American Politics Audiobooks | Politics

The instant #1 New York Times bestseller The official report and findings of the bipartisan Congressional investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and Donald Trump’s related coup conspiracies to overthrow the election, with an original foreword by attorney and Emmy-winning MSNBC anchor Ari Melber. This edition includes an exclusive breakdown of the coup conspiracy, based on Melber’s reporting and real-time coverage, highlighting the multi-pronged plot against democracy. Only the authoritative House committee report can capture the full range of plots that have been exposed over time, from the violent attack on January 6 to related efforts revealed months after the insurrection. This definitive edition features: • New independent analysis of the coup conspiracy by MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber • The historic, official text of the House Committee report on the insurrection, including the full Executive Summary with endnotes and all chapter endnotes. • The definitive accounting of Donald Trump’s efforts to end American democracy This is the only edition of the report featuring an additional, original analysis of the coup by a journalist and lawyer at the center of the action -- Melber has interviewed top members of this Committee, Jan. 6 rally planners and other cooperating witnesses, and Trump White House veterans ranging from Steve Bannon to Peter Navarro (now indicted for defying this probe). His report documents how Trump’s plots comprise a continuous coup conspiracy -- not a “riot” that exploded in a “single day” -- and why that factual prism is vital for accountability, justice, and preventing the next coup attempt. In chilling detail, he shows how that process might have engineered a technical effort to “override” the election on the floor of Congress—an essential map, and warning, for those who wish to protect democracy. If warnings are ignored and there is no accountability for the plotters at the top, a failed coup may become a training exercise. This report is not only a vital document in modern American history, it can also inform efforts to protect the future of American democracy. As a matter of justice, bipartisanship, and even patriotism, this report will become essential reading for any American determined to defend our democracy.

The January 6th Committee (Author), Ari Melber, Joe Knezevich (Narrator)

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Picking Presidents: How to Make the Most Consequential Decision in the World

Celebrated leadership expert and political scientist Gautam Mukunda provides a comprehensive, objective, and non-partisan method for answering the most important question in the world: is someone up to the job of president of the United States? In Picking Presidents, Gautam Mukunda sets his sights on presidential candidates, proposing a tested method to assess whether they will succeed or fail if they win the White House. Combining political science, psychology, organizational behavior, and economics, Picking Presidents will enable every American to cast an informed vote. In his 2012 book Indispensable, which all but predicted the Trump presidency, Mukunda explained how both the very best and very worst leaders are 'unfiltered'-outsiders who take power without the understanding or support of traditional elites. Picking Presidents provides deep analysis of filtered and unfiltered presidents alike, from failed haberdasher and skillful president Harry Truman, to the exceptionally well-qualified-and ultimately reviled-James Buchanan; from Andrew Johnson, who set civil rights back by a century, to Theodore Roosevelt, who evaded party opposition to transform American society. Picking Presidents lays out a clear framework that anyone can use to judge a candidate and answer the all-important question: are they up to the job?

Gautam Mukunda (Author), Graham Rowat (Narrator)

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A Nation So Conceived: Abraham Lincoln and the Paradox of Democratic Sovereignty

The culmination of years of work on Abraham Lincoln's political thought, Michael Zuckert's A Nation So Conceived argues for a coherent center to Lincoln's political ideology. Zuckert provides invaluable guidance to understanding both Lincoln and the politics of the United States between 1845 and Lincoln's death in 1865 by focusing on roughly a dozen speeches that Lincoln made during his career. This listener-friendly chronological organization is motivated by Zuckert's emphasis on Lincoln as a practical politician who was always fully aware of the political context of the moment. According to Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, America was new precisely because it was born in dedication to the first premise of the theory of democratic sovereignty: that all men are created equal. Lincoln's thought consisted in an ever-deepening meditation on the grounds and implications of that proposition, both in its constructive and in its destructive potential. A Nation So Conceived is devoted to exploring the paradoxical duality of 'created equal.' In a nearly comprehensive study of Lincoln's thought, Zuckert uses lessons he learned from decades of teaching to reveal how Lincoln understood both its truth and its pathological consequences while offering an assessment of his aims and achievements as a statesman.

