American Politics Audiobooks | Politics

The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America

In two previous highly regarded books on the US Senate, Ira Shapiro chronicled the institution from its apogee in the 1970s through its decline in the decades since. Now, Shapiro turns his gaze to how the Senate responded to the challenges posed by the Trump administration and its prospects under President Biden. The Founding Fathers gave the US Senate many functions, but it had one fundamental responsibility-its raison d'etre: to provide the check against a dangerous president who threatened our democracy. Two hundred and thirty years later, when Donald Trump, a potential authoritarian, finally reached the White House, the Senate should have served as both America's first and last lines of defense. Instead, we had the nightmare scenario: today's Senate, reduced through a long period of decline to a hyper-partisan, gridlocked shadow of its former self, was unable to meet its fundamental responsibility. Shapiro documents the pivotal challenges facing the Senate during the Trump administration, arguing that the body's failure to provide leadership represents the most catastrophic failure of government in American history. The last section covers the Senate's performance during President Biden's first year in office and looks forward to the 2022 Senate elections and beyond.

Ira Shapiro (Author), Paul Bellantoni (Narrator)

Audiobook

Wrath: America Enraged

Anger now dominates American politics. It wasn’t always so. “Happy Days Are Here Again” was FDR’s campaign song in 1932. By contrast, candidate Kamala Harris’s 2020 campaign song was Mary J. Blige’s “Work That” (“Let ‘em get mad / They gonna hate anyway”). Both the left and right now summon anger as the main way to motivate their supporters. Post-election, both sides became even more indignant. The left accuses the right of “insurrection.” The right accuses the left of fraud. This is an audiobook about how we got here―about how America changed from a nation that could be roused to anger but preferred self-control, to a nation permanently dialed to eleven. Peter W. Wood, an anthropologist, has rewritten his 2007 book, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America, which predicted the new era of political wrath. In his new book, he explains how American culture beginning in the 1950s made a performance art out of anger; how and why we brought anger into our music, movies, and personal lives; and how, having step by step relinquished our old inhibitions on feeling and expressing anger, we turned anger into a way of wielding political power. But the “angri-culture,” as he calls it, doesn’t promise happy days again. It promises revenge. And a crisis that could destroy our republic.

Peter W. Wood (Author), Richmond Goss (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Trump Tapes

"I'm doing something here that I've never done before, presenting the lengthy, raw interviews of my work. In the fall of 2019 through August 2020, I interviewed President Trump 19 times for my second book on his presidency, Rage. I had also interviewed him in 2016 when he was a presidential candidate. I decided to take this unusual step of releasing these recordings after relistening in full to all 20 interviews. As I listened to them again I was stunned by their relevance to understanding Trump. Hearing Trump speak is a completely different experience to reading the transcripts or listening to snatches of interviews on television or the internet." Bob Woodward from The Trump Tapes The Trump Tapes is the intimate and astonishing audio archive of Bob Woodward's 20 interviews with Donald Trump. Featuring more than eight hours of Woodward/Trump conversations, The Trump Tapes is as historically important as the Frost/Nixon interviews. In this up-close, unvarnished self-portrait of Trump and his presidency, listeners will hear Trump as Woodward did: profane, incautious, divisive, and deceptive, but also engaging and entertaining, ever the host and the salesman, trying to sell his presidency to win Woodward over. Relying on familiar devices - airing grievances, stoking divisions, repeating himself to a staggering degree, as if saying something often and loud enough will make something true - Trump uses his voice as a concussive instrument, pounding in the listener's ear. In new commentary created exclusively for The Trump Tapes, Woodward at times breaks frame from the interviews to provide essential context or clarification. But for the most part the interviews proceed uninterrupted, fulfilling Woodward's goal of presenting Trump's voice and words for the historical record, and offering listeners the chance to hear and judge and make their own assessments. As relevant as ever to the task of understanding Donald Trump, The Trump Tapes reveal Trump in his own words - a man consumed by the past and clinging to his grievances, unable to understand his responsibilities as president or address the crises affecting the country.

