RIPPLES OF HOPE

A call to action aimed at young nonvoters willing to join efforts to end “the Trump nightmare.”

Plouffe, former campaign manager and White House senior adviser for Barack Obama, readily admits his partisanship. Still, along with slamming the current administration’s tactics (“distorting the truth to confuse people is the strategy”), he does offer several basic ways for readers who won’t be voting in 2020 or, probably, the 2022 midterms to take active roles in promoting candidates and persuading reluctant or undecided adults to go to the polls. The design punctuating his simply phrased narrative with exhortations in much larger type, the book offers, besides vague suggestions about creating videos or using social media, reasonably effective activities, such as various forms of nagging parents and other grown-ups to volunteer and vote—or, better yet, going door to door (not alone), because people are more likely to remember engaging with a child canvasser come Election Day. Frankly noting that modern national elections aren’t “national” at all but actually decided in just six to eight “battleground” states, the author also explains in general how campaigns are conducted and how the Electoral College system works. He doesn’t spare much attention for local election campaigns or primaries but much of his advice would likely be applicable (though, it may be worth noting, his current gig is with the company that created the now-infamous Iowa caucus app). Much of it he also lays out for older audiences in the co-published A Citizens Guide to Beating Donald Trump (2020).

Resolutely partisan but perspicacious in spots, from an author who’s been there.