To the ramparts How Bush and Obama paved the way for the Trump presidency, and why it isn't too late to reverse course

Ralph Nader

Book - 2018

"America's #1 citizen Ralph Nader's latest book shows us how unchecked corporate power has led to the wrecking ball that is the Trump presidency. Nader brings together the outrages of the Trump administration with the key flaws and failures of the previous administrations--both Republican and Democratic--that have led our nation to its current precipice. It's all in the details and Ralph Nader knows them all. Trump didn't come out of nowhere. Bush and Obama led the way. Writing as a Washington, DC, activist and people's advocate for over fifty years--someone who has saved more lives and caused more impactful legislation to be enacted than almost any sitting president or legislator--Nader shows how Trump's ...crimes and misdemeanors followed the path of no resistance of the Obama, Bush and Clinton regimes, which ushered in the extreme rise of corporate power and the abandonment of the poor and middle classes."--Jacket.

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Subjects
Published
New York, NY : Seven Stories Press [2018]
Language
English
Main Author
Ralph Nader (author)
Edition
A Seven Stories Press First edition
Physical Description
304 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781609808471
  • Opening Orientation
  • Part I. The Democrats Squander Their Obama Victory
  • 1. Upgrading Minimum Wage of Minimal Interest to the Democratic Party
  • 2. When the People Were in the Streets, the Dems Were Behind Their Desks
  • 3. Trump Not the Only One to Roll Back Regulations
  • 4. Obama's Unconstitutional Handling of the "War on Terror"
  • 5. An Interlude: Fund-raising
  • 6. The Democrats Will Be Repeatedly Corporatized Unless They Battle for a People's Agenda
  • 7. When Will Democrats Stand by Their Convictions?
  • 8. Romney Lost, Yes, but Obama Should Have Been Cleaning His Clock
  • 9. Thoughts on the Inauguration
  • 10. Shutting Down Keystone XL: A Positive Step
  • 11. What the Democrats Have to Get Right
  • 12. Obama's and Democrats' Weak Appointments and Policies Pander to Wall Street
  • 13. Obama's Bad Ideas on Free Trade
  • Part II. The Presidential Primaries
  • 14. Hillary on Her Record
  • 15. The Attempt to Sideline Sanders
  • 16. The Trump Rampage
  • 17. Trump and Sanders
  • 18. The Media Was Letting Us Down in Covering the Election and the Debates
  • 19. The Primaries, Structurally Warped: The Democrats
  • 20. The Primaries, Glitter Trumps Substance: The Republicans
  • Part III. The Campaign for President Under Way
  • 21. Duking It Out
  • 22. The Lessons of Trump's Ascent
  • Part IV. Trump in the Drivers Seat
  • 23. Electoral Shenanigans
  • 24. Trump's Big Reveal
  • 25. Trump in Power, Night Falls in America
  • 26. His Appointments Were Bad, His Governing Worse
  • 27. Resist on the Barricades
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Longtime activist Nader links the rise of President Trump and decline of the Democratic Party to the latter's turn away from being champions of a "people's agenda" in this uneven recent history of and jeremiad against corporatist American politics. While Nader is at pains to be clear that he finds the Democrats preferable to Republicans in some policy areas, he argues that their litany of failures in the economic realm is the main reason the party has lost power. He also identifies structural problems with American democracy and calls for top-down "necessary reforms," offering an eight-point platform-which includes a minimum wage hike, military cuts to fund public works, and conversion to renewable energy-that Democratic candidates could adopt in order to win the support of wide swaths of the electorate. The presentation can at times distract from his ideas: fictional passages are full of oddly dramatic flourishes (in one, Barack Obama consents to chat with the ghost of Osama bin Laden "as long as you remain hovering and do not attempt to defile this solemn room") and the reproduction of numerous, sometimes pages-long chiding letters to major political figures may grate on even avowed Nader fans (especially given the 2015 book compiling his letters to Presidents Bush and Obama). But readers who don't mind those elements will find well-argued ideas here. (Aug.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Review by Kirkus Book Review

The consumer gadfly and former third-party candidate continues to offer answers to the nation's political problems.Having published one book of letters he had written to presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama without receiving any response (Return to Sender, 2015), Nader returns with imaginary letters he would have written to those presidents during times of crisis, an imagined encounter between Obama and the ghost of Osama bin Laden, and various lists "to promote a people's agenda." The author recognizes that in the public eye, he has been branded with "the politically bigoted word spoiler' " since his Green Party candidacy might have tipped the 2000 election of Bush over Al Gore, but he insists that Bernie Sanders played the same role and faced the same charges: "The unfortunate truth Bernie discovered was that anybody who challenges the positions of the corporatist, militaristic, Wall Street-funded Democrats, led by Hillary Clintonis, by their twisted definition, a spoiler.' " Not that there was all that much to spoil, in Nader's analysis, though he never says that the Democrats would be as bad as "the self-destructive, unstable, unorganized, fact- and truth-starved, egomaniacal, bigoted, cheating, plutocratic Donald Trump." However, he holds what he calls "the ObamaBush White House" responsible for the rise of Trump and chastises Obama for not targeting his predecessor as "a war criminal." Nader draws from old clippings and some of his own writing at the time to make familiar complaints about Obama governing more toward the center after campaigning as more of a progressive and about the claims of progressivism by the hawkish and corporate-funded Hillary. He insists that the Electoral College, responsible for Trump's victory, is "antiquated, atavistic," and way overdue for reform, if not removal. For the most part, though, he seems to want to have a direct voice in this discussion rather than shouting from far away on the sidelines.Despite the occasional good point, Nader's current influence extends no farther than preaching to the choir. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.