading than they may be in the “permanent campaign” that political life is becoming.
The book opens with a stirring anecdote from the night time of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Klein re-creates the scene of Robert Kennedy’s appearance in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis, where he gave a gut-wrenching, poetic speech that showed respect for the audience, imparted dignity to all who listened, and quelled a potential riot. Appearing up against the wishes of his security team, it was one of the last truly courageous and spontaneous acts by an American politician—and it is no accident that Klein connects courage to spontaneity. From there, Klein commences his analysis—campaign by campaign—of how things went wrong. From McGovern campaign polling ways to Roger Ailes’s combative technique for Nixon; from Reagan’s reinvention of the Republican Party to Lee Atwater’s equally brilliant reinvention of behind-the-scenes strategizing; from Jimmy Carter to George H. W. Bush to Bill Clinton to George W.—as well as inside talks about the losing sides—we see how the Democrats become diffuse and frightened, how the system becomes unbalanced, and exactly how politics becomes less and less about ideology and increasingly more about how to gain and keep power. By the finish of one of the most dismal political runs in history—Kerry’s 2004 campaign for president—we know how such traits as courage, spontaneity, and leadership have disappeared from our political landscape.
In a remarkable final chapter, the writer won't give easy answers since the push for easy answers is definitely part of the problem. But he does give thoughtful solutions that just may get us out of the mess—especially if any of the 2008 candidates happen to be paying attention.
