MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of author – convinced socialist, is to express his hate and contempt to Trump, uneasiness with his supporters, and most important, to convince readers, whom he expects to be strongly on his side, that removing Trump, imposing high-tech censorship, and taking over the main institutions is not yet a victory. Author describes four main political forces in America that he defines this way: Free America, Real America, Smart America, and Just America with the first two loosely aligned with republicans and the second two strongly aligned with democrats. This division is so strong and get stronger every day that author afraid it could lead to another Civil War.

DETAILS:

Prologue
Author begins with an interesting statement that he does not want pity for being born American and that many American want to leave this country because it is in decline. He then expresses challenge of remaining civil upon learning that people in rural area, to which he moved to recently, are supporting Trump. After stating his believe in decline of the country and deep political division of its population author tries to provide diagnosis of what went wrong:” Self-government is democracy in action—not just rights, laws, and institutions, but what free people do together, the habits and skills that enable us to run our own affairs. Tocqueville described self-government as an “art” that needs to be learned. It’s what Americans no longer know how to do, or even want to do together. It’s hard work, for it needs not just ballots and newspapers and official documents, which we still have, but also trust, which we’ve lost. It depends on the ability to argue, persuade, and compromise in order to achieve things for the common good, like the suppression of a catastrophic pandemic. It requires you to imagine the experience of others, to recognize their autonomy, and yet to think for yourself.” He then continues list of signs of decline from deteriorating roads to souring attitudes, but ends up with statement that:” No one is going to save us. We are our last best hope.”

Strange Defeat
Author begins this chapter by repeating typical democratic invective against the Donald as authoritarian and source of all bad:” all-American flimflam man and demagogue, a traditional character of our way of life.” Then he follows with description of COVID pandemic as disaster, which is all Trump’s fault. After that, interestingly enough, author actually demonstrates some understanding of reality and reason for Trumps popularity:” Populism is the politics of “the people” turned against “the elites.” It’s inherent in democracies, always lurking, and it grows out of control when citizens feel that their needs are going unmet or their voices unheard. Then they will revolt against the class above them that claims to rule by right of superior knowledge and seems to do so for its own benefit. The experts—civil servants, trade negotiators, think tank analysts, scientists, professors, journalists—have a tenuous hold on their status, if not their jobs. No one elected them. They’re unaccountable to the mass public. The same credentials and special language that make them recognizable and admirable to one another render them suspect in the eyes of the noncredentialed.”  Author ends this chapter by expressing his believe that removal of Trump from presidency was saving of democracy, but he also is pretty clear about the problem:” We are two countries—that was the real message of the 158 million votes. But we still have to live together. We’re stuck with one another. That fact poses a supreme problem, one that will take even more urgency, intelligence, and cooperation than the remarkable achievement of a vaccine in less than a year”.

Four Americas
Here author moves to a bit more interesting staff than repeating democratic invectives: analyzing logic of current ideological division of Americans. He identifies four groups each supporting different narrative:

“Call the first narrative Free America. In the past half century, it’s been the most politically powerful of the four. Free America draws on libertarian ideas, which it installs in the high-powered engine of consumer capitalism. The freedom it champions is very different from Tocqueville’s art of self-government. It’s personal freedom, without other people—the negative liberty of “Don’t tread on me.” Author links free America to republican party, Reagan and generally antigovernmental movement.

The second is “Smart America – a new class of Americans: men and women with college degrees (at the very least), skilled with symbols and numbers, salaried professionals in information technology, scientific research, design, management consulting, the upper civil service, financial analysis, medicine, law, journalism, the arts, higher education.”  This America is America of top 10% in income, it is cosmopolitan, supports meritocracy, accepts affirmative actions and redistribution, but only to some extent, and generally realigned with democrats. It is somewhat contemptuous to lower middle and working classes and uneasy with patriotism. 

The third is “Real America”:” Real America is a very old place. The idea that the authentic heart of democracy beats hardest in common people who work with their hands goes back to the eighteenth century. It was embryonic in the founding creed of equality. “State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor,” Jefferson wrote in 1787. “The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.” Moral equality was the basis for political equality. As the new republic became a more egalitarian society in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the democratic creed turned openly populist. Andrew Jackson came to power and governed as champion of “the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers,” the Real Americans of that age.”

It used to be backbone of democratic party, but it is now strongly republican. This America is hard working, religious, and very patriotic. Somewhat unexpectedly author denies that Trump is fascist, but still repeats lots of standard democratic BS about him.

The final narrative is “Just America”. This America came from campuses and based not on real life experiences, but rather on massive indoctrination into identity politics and anti-white racism under pretense of fight against anti-black racism. Author obviously feels very close to this America, but seems to be a bit scared by its totalitarian inclinations, while also being scared that it would raise a serious resistance.

Equal America
After defining 4 different types of America author presents his view of current political divide with Smart and Just America on one side and Free and Real America on the another. He follows with discussion of potential secession and eventually concludes that it is not realistic. In discussion of political competition between these four forces author clearly puts himself on the side of Smart and Just (democrats) against Free and Real (republicans) and accuse republicans in attempt to obtain and hold power by undemocratic means. Despite all this author then talks about global character of America as no other country and unique features of American culture that differentiate all Americans from others and one of the most important features of this difference is an American’s disconnect from his/her roots whether these are European, African, Asian, or whatever, from which follows strong and in author’s opinion incorrect, believe that all humans are basically the same in their hopes and strives. Another key feature:” Equality is the hidden American code, the unspoken feeling that everyone shares, even if it’s not articulated or fulfilled: the desire to be everyone’s equal—which is not the same thing as the desire for everyone to be equal. Equality is the first truth of our founding document, the one that leads to all the others.” Author then goes through other American features: Loudness, Bluntness, Violence, Anti-Intellectualism, and unwillingness accommodate to other cultures. At the end of chapter author comes to this conclusion:” National characteristics don’t create national unity. Civil wars have been fought in countries with a common culture, including ours. The qualities I’ve sketched out—you might have others to add or put in their place—don’t make us a nation. They just show the contours of concealed ligaments that would be torn if we continue pulling apart.”

Equalizers
In this chapter author reviews equalizing movements on American history and a few prominent personalities of these movements: Horace Greely of The New York – tribune against slavery, Francis Perkins of Roosevelt administration – fighter for women rights, and black labor leader A. Philip Randolph I fighter for Civil Rights for blacks.

Make America Again
In the beginning of chapter author attempts to be optimistic: “We’ve been here before. These stories should sound familiar: a house divided, monopoly and corruption, fixed classes of rich and poor, racial injustice…The same kinds of things were said in 1861, in 1893, in 1933, and in 1968. The sickness, the death, is always a moral condition.” Then author expresses believe that this will be overcome and American democracy will survive. This follows by another round of bitching against Trump, his voters, and 1776. However, interestingly enough, author understands that his side has difficulties to overcome:” Americans won’t accept the leveling hand of government in every corner of our lives. Socialism that proclaims itself enters any election with a debilitating handicap. Having spent a decade in a socialist organization, I’m acquainted with the hairsplitting futility that these long odds impose.”  After that author proposes a bunch of quasi-socialist measures in line of typical approach: more taxes, more anti-white racism to confront anti-black racism, expand very visible government monopolies to confront “invisible monopolies” of private business, and so on. Author also writes against high tech censorship, even if it supports his side, probably because he understands that it is not sustainable. He also provides as example brief story of one of Trump’s supporters that protested on January 6^th and is very typical white working-class man that actually represent if not majority, then clear plurality of population that could not be ignored.

Epilogue

Here author describes his feeling that 2021 looks like 1861 and then resides letter of Bayard Rustin to children of Cleveland from 1969 calling on them to believe in Democracy, Equality, and America. Author ends his book this way:” Rustin didn’t assure the children that their country had already reached this promised land, or warn them that it could never get there. Democracy is a continuing experiment with no end point of perfection, no eternal truths outside human action. Those truths that we hold to be self-evident, the ones that Rustin explained to the children of Cleveland, will survive only if we can realize them through our own efforts. Self-government puts all the responsibility in our hands. No strongman or expert or privileged class or algorithm can do it for us. As soon as we abandon the task, the common skeleton unknits and collapses in a heap of bones. All of this asks us to place more faith in ourselves and one another than we can bear. On some days the project seems preposterous and the effort exhausting. But I am an American and there’s no escape. We’ve never known any other way of life. We have to make this one.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

It is an interesting analysis of situation from relatively far left by author who is not completely brain dead and therefore scared. I think that his analysis of political forces is close to reality, but somewhat screwed. What he calls “Smart America” I would characterize as “Credentialed America” because people of this group may have PhDs, but are not necessarily smart and make their living not by doing smart things, but rather by getting spoils of big government either as lawyers, or government supported enterprises, or government supported “non-profits”. Similarly, “Free America” of libertarianism is actually smarter, than “Smart America” because these people understand how economics really works, but have hard time understanding that people who do not have property would not accept sanctity of property of others. Also, it is ridiculous to call brainwashed young Americans in colleges, their professors, and assorted race hustlers “Just America”. There is nothing just in racial quotas, segregation by race, refusal of due process in case of sexual harassment, rioting in order to suppress free speech of others, and similar antics of this part of population. Finally, the “Real America” is meaningless for two reasons: the first is that all Americas in all political groups are real, and the second, more important reason is that this part of population is divided between productive and parasitic ways of live. The productive way means producing goods and services that others would voluntarily buy, the parasitic way is to receive goods and services paid for by others via taxes and other forms of governmental coercion. This division is not even between people, but often within each individual when part of individual’s consumption paid for by earned money and part by handouts.

What seems to be bother author is that while “Smart America” controls economy, institutions and “Just America” controls narrative, both areas show signs of degeneration while igniting discontent among majority of people belonging to all groups. New censorship suddenly hits lifelong liberals and libertarians who still want to express their thoughts and ideas without fear. Sexual harassment accusations without prove or even reasonable possibility hit everybody around spoiling normal interactions between sexes. Anti-White racism by becoming more visible and harmful to 70% of population causes people to ask simple question:” Do I want to be a second- or third-class citizen? Do I want my children denied access to top level of various institution because of color of their skin? Do I want to be deprived of tools of self-defense when criminals are roaming around untouchable to police?”.

These are all dangerous questions for democrats in power and author rightly afraid that it is not just that answer will be “No”, but that this answer would be expressed via actions. He also rightly afraid that these auctions may not be expressed just by voting one way or another – this works when people believe that vote is fair, secret, and correctly counted.  What author seems fail to understand is that when he talks about 74 million for Trump and 81 million against, great many of people do not agree with him. Nobody seems to be disputing 74 million, but lots of people believe that the 81 million is imaginary number. It should not be surprising taking into account all irregularities, struggle against auditing, and simple fact that results counted and investigations of complains were conducted or not conducted by government employees: people whose wellbeing clearly depended on defeating Trump.  So, I agree with author that situation is dangerous, it will have to be resolved one way or another, and we’ll probably have to live in “interesting times” for a while until this resolution will be completed.