American Elections

Duca investigates and explains the issues at the root of our ailing political system and reimagines what an equitable democracy would look like. It begins with young people getting involved. This includes people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress; David and Lauren Hogg, two survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting who went on to become advocates for gun control; Amanda Litman, who founded the nonprofit organization Run for Something, to assist progressive young people in down ballot elections; and many more.

A hard-hitting and no-holds-barred broadside, from the anchorman of the Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor - what's good about America (plenty), what's bad (plenty still), and what's completely ridiculous (most everything else).

Extreme candidates are nothing new in American politics, but very rarely do candidates as extreme as Elizabeth Warren have such a talent for presenting radically dangerous policy ideas as if they are compatible with the American experiment. An increasing number of far-left progressives have worked their way into the upper echelons of Democratic Party leadership, but none have generated the college campus enthusiasm and media coddling that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has created.

Accountable examines present-day conditions and the consequences for America. At its core, this book is a tool with which the community can evaluate the successes or failures of its political leaders and of itself. This insightful book acknowledges the mistakes of the past while offering hope and inspiration for a better future.

From the American Revolution through the Civil Rights movement, Americans have long mobilized against political, social, and economic privilege. Hierarchies based on inheritance, wealth, and political preferment were treated as obnoxious and a threat to democracy. Mass movements envisioned a new world supplanting dog-eat-dog capitalism. But over the last half-century that political will and cultural imagination have vanished. Why? The Age of Acquiescence seeks to solve that mystery.

From the best-selling author of What's the Matter with Kansas?, a wonderfully insightful and sardonic look at how the worst economy since the 1930s has brought about the revival of conservatism. Economic catastrophe usually brings social protest and demands for change - or at least it's supposed to. But when Thomas Frank set out in 2009 to look for expressions of American discontent, all he could find were loud demands that the economic system be made even harsher on the recession's victims....

In the 1960s and 1970s, an insurgent attack on traditional liberalism took shape in America. It was built on new ideals of citizen advocacy and the public interest. Drawing energy from civil rights protests and opposition to the Vietnam War, the new citizens' movement drew legions of followers and scored major victories. And yet, in the process, citizen advocates also helped to undermine big government liberalism - the powerful alliance between government, business, and labor that dominated the United States politically in the decades following the New Deal and World War II.

For four years, Diane Hessan has been in weekly conversation with voters across the United States. What she has learned will surprise you, enlighten you, give you hope, and change the way you think about your fellow Americans. Our inability to hear each other, our suspicion, and our impatience is stressing us out and tearing us apart. It’s a sickness that permeates the American culture, erodes our collective mental health, and makes us hate each other.

Imagine a country where the right to vote is not guaranteed by the Constitution, where the candidate with the most votes loses, and where paperwork requirements and bureaucratic bungling disenfranchise millions. You're living in it. If the consequences weren't so serious, it would be funny. An eye-opening, fact-filled companion to the forthcoming PBS documentary starring political satirist and commentator Mo Rocca, Electoral Dysfunction illuminates a broad array of issues.

Albert Richardson and Junius Browne, two correspondents for the New York Tribune, were captured at the Battle of Vicksburg and spent 20 months in horrific Confederate prisons before escaping and making their way to Union territory. Their amazing, long-forgotten odyssey is one of the great escape stories in American history, packed with drama, courage, horrors and heroics, plus many moments of antic comedy.

Mark R. Levin has made the case, in numerous New York Times best-selling books - Men in Black, Liberty and Tyranny, and Ameritopia - that the principles undergirding our society and governmental system are unravelling. In The Liberty Amendments, he turns to the founding fathers and the constitution itself for guidance in restoring the American republic.

America is rushing headlong into another election year, but something is wrong - the polls don't match reality. It's up to cybersecurity super sleuth Frank Adversego to find the Black Hats who are trying to hack the presidential election, and stop them before they do. The action begins when a nameless government agency recruits Adversego to find out who's manipulating the polls, but he soon learns that the voting results are at risk as well. From then on, it's a race against time to see who will stop who as the presidential election - and Adversego's life - hang in the balance.

American populism has always been home to a fascinating assortment of charismatic leaders, characters, kooks, cranks, and sometimes charlatans who have led the charge of ordinary folks who have gotten wise to the ways of the swamp. Every Man a King tells the stories of America's populist leaders, from Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt to Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Donald Trump. It is a rollicking history of an American attitude that has shaped not only our current moment, but also the long struggle over who gets to define the truths we hold to be self evident.

People on the right are furious. People on the left are livid. And the center isn't holding. There is only one thing on which almost everyone agrees: there is 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 is a cynicism in Washington that appalls those in every state, red or blue.

Ann Coulter, whose examination of the Clinton impeachment was a major national bestseller and earned widespread praise, now takes on an even tougher issue. At a time when Democrats and Republicans should be overwhelmingly congenial, American political debate has become increasingly hostile, overly personal, and insufferably trivial. Whether conducted in Congress or on the political talk shows, played out at dinners or cocktail parties, politics is a nasty sport. At the risk of giving away the ending: It’s all liberals’ fault.

For decades Americans have turned to LIFE magazine to see, understand, and remember the most important events and people of our time. The magazine now focuses its lens on Barack Obama. This book includes a Foreword by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and original essays by some of our finest writers, including Gay Talese, Charles Johnson, Melissa Fay Greene, Andrei Codrescu, Fay Weldon, Richard Norton Smith, Bob Greene, and several others.

Hyperpartisanship has gridlocked the American government. Congress' approval ratings are at record lows, and both Democrats and Republicans are disgusted by the government's inability to get anything done. In It's Even Worse Than It Looks, Congressional scholars Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein present a grim picture of how party polarization and tribal politics have led Congress - and the United States - to the brink of institutional failure.

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, there was widespread shock that the Midwest, the Democrats' so-called blue wall, had been so effectively breached by Donald Trump. But the blue wall, as The Conservative Heartland makes clear, was never quite as secure as so many observers assumed. Focusing on nine states, from Iowa and the Dakotas to Indiana and Ohio, the essays in this collection detail the rise of Midwestern conservatism after World War II - a trend that coincided with the transformation of the prewar Republican Party into the New Right.

Trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress and that business interests wield control over our legislature. With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system.

With jackhammer force and candor, ex-Navy SEAL and professional wrestler, and current Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura issues an urgent wake-up call to America - a resounding indictment of our creeping national cynicism.