The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding

by Osita Nwanevu

A bold case for reimagining the American project and making American democracy real—from a formidable new voice in political journalism

Frustrated with our political dysfunction, wearied by the thinness of contemporary political discourse, and troubled by the rise of anti-democratic attitudes across the political spectrum, journalist Osita Nwanevu has spent the Trump era examining the very meaning of democracy in search of answers to questions many have asked in the wake of the 2024 election: Are our institutions fundamentally broken? How can a country so divided govern itself? Does democracy even work as well as we believe?

The Right of the People offers us challenging answers: while democracy remains vital, American democracy is an illusion we must make real by transforming not only our political institutions but the American economy. In a text that spans democratic theory, the American Founding, our aging political system, and the dizzying inequalities of our new Gilded Age, Nwanevu makes a visionary case for a political and economic agenda to fulfill the promise of American democracy and revive faith in the American project.

“Nearly two hundred fifty years ago, the men who founded America made a fundamental break not just from their old country but from the past—casting off an order that had subjugated them with worn and weak ideas for the promise of true self-governance and greater prosperity in a new republic,” Nwanevu writes. “With exactly their sense of purpose and even higher, more righteous ambitions for America than they themselves had, we should do the same now⁠—work as hard as we can in the decades ahead to ‘institute new Government’ for the benefit of all and not just the few.”

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Political Science, History, Theory, Government

384 pages, Hardcover

Published August 12, 2025

Reviews

[Greg Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great look at what democracy means, how the United States falls short, and how we might one day achieve it.

Osita’s prose as excellent as ever, getting into the weeds of an argument without ever coming across as unclear or trivial. He also gives his opponents more credit than I would, which only makes his conclusions