American Politics Audiobooks | Politics

51 Imperfect Solutions: States and the Making of American Constitutional Law

When we think of constitutional law, we invariably think of the United States Supreme Court and the federal court system. Yet much of our constitutional law is not made at the federal level. In 51 Imperfect Solutions, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton argues that American Constitutional Law should account for the role of the state courts and state constitutions, together with the federal courts and the federal constitution, in protecting individual liberties. The book tells four stories that arise in four different areas of constitutional law: equal protection; criminal procedure; privacy; and free speech and free exercise of religion. Traditional accounts of these bedrock debates about the relationship of the individual to the state focus on decisions of the United States Supreme Court. But these explanations tell just part of the story. The book corrects this omission by looking at each issue-and some others as well-through the lens of many constitutions, not one constitution; of many courts, not one court; and of all American judges, not federal or state judges. Taken together, the stories reveal a remarkably complex, nuanced, ever-changing federalist system.

Jeffrey S. Sutton (Author), David Drummond (Narrator)

Audiobook

It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics

The American electoral system is clearly falling apart-as evidenced by the 2016 presidential election. In It's Time to Fight Dirty, David Faris offers accessible, actionable strategies for American institutional reform which don't require a constitutional amendment, and would have a lasting impact on our future. With equal amounts of playful irreverence and persuasive reasoning, Faris describes how the Constitution's deep democratic flaws constantly put progressives at a disadvantage, and lays out strategies for "fighting dirty" though obstructionism and procedural warfare: establishing statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico; breaking California into several states; creating a larger House of Representatives; passing a new voting rights act; and expanding the Supreme Court. The Constitution may be the world's most difficult document to amend, but David Faris argues that many of America's democratic failures can be fixed within its rigid confines-and, at a time when the stakes have never been higher, he outlines a path for long-term, progressive change in the United States.

David Faris (Author), Mike Chamberlain (Narrator)

Audiobook

What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don't: A Nonpartisan Guide to the Issues That Matter

In a world of sound bites, deliberate misinformation, and a political scene that is colored by the blue versus red partisan divide. How does the average educated American find a reliable source that's free of political spin? What You Should Know About Politics . . . But Don't breaks it all down, issue by issue, explaining who stands for what, and why-whether it's the economy, income inequality, Obamacare, foreign policy, education, immigration, or climate change. If you're a Democrat, a Republican, or somewhere in between, it's the perfect book to brush up on a single topic or read through to get a deeper understanding of the often mucky world of American politics. This is an essential volume for understanding the background to the 2016 presidential election. But it is also a book that transcends the season. It's truly for anyone who wants to know more about the issues, which are perennial issues that will continue to affect our everyday lives.

Jessamyn Conrad (Author), Teri Schnaubelt (Narrator)

Audiobook

To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn't Too Lat

America's number one 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, D.C., 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.

Ralph Nader (Author), Bob Souer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Trumped Up: How Criminalization of Political Differences Endangers Democracy

In our current age of hyper-partisan politics, nearly everyone takes sides. This is especially true with regard to the Trump presidency, which did not cause this profound division but has drawn it to the surface, making it the dominant paradigm of political debate. Both sides scream lock 'em up, criminalizing political difference instead of making substantive criticisms of opposing views. This deeply undemocratic fallacy-that political sins must be investigated and prosecuted as criminal-is an exceedingly dangerous trend. The underlying problem, Alan Dershowitz argues, is that we have weakened our national commitment to civil liberties. The vibrant center is weakening, with traditional liberalism and conservatism becoming further apart-not just in approach but also in their respect for Constitutional norms. And unless we as a nation begin to focus again on what unites us rather than on what divides us, America might not survive the next decade.

Alan Dershowitz, Alan M. Dershowitz (Author), John Pruden (Narrator)