Michael P. Zuckert (Author), David Colacci (Narrator)

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By The People?: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and Theft of Americans' Right to Self Rule

In advance of the 2020 election, influential partisans of candidate Joe Biden in the name of 'emergency' caused the election to be conducted in violation of laws passed by the legislatures in every swing state. These deviations, which violated the U.S. Constitution and overrode the will of the people as expressed in their laws, increased opportunity for cheating while removing security and transparency. In April of 2021, a Rasmussen poll found that most voters, including many Democrats, believe it is “likely” that cheating affected the outcome. Yet, within a week of the election, at the very moment serious allegations of corruption were multiplying, media and Democrat partisan authorities suddenly announced that the 2020 election was the “most safe and secure in history.” Veteran investigator Dr. Daniel Brubaker, turned his attention to these issues. This book is the culmination of that investigation. What he discovered adds to a growing body of research that demonstrates why—as a result of Democrats' own manipulative actions—it cannot be known that Joe Biden won. For Americans who care about free and fair elections, this book is a must read. For those who feel overwhelmed or powerless, it will help them know what can and must be done. 'Amazing—a huge work.' —Rabbi Daniel Lapin 'A superbly comprehensive work which will serve as a permanent factual record for historians.' —John Langlois, OBE 'The most cogent, detailed, and thoughtful presentation of the facts and real issues surrounding the 2020 election that I have seen. I believe that most people simply do not understand so much of what Brubaker covers. Americans and others of all political persuasions will benefit from reading this book.' —Bishop E.W. Jackson, President, S.T.A.N.D. Foundation

Daniel Alan Brubaker (Author), Daniel Alan Brubaker (Narrator)

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So Help Me God

The autobiography of former Vice President Mike Pence. Loyalty is a Vice President's first duty; but there is a greater one—to God and the Constitution. Mike Pence spent more hours in the Oval Office than any of his predecessors. On the surface, the affable evangelical Christian from a gas-station-owning family in Indiana wouldn't seem to have much in common with a brash real estate mogul from New York. But the unlikely duo formed a tight bond. Pence was at Donald Trump's side when he enacted historic tax relief, when he decided to take more assertive stances toward China and North Korea, and when he appointed three Supreme Court justices. But the relationship broke down after the 2020 election. On January 6, 2021, as the president pressured him to overturn the election, a mob erected a gallows on Capitol Hill and its members chanted "Hang Mike Pence!" as they rampaged through the halls of Congress. The vice president refused to leave the Capitol, and once the riot was quelled, he reconvened Congress to complete the work of a peaceful transfer of power. So Help Me God is the chronicle of the events and people who forged Mike Pence's character and led him to that historic moment. His father, a Korean War combat veteran, was a formidable influence, but so was the Indiana history professor who inspired his devotion to the Constitution. And it was in college and law school that he embraced his Christian faith and met the love of his life, Karen—the two pillars that support him every day. You will read how his early political career was full of missteps that humbled him and how, as a talk radio host, Pence found his voice and the path that led him to Congress, the governor's office in Indiana, and back to Washington as vice president. This is the inside story of the Trump administration by its second highest official—what he said to the president and how he was tested. The relationship begins in Indiana, when Pence sees how Trump connects with working-class voters. After the election, the vice president comes to appreciate how Trump maintains that connection through unvarnished tweets and how his unorthodox style led to historic breakthroughs, from tax cuts to trade deals, from establishing the United States Space Force to the first new peace agreement in the Middle East in more than twenty-five years. This is the most robust defense of the Trump record of anyone who served in the administration. But it is also about the private moments when Pence pushed back forcefully, how he navigated through the Mueller investigation, his damage control after Charlottesville, and his work on healing racial rifts after the murder of George Floyd. Pence was at the forefront when "history showed up" in the form of a devastating pandemic, and he provides a detailed account of leading the task force that circumvented bureaucracies to slow the disease in its tracks. Yes, it sometimes involved brokering peace between a president with an itchy Twitter finger and an agitated New York governor, but above all, it meant giving states and America's eager entrepreneurs the power to come up with the solutions we needed. The result was the fastest development of life-saving vaccines in history. In So Help Me God, Pence shows how the faith that he embraced as a young man guided his every decision. It is a faith that guided him on that historic day and that keeps him happily at peace, ready to accept the next challenge.

Mike Pence (Author), Mike Pence (Narrator)

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Against the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Rise of Conservatism, 1976-2009

From the author of Catching the Wind comes the second volume of the definitive biography of Ted Kennedy and a history of modern American liberalism. "Magisterial . . . an intricate, astute study of political power brokering comparable to Robert A. Caro's profile of Lyndon Johnson in Master of the Senate."-Publishers Weekly (starred review) Against the Wind completes Neal Gabler's magisterial biography of Ted Kennedy, but it also unfolds the epic, tragic story of the fall of liberalism and the destruction of political morality in America. With Richard Nixon having stilled the liberal wind that once propelled Kennedy's-and his fallen brothers'-political crusades, Ted Kennedy faced a lonely battle. As Republicans pressed Reaganite dogmas of individual freedom and responsibility and Democratic centrists fell into line, Kennedy was left as the most powerful voice legislating on behalf of those society would neglect or punish: the poor, the working class, and African Americans. Gabler shows how the fault lines that cracked open in the wake of the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam were intentionally widened by Kennedy's Republican rivals to create a moral vision of America that stood in direct opposition to once broadly shared commitments to racial justice and economic equality. Yet even as he fought this shift, Ted Kennedy's personal moral failures in this era-the endless rumors of his womanizing and public drunkenness and his bizarre behavior during the events that led to rape accusations against his nephew William Kennedy Smith-would be used again and again to weaken his voice and undercut his claims to political morality. Tracing Kennedy's life from the wilderness of the Reagan years through the compromises of the Clinton era, from his rage against the craven cruelty of George W. Bush to his hope that Obama would deliver on a lifetime of effort on behalf of universal health care, Gabler unfolds Kennedy's heroic legislative work against the backdrop of a nation grown lost and fractured. In this outstanding conclusion to the saga that began with Catching the Wind, Neal Gabler offers his inimitable insight into a man who fought to keep liberalism alive when so many were determined to extinguish it. Against the Wind sheds new light both on a revered figure in the American Century and on America's current existential crisis.

Neal Gabler (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)

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Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy

Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy offers a nuanced assessment of the thirty-fifth president, whose legacy and impact people continue to debate to this day. Stephen F. Knott examines Kennedy through the lens of five critical issues: his interpretation of presidential power, his approach to civil rights, and his foreign policy toward Cuba, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Knott also explores JFK's assassination and the evolving interpretations of his presidency, both highly politicized subject matters. What emerges is a president as complex as the author's shifting views about him. The passage of sixty years, from working in the Kennedy Library to a career writing about the American presidency, has given Knott a broader view of Kennedy's presidency and allowed him to see how both the Left and the Right, and members of the Kennedy family, distorted JFK's record for their own purposes. Despite the existence of over forty thousand books dealing with the man and his era, this book offers something new to say about this brief but important presidency. Knott contends that Kennedy's presidency, for better or for worse, mattered deeply and that whatever his personal flaws, Kennedy's lofty rhetoric appealed to what is best in America, without invoking the snarling nativism of his least illustrious successor, Donald Trump.

Stephen F. Knott (Author), Christopher P. Brown (Narrator)

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American Resistance: The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation

It could have been so much worse: a deeply reported, insider story of how a handful of Washington officials staged a daring resistance to an unprecedented presidency and prevented chaos overwhelming the government and the nation. Each federal employee takes an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic," but none had imagined that enemy might be the Commander-in-Chief. With the presidency of Donald Trump, a fault line between the president and vital forces within his government was established. Those who honored their oath of office, their obligation to the Constitution, were wary of the president and they in turn were not trusted and occasionally fired and replaced with loyalists. American Resistance is the first book to chronicle the unprecedented role so many in the government were forced to play and the consequences of their actions during the Trump administration. From Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his brother Yevgeny, to Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, to Bill Taylor, Fiona Hill, and the official who first called himself "Anonymous"-Miles Taylor, among others, Rothkopf examines the resistance movement that slowly built in Washington. Drawing from first hand testimonies, deep background and research, American Resistance shows how when the President threatened to run amok, a few key figures rose in defiance. It reveals the conflict within the Department of Justice over actively seeking instances of election fraud and abuse to help the president illegally retain power, and multiple battles within the White House over the influence of Jared and Ivanka, and in particular the extraordinary efforts to get them security clearances even after they were denied to them. David Rothkopf chronicles how each person came to realize that they were working for an administration that threatened to wreak havoc - one Defense Secretary was told by his mother to resign before it was too late - in an intense drama in which a few good men and women stood up to the tyrant in their midst.

David Rothkopf (Author), David Rothkopf (Narrator)

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We Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776

E pluribus unum was suggested for the national seal in 1776, but national oneness has been haunted by its opposite ever since. We Are Not One People demonstrates how the persistence of separatist movements in American history reveals as much about the nation's politics as it does the would-be separatists. Each chapter explores how great swaths of Americans of every ideological stripe, in good times and bad, in and beyond the South, have disputed the nation's oneness and stressed its divisibility. Trumpeted in American myths, mottos, movies, and songs, separatism is omnipresent in American political culture. Separatist rhetoric has shaped Americans' experience of what it means to be an American, and we can learn much about the durable appeal and enduring fragility of the United States from those who tried to leave it. As one Vermont separatist quips, leaving is as American 'as apple pie.' We Are Not One People is a bold, pathbreaking, and far-reaching account of disunionists from 1776 to the present who wanted, as phrased in the Declaration of Independence, 'to dissolve the political bands' connecting them to other Americans.

Michael J. Lee, R. Jarrod Atchison (Author), Danny Campbell (Narrator)

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Political Choice in a Polarized America: How Elite Polarization Shapes Mass Behavior

What motivates citizens to support one party over the other? Do they carefully weigh all of the relevant issues and assess which party or candidate best matches their own positions? Or do people look at politics as something more akin to a team sport-the specifics do not matter as long as you know what side your team is on? Answering these questions requires us to think about how much the average American knows about politics. Many scholars of public opinion believe that the majority of Americans only pay passing attention to politics. Thus the electorate's apparent lack of political competence presents a direct challenge to normative theories of democracy. How are citizens supposed to exert control over the government if they have no idea what is going on? In Political Choice in a Polarized America, Joshua N. Zingher argues that these fears are overblown. Not only do individuals have core beliefs about what the government should or should not do, but individuals have become more likely to support the party that best matches their policy attitudes by both identifying as a member of that party and voting for that party in elections. However, as Zingher demonstrates, voters' ability to match their attitudes to a party or candidate varies according to signals sent by elites and increases as parties become more polarized.

Joshua N. Zingher (Author), Jonathan Sleep (Narrator)

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Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ‘A political epic’ – Guardian ‘This is the book Trump fears most.’ – Axios Few journalists have covered Donald Trump more extensively than Maggie Haberman. And few better understand the polarizing 45th president or his motivations. In this astonishing, illuminating book, Haberman reveals all about Trump the man, the president and the phenomenon. Interviews with hundreds of sources and with Trump himself portray a complicated and often contradictory figure. Capable of kindness but relying on casual cruelty as it suits his purposes. Pugnacious. Insecure. Lonely. Vindictive. Menacing. Smarter than his critics contend and colder and more calculating than his allies believe. A man who embedded himself in popular culture for decades, laying the groundwork to galvanize support for a successful run for high office. Chronicling Trump’s entire career, from his rise in New York City to his tortured post-presidency and potential comeback, Confidence Man is a magnificent, disturbing reckoning of the president who pushed American democracy to the brink.

Maggie Haberman (Author), Maggie Haberman (Narrator)

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A Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump

A revealing, behind-the-scenes examination of how Congress twice fumbled its best chance to hold accountable a president many considered one of the most dangerous in American history. The definitive—and only—insider account of both Trump impeachments, as told by the two reporters on the front lines covering them for The Washington Post and Politico. In a riveting account that flips the script on what readers think they know about the two impeachments of Donald Trump, Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian reveal how—and why—congressional oversight failed when it was needed most. Unchecked weaves a vivid narrative of how House Democrats under the lead of a cautious speaker, Nancy Pelosi, hesitated for months to stand up to Trump—and then pulled punches in their effort to oust him in a misguided effort to protect themselves politically. What they left on the cutting room floor would come back to haunt them, as Republicans seized on their missteps to whip an uneasy GOP rank-and-file into line behind Donald Trump, abandoning their scruples to defend a president who some privately believed had indeed abused his power. Even after Trump incited a mob to violently attack the Capitol—a day the authors recount in minute-by-minute, stunning detail — Democrats pressured their own investigators to forego a thorough investigation in the name of safeguarding the Biden agenda. And Republicans, fearful of repelling a base they needed for re-election, missed their best moment to turn their backs on a leader they secretly agreed was destructive to democracy. Sourced from hundreds of interviews with all the key players, the authors of Unchecked pull back the curtain on how both parties pursued political expediency over fact-finding. The end result not only emboldened Trump, giving him room for a political comeback, but also undermined Congress by rendering toothless their most powerful check on a president: the power of impeachment. A dramatic and at times crushing work of investigative reporting, Unchecked is both a gripping page-turner of political intrigue and a detailed case study for historians and political scientists searching for answers about the unravelling of checks and balances that have governed American democracy for centuries. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Karoun Demirjian, Rachael Bade (Author), Courtney Patterson (Narrator)

Audiobook

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