Essential reading for a key moment in our (currently) democratic nation.
A veteran Supreme Court lawyer presents the case for impeachment in a manner that adheres to the facts and the law without engaging in political spin.
Writing with Koppelman, Katyal, the former acting solicitor general of the U.S., calls himself “an extreme centrist” and insists, “I am not a partisan.” He has “argued more United States Supreme Court cases than just about anyone (39 and counting).” He has also taught frequent seminars on impeachment that demonstrate the seriousness of the procedure and why it has been taken so infrequently. Nonetheless, he insists that “we have no choice but to impeach and remove President Trump” based on the charges resulting from a whistleblower’s alert to a phone conversation with Ukrainian officials. Others—particularly Republicans—believe otherwise, that this was a minor matter blown way out of proportion. This book proceeds methodically to build a step-by-step case for the jury of the American reading public. Katyal maintains that “this is as simple a case as you will find” and that “the facts are clear.” Those facts are that Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of a political rival and candidate for the presidency, before the U.S. would resume aid to that country, that this constituted both bribery and solicitation of foreign interference, and that he then attempted a coverup and obstruction of justice. Each of these elements, argues the author convincingly, qualifies under the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that impeachment requires. Furthermore, Katyal contends that such intervention before the 2020 presidential election is necessary because the charges show the president’s willingness to subvert that process. He hopes that “impeachment could bring out the best of America” as the public weighs the facts of the case and forces its elected representatives to do the same. Not all will agree that the case is as cut and dried as the author makes it, but he provides both a framework and foundation for discussion—and plenty of facts to support his powerful case.
Essential reading for a key moment in our (currently) democratic nation.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-358-39117-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2019
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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