Bob Woodward (Author), Bob Woodward, Donald J. Trump (Narrator)

Audiobook

We the Presidents: How American Presidents Shaped the Last Century

Imagine a non-partisan presidential history spanning Warren G. Harding to Donald Trump that never mentions Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. Rather than politics, We the Presidents focuses on the issues which affect Americans today. Soaring inflation, resurgent nativism, income inequality, budget deficits, the Ukraine crisis, and other critical issues, all have their roots in presidential administrations over the past century. For example: - President Harding's treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, promoted radical, new tax policies which slashed the national debt during the nineteen-twenties and decades later emerged as today's supply-side economics. - President Clinton's encouragement of NATO's eastward expansion after the end of the Cold War contributed to Russia's evolution into a dangerous adversary. - Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and GW Bush promoted the deregulation of the financial industry which fueled explosive growth in the industry but later contributed to the 2008 Financial Crisis. The author's engaging and straightforward writing brings alive a century of presidencies and how their actions have led to what America, and the world is today.

Ronald Gruner (Author), Tom Parks (Narrator)

Audiobook

43: Inside the George W. Bush Presidency

The presidency of George W. Bush has been the subject of extensive commentary but limited scholarly analysis in the years since he left office. 43 draws extensively, but not solely, from the recently released interviews of the Miller Center's Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia. This volume consists of ten chapters, written by some of today's most eminent presidency scholars, examining key topics and themes, including 9/11, the unitary executive, Supreme Court appointments, compassionate conservatism, Cheney's vice presidency, the Iraq War, and the financial crisis of 2008. The essays in this volume take seriously the complexities of a White House trying to respond to the most devastating attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, examining both the successes and failures of this administration in the first systemic effort to mine the confidential, candid oral history interviews recorded with senior officials from the Bush presidency. The essays are critical, yet balanced, in providing assessments of Bush's controversial victory in 2000; 'endless wars' precipitated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks; and legislative battles over taxes, education reform, Medicare, and attempts to address the Great Recession. These landmark events are illuminated by conversations with the decision-makers who made history.

Barbara A. Perry, Michael Nelson, Russell L. Riley (Author), Tom Parks (Narrator)

Audiobook

2000 Mules

At last, bestselling author Dinesh D'Souza exposes the powerful evidence of voting fraud that you were told didn't exist. Also, a major motion picture documentary. THE FIX WAS IN The 2020 presidential election was rife with fraud orchestrated by the Democratic Party. That’s not just an accusation; it’s now, thanks to bestselling author and investigative journalist Dinesh D’Souza, an established fact. With eyewitness testimony and the pinpoint precision and analytic sophistication of the forensic technique of geotracking, D’Souza demonstrates how an already corrupt system put in place by Democratic Party hacks and “community organizers” was taken over and supercharged by national-level operatives to produce massive voter fraud. The key figure: the mule. A paid cut-out. A criminal deliveryman. The stooge found at the intersection where election cheating and double-dealing hit the road. The mule is the crook who physically takes a sack of ballots provided by shady NGOs and political machines—the “community activist organizations” made famous by former President Obama, for instance—and, like some nefarious Johnny Appleseed, dumps those ballots in collection boxes throughout a voting district. Do enough of this, and you have planted voter fraud across a nation. Documentary filmmaker extraordinaire and bestselling author of America, Death of a Nation, and United States of Socialism, Dinesh D'Souza exposes powerful evidence of the colossal voting racketeering that you were told didn’t exist. Here you will find the receipts—the transcripts and confirmatory details—for the facts establishing 2020 election fraud presented in D’Souza’s major motion picture documentary, 2,000 Mules. D’Souza makes a powerful argument that 2020 was a stolen election. More important, D’Souza proves it.