Audiobook

Everything Trump Touches Dies

A respected, long-time Republican strategist, ad-maker and contributor for The Daily Beast, skewers the disease that is destroying the conservative movement and burning down the GOP: Trumpism. In Everything Trump Touches Dies, political campaign strategist and commentator Rick Wilson brings his darkly funny humor and biting analysis to the absurdity of American politics in the age of Trump. Wilson mercilessly exposes the damage Trump has done to the country, to the Republican Party he served for decades, and to the conservative movement that has abandoned its principles for the worst President in American history. No left-winger, Wilson is a lifelong conservative who delivers his withering critique of Trump from the right. A leader of the Never Trump movement, he warns his own party of the political catastrophe that leaves everyone involved with Trump with reputations destroyed and lives in tatters. Wilson unblinkingly dismantles Trump's deceptions and the illusions to which his supporters cling, shedding light on the guilty parties who empower and enable Trump in Washington and the news media. He calls out the race-war dead-enders who hitched a ride with Trump, the alt-right basement dwellers who worship him, and the social conservatives who looked the other way. Everything Trump Touches Dies deftly chronicles the tragicomic Trump story from the early campaign days through the shock of election night, to the inconceivable trainwreck of Trump's first year. Rick Wilson provides not only an insightful analysis of the Trump administration, but also an optimistic path forward for the GOP, the conservative movement, and the country. Combining insider political analysis, blunt truths, and black humor, Everything Trump Touches Dies is perfect for those on either side of the aisle who need a dose of unvarnished reality, a good laugh, a strong cocktail, and a return to sanity in American politics.

Rick Wilson (Author), Rick Wilson (Narrator)

Audiobook

America: The Farewell Tour

A profound and provocative examination of America in crisis, where unemployment, deindustrialization, and a bitter hopelessness and malaise have resulted in an epidemic of diseases of despair-drug abuse, gambling, suicide, magical thinking, xenophobia, and a culture of sadism and hate. America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. As our society unravels, we also face global upheaval caused by catastrophic climate change. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet. Donald Trump rode this disenchantment to power. In America: The Farewell Tour, Hedges argues that neither political party, now captured by corporate power, addresses the systemic problem. Until our corporate coup d'état is reversed these diseases will grow and ravage the country. A poignant cry reported from communities across the country, America: The Farewell Tour seeks to jolt us out of our complacency while there is still time.

Chris Hedges (Author), Fred Sanders (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Shadow President: The Truth About Mike Pence

In this well-rounded, deeply-investigated biography, the first full look at the vice president, two award-winning journalists unmask the real Mike Pence. Little-known outside his home state until Donald Trump made him his running mate, Mike Pence-who proclaims himself a Christian first, a conservative second, and a Republican third-has long worn a carefully-constructed mask of Midwestern nice. Behind his self-proclaimed humility and self-abasing deference, however, hides a man whose own presidential ambitions have blazed since high school. Pence's drive for power, perhaps inspired by his belief that God might have big plans for him, explains why he shocked his allies by lending Christian credibility to a scandal-plagued candidate like Trump. In this landmark biography, Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael D'Antonio and Emmy-nominated journalist Peter Eisner follow the path Pence followed from Catholic Democrat to conservative evangelical Republican. They reveal how he used his time as rightwing radio star to build connections with powerful donors; how he was a lackluster lawmaker in Congress but a prodigious fundraiser from the GOP's billionaire benefactors; and how, once he locked in his views on the issues-anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-abortion, pro big-business-he became laser-focused on his own pursuit of power. As THE SHADOW PRESIDENT reveals, Mike Pence is the most important and powerful Christian Right politician America has ever seen. Driven as much by theology as personal ambition, Pence is now positioned to seize the big prize-the presidency-and use it to fashion a nation more pleasing to his god and corporate sponsors. Praise for The Shadow President: 'It presents an entirely damning portrait of Pence. You've seen his colors before, but not so vividly and in this detail.' - Frank Bruni, The New York Times 'Producing a biography of a living, controversial politician is always difficult. D'Antonio and Eisner have succeeded in this well-documented, damning book.'-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Michael D'antonio, Peter Eisner (Author), Robert Fass (Narrator)

Audiobook

Erasing America: Losing Our Future by Destroying Our Past

Remember America? There may come a time when no one will.In Erasing America: Destroying Our Future by Erasing Our Past, James Robbins reveals that the radical Left controls education, the media, and the Democratic party ... and they seek to demean, demolish, and relentlessly attack America's past in order to control America's present.This toxic movement has already brainwashed an entire generation and is rapidly changing the cultural, historical, and spiritual bonds of our nation. American exceptionalism, history, and patriotism are a magnificent legacy, Robbins warns, but to pass it on to our children, we must view the past with understanding, the present with gratitude, and the future with hope.Wondering if it's really that bad? Here are some facts you'll learn in Erasing America: At Yale, residential Calhoun College is being renamed after students complained about the pro-slavery sentiments of John C. Calhoun.In Massachusetts, Simmons College claims saying, 'God bless you' is an 'Islamophobic microaggression.'In Virginia, school districts seek to ban To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because parents complained about the racial slurs in the books.Across the country, Christmas songs and movies are labeled as racist and sexist-and banned.In California, a San Francisco school district wants to rename George Washington High School because our first president owned slaves.In Arkansas, a monument engraved with the Ten Commandments was smashed to smithereens by a protester in a Dodge Dart.And in parks and squares across the South, statues of confederate generals and soldiers are disappearing.Robbins wants you to understand the critical situation in America, and to use Erasing America to equip your fellow Americans against this Leftist propaganda-before it's too late!

James S. Robbins (Author), John Mclain (Narrator)

Audiobook

How Democracy Ends

How will democracy end? And what will replace it? A preeminent political scientist examines the past, present, and future of an endangered political philosophy Since the end of World War II, democracy's sweep across the globe seemed inexorable. Yet today, it seems radically imperiled, even in some of the world's most stable democracies. How bad could things get? In How Democracy Ends, David Runciman argues that we are trapped in outdated twentieth-century ideas of democratic failure. By fixating on coups and violence, we are focusing on the wrong threats. Our societies are too affluent, too elderly, and too networked to fall apart as they did in the past. We need new ways of thinking the unthinkable--a twenty-first-century vision of the end of democracy, and whether its collapse might allow us to move forward to something better. A provocative book by a major political philosopher, How Democracy Ends asks the most trenchant questions that underlie the disturbing patterns of our contemporary political life.

David Runciman (Author), David Runciman (Narrator)

Audiobook

Guns across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights

In vast swathes of America, the sacredness of the Second Amendment has become a political third rail, never to be questioned. Gun rights supporters wear tri-cornered hats, wave the stars and stripes, and ask what would have happened if the revolutionaries had been unarmed when the British were coming. They have had great success in conflating unfettered gun ownership with the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and all things American, even in an era of repeated mass shootings. Yet the all-too-familiar narrative of America's gun past, echoed in the Supreme Court's Heller gun rights decision, is not only mythologized, but historically wrong. As Robert J. Spitzer demonstrates in Guns across America, gun ownership is as old as the nation, but so is gun regulation. Drawing on a vast new dataset of early gun laws reflecting every imaginable type of regulation, Spitzer reveals that firearms were actually more strictly regulated in the country's first three centuries than in recent years. The first "gun grabbers" were not 1960's Chablis-drinking liberals, but seventeenth century rum-guzzling pioneers, and their legacy continued through strict gun regulations in the 1920s and beyond. Spitzer examines interpretations of the Second Amendment, the assault weapons controversy, modern "stand your ground" laws, and the so-called "right of rebellion" to show that they play out in America's contemporary political landscape in ways that bear little resemblance to our imagined past. And as gun rights proponents seek to roll back gun laws and press as many guns into as many hands as possible, warning that gun rights are endangered, they sidestep the central question: are stricter gun laws incompatible with robust gun rights? Spitzer answers this question by examining New York State's tough gun laws, where his political analysis is complemented by his own quest for a concealed carry handgun permit and construction of a legal AR-15 assault weapon. Not only can gun rights and rules coexist, but they have throughout American history. Guns across America reveals the long-hidden truth: that gun regulations are in fact as American as apple pie.

Robert J. Spitzer, Robert Spitzer (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Case Against Impeaching Trump

“Maybe the question isn’t what happened to Alan Dershowitz. Maybe it’s what happened to everyone else.”—Politico Alan Dershowitz has been called “one of the most prominent and consistent defenders of civil liberties in America” by Politico and “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights” by Newsweek. Yet he has come under partisan fire for applying those same principles to Donald Trump during the course of his many appearances in national media outlets as an expert resource on civil and constitutional law. The Case Against Impeaching Trump seeks to reorient the debate over impeachment to the same standard that Dershowitz has continued to uphold for decades: the law of the United States of America, as established by the Constitution. In the author’s own words: “In the fervor to impeach President Trump, his political enemies have ignored the text of the Constitution. As a civil libertarian who voted against Trump, I remind those who would impeach him not to run roughshod over a document that has protected us all for two and a quarter centuries. In this case against impeachment, I make arguments similar to those I made against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton (and that I would be making had Hillary Clinton been elected and Republicans were seeking to impeach her). Impeachment and removal of a president are not entirely political decisions by Congress. Every member takes an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution sets out specific substantive criteria that MUST be met. I am thrilled to contribute to this important debate and especially that my book will be so quickly available to readers so they can make up their own minds.”

Alan Dershowitz (Author), Lawrence Richardson (Narrator)

Audiobook

American Politics Audiobooks in Politics