American Ideology

A conventional wisdom has emerged since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 that new technologies and their manipulation by foreign actors played a decisive role in his victory and are responsible for the sense of a "post-truth" moment in which disinformation and propaganda thrives. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one-year anniversary of the Trump presidency.

As white supremacy, ultra-nationalism, rabid misogyny, and anti-immigrant fervor coalesce, a new and uniquely American form of fascism looms. Could our current moment actually bring about the end of democracy in the United States? Are Americans willing to surrender their freedom and dignity, along with their ongoing struggle for equality, justice, and mutual respect in the face of the rising tide of political and ideological extremism?

With Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious, and cultural lines, which have recently come to divide neatly between the two major political parties. She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, they tend to view one another with distrust and to work for party victory over all else.

When John Dewey died in 1952, he was memorialized as America's most famous philosopher, revered by liberal educators and deplored by conservatives, but universally acknowledged as his country's intellectual voice. Many things conspired to give Dewey an extraordinary intellectual eminence: He was immensely long-lived and immensely prolific; he died in his 93rd year, and his intellectual productivity hardly slackened until his 80s.

After the 2016 election, Americans witnessed a frightening trend: the rise of a host of new extremist groups across the country. Emboldened by a new president, they flooded political rallies and built fervent online presences, expanding rapidly until they were a regular sight at everyday demonstrations. Amid the chaos, one group emerged as a leader among the others, with matching outfits, bizarre rituals, and a reputation for violence: the Proud Boys. We Are Proud Boys is the definitive narrative exploration of this notorious street gang and all the far-right movements they’re connected to.

American society has always been fertile ground for conspiracy theories, but with the election of Donald Trump, previously outlandish ideas suddenly attained legitimacy. Trump himself is a conspiracy enthusiast: from his claim that global warming is a Chinese hoax to the accusations of “fake news”, he has fanned the flames of suspicion. But it was not by the power of one man alone that these ideas gained new power. Republic of Lies looks beyond the caricatures of conspiracy theorists to explain their tenacity.

Unless we pause to consider the implications, we risk being swept away by the current of popular culture, where conformity is the coin of the realm and free speech is controlled by the media. We can do better than this. America is in trouble. Bad decisions have brought us here. It's tempting to pass off our discontent as merely two disturbing presidential election cycles. But the truth runs much deeper than that. Progressive overreach now permeates virtually every aspect of American culture. Everything is political. The divide is no longer as simple as Coke vs.

In Homes for Living, urban planner and oral historian Jonathan Tarleton introduces listeners to two social housing co-ops in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Longtime residents of St. James Towers and Southbridge Towers lock horns over whether to maintain the rules that have kept their homes affordable for decades or to cash out at great personal profit, thereby denying future generations the same opportunity to build thriving communities rooted in mutual care.

In The Snapping of the American Mind, veteran journalist and best-selling author David Kupelian shows how the progressive Left - which today dominates America's key institutions, from the news and entertainment media, to education, to government itself - is accomplishing much more than just enlarging government, redistributing wealth, and de-Christianizing the culture.

Although populism is ultimately part of democracy, populist movements constitute an increasing challenge to democratic politics. Comparing political trends across different countries, this compelling audiobook debates what the long-term consequences of this challenge could be, as it turns the spotlight on the bewildering effect of populism on today's political and social life.

Howard Fineman, one of our most trusted political journalists, shows that every debate, from our nation’s founding to the present day, is rooted in one of thirteen arguments that–thankfully–defy resolution. It is the very process of never-ending argument, Fineman explains, that defines us, inspires us, and keeps us free. At a time when most public disagreement seems shrill and meaningless, Fineman makes a cogent case for nurturing the real American dialogue.

From a rising star at The New Yorker, a deeply immersive chronicle of how the optimistic entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley set out to create a free and democratic internet - and how the cynical propagandists of the alt-right exploited that freedom to propel the extreme into the mainstream.

In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale.

In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms.

American Imperialism is a short work in which Schurz denounced the Spanish-American war and the United States’ acquisition of the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. He considered the war as a battle of conquest which violated the intent and principles of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Schurz believed that imperialism should remain the province of despotic European governments. Together with the other leaders of the American Anti-Imperialist League, such as Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain, Schurz insisted that imperialism was incompatible with democracy.

In The Four Threats, Lieberman and Mettler explore five historical episodes when democracy in the United States was under siege: the 1790s, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Depression, and Watergate. These episodes risked profound, even fatal, damage to the American democratic experiment, and on occasion antidemocratic forces have prevailed. From this history, four distinct characteristics of democratic disruption emerge. Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power...have threatened the survival of the republic.

With its emphasis on traditional values, family, faith, military service, good manners, small government, and independent-minded people, the South should certainly rise again. Far from being the backwater of prejudice and ignorance that the liberal media would have you believe, the South has always been the center of American culture.

From the former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, a must-hear account of how America suffers from a “trust deficit” that has weakened its cornerstone institutions and divided our society.

From the author of The New York Times best sellers Treason and Slander comes an updated Ann Coulter compendium, complete with reader responses and television and talk radio transcripts (Couric, Donahue, Franken). With titles like "Would Mohamed Atta Object to Armed Pilots?", "9 out of 10 Caribou Support Drilling", and "Liberal Pimps for Clintonism", How to Talk to a Liberal covers Coulter's waterfront on her favorite issues and targets, from national security to Hollywood.

The Fall of Wisconsin is a deeply reported, searing account of how the state’s progressive tradition was undone and turned into a model for national conservatives bent on remaking the country. Dan Kaufman, a Wisconsin native who has been covering the story for several years, traces the history of progressivism that made Wisconsin so widely admired. Kaufman reveals how the “divide-and-conquer” strategy of Governor Scott Walker and his allies pitted Wisconsin’s citizens against one another, so powerful corporations and donors could effectively take control of state government.