Dinesh D'Souza (Author), Dan Crue (Narrator)

Audiobook

Why We Hate: Understanding the Roots of Human Conflict

An insightful and probing exploration of the contradiction between humans' enormous capacity for hatred and their evolutionary development as a social species Why We Hate tackles a pressing issue of both longstanding interest and fresh relevance: why a social species like Homo sapiens should nevertheless be so hateful to itself. We go to war and are prejudiced against our fellow human beings. We discriminate on the basis of nationality, class, race, sexual orientation, religion, and gender. Why are humans at once so social and so hateful to each other? In this book, Michael Ruse looks at scientific understandings of human hatred, particularly Darwinian evolutionary theory. Combining rigorous argument with an engaging and accessible style, Ruse makes frequent use of historical examples, examining the history of two World Wars, and the US offensive against Iraq. He also gives many pertinent and up-to-date examples of prejudice, including the significance of Brexit and the systemic racism that lead to the Black Lives Matter movement. Ruse pays special attention to egregious cases of hatred, such as the treatment of Jews by the Third Reich, and to pressing contemporary issues, including the status of women. Ruse concludes with constructive suggestions for ways in which we might reconcile the contradictory aspects of our nature.

Michael Ruse (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

Audiobook

Becoming FDR: The Personal Crisis That Made a President

"An illuminating account of how Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggles with polio steeled him for the great struggles of the Depression and of World War II."-Jon Meacham "A valuable book for anyone who wants to know how adversity shapes character. By understanding how FDR became a deeper and more empathetic person, we can nurture those traits in ourselves and learn from the challenges we all face."-Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci In popular memory, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the quintessential political "natural." Born in 1882 to a wealthy, influential family and blessed with an abundance of charm and charisma, he seemed destined for high office. Yet for all his gifts, the young Roosevelt nonetheless lacked depth, empathy, and an ability to think strategically. Those qualities, so essential to his success as president, were skills he acquired during his seven-year journey through illness and recovery. Becoming FDR traces the riveting story of the struggle that forged Roosevelt's character and political ascent. Soon after contracting polio in 1921 at the age of thirty-nine, the former failed vice-presidential candidate was left paralyzed from the waist down. He spent much of the next decade trying to rehabilitate his body and adapt to the stark new reality of his life. By the time he reemerged on the national stage in 1928 as the Democratic candidate for governor of New York, his character and his abilities had been transformed. He had become compassionate and shrewd by necessity, tailoring his speeches to inspire listeners and to reach them through a new medium-radio. Suffering cemented his bond with those he once famously called "the forgotten man." Most crucially, he had discovered how to find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation-a skill that he employed to motivate Americans through the Great Depression and World War II. The polio years were transformative, too, for the marriage of Franklin and Eleanor, and for Eleanor herself, who became, at first reluctantly, her husband's surrogate at public events, and who grew to become a political and humanitarian force in her own right. Tracing the physical, political, and personal evolution of the iconic president, Becoming FDR shows how adversity can lead to greatness, and to the power to remake the world.

Jonathan Darman (Author), Will Damron (Narrator)

Audiobook

Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor

What happened to Rudy Giuliani? That is the question millions of Americans have asked about this once-beloved leader. Andrew Kirtzman, who has been following Giuliani since the 1990s, answers that question in this fascinating biography. Giuliani was hailed after 9/11 as "America's Mayor," a singular figure who at the time was more widely admired than the pope. He was brilliant, accomplished—and complicated. He conflated politics with morality and caused his own downfall with a series of disastrous decisions and cynical compromises. He made reckless personal choices and engaged in self-destructive behavior. His need for power, money, and attention gradually ruined his reputation, cost him friendships, and ultimately damaged the country. Kirtzman, who was with Giuliani at the World Trade Center on 9/11, conducted hundreds of interviews to write this insightful portrait of this polarizing figure, from the beginning of his rise to his ruinous role as Donald Trump's personal lawyer. Giuliani was a celebrated prosecutor, a transformative New York City mayor, and a contender for the presidency. But by the end of the Trump presidency, he was reviled and ridiculed after a series of embarrassing errors. He was a major figure in both of Trump's impeachments, and ended up widely ostracized, in legal jeopardy, and facing financial ruin. This is the remarkable story of how it all began and how it came crashing down.

Andrew Kirtzman (Author), Gibson Frazier (Narrator)

Audiobook

Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent US Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump

'Throughout my tenure as US attorney, Trump's Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining - in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired. I walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope snapped.' - from Holding the Line 'A cautionary tale about how political forces can undermine the quest for justice.' - Barbara McQuade, The Washington Post The gripping and explosive memoir of serving as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in the face of the Justice Department's attempts to protect Trump's friends and punish his enemies. Ascending to the leadership role of US Attorney for the Southern District, which includes Manhattan and several counties to the north, is a capstone to any legal career: it entails guiding a team of the best lawyers in America in selecting and winning cases that often have global import. Geoffrey Berman was honored to be tapped for the job by Donald Trump in 2018. The manner in which Trump had dispatched his predecessor Preet Bharara was troubling, but the institution was fabled for its independence. Surely he could manage. So began one of the most tumultuous two-and-a-half-year stretches in the over two-hundred-thirty year history of the office. Almost immediately, Berman found himself pushing back against the Trump Justice Department's blatant efforts to bring weak cases against political foes and squash worthy cases that threatened to tarnish allies and Trump himself. When Bill Barr became attorney general, Berman hoped and believed things would get better, but instead they got much worse. The heart of Holding the Line is his never-before-told account of the lengths Barr went to in corrupting the independence of the office, and the lengths Berman had to go in preserving it. Finally, Trump and Barr, fed up with Berman's principles, summarily fired him, though he refused to go quietly and prevented Barr from installing someone who might be more compliant. Berman's determined defense of the values of prosecutorial independence, without fear or favor, made him a hero to everyone who shares those values. Holding the Line also relates the remarkable casework of the Southern District in Berman's time there, including taking down notorious sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Lawrence Ray, Big Pharma executives, and vicious criminal syndicates, and repatriating Nazi-looted art. Riveting in themselves, these stories showcase the esprit de corps that makes the Southern District so special, and the stakes Berman felt in protecting its integrity against all foes, up to and including the US attorney general and the president of the United States.

Geoffrey Berman (Author), Geoffrey Berman (Narrator)

Audiobook

They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent

This program is read by the author. In They Knew, New York Times bestselling author Sarah Kendzior explores the United States’ “culture of conspiracy,” putting forth a timely and unflinching argument: uncritical faith in broken institutions is as dangerous as false narratives peddled by propagandists. Conspiracy theories are on the rise because officials refuse to enforce accountability for real conspiracies. “The pathos of truth-seeking left me thinking of Herman Melville. I can't remember the last time I read a book where every sentence delivered.'—Timothy Snyder The truth may hurt—but the lies will kill us. They Knew discusses conspiracy culture in a rapidly declining United States struggling with corruption, climate change, and other crises. As the actions of the powerful remain shrouded in mystery—like the Jeffrey Epstein operation—it is unsurprising that people turn to conspiracy theories to fill the informational void. They Knew exposes the tactics these powerful actors use to placate an inquisitive public. In Kendzior’s signature whip smart prose and eviscerating arguments, They Knew unearths decades of buried American history, providing an essential and critical look at how to rebuild our democracy by confronting the political lies and crimes that have shaped us. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

Sarah Kendzior (Author), Sarah Kendzior (Narrator)

Audiobook

Constitution Café: Jefferson's Brew for a True Revolution

“A provocative extension of Jefferson’s original plan.”—Kirkus Reviews Thomas Jefferson believed that every generation of Americans should rewrite our Constitution from scratch—to mirror the progress of the human mind and, most of all, to maintain the revolutionary spirit. He would be dismayed that it’s considered untouchable these days. Taking up Jefferson’s cause, Christopher Phillips leads a motley group of Americans across the fruited plain in an offbeat Constitutional Convention. His Constitution Café project is sparking a much-needed conversation about our founding document and forging common ground at a time when our country needs it most.

Christopher Phillips (Author), Dominic Hoffman (Narrator)

Audiobook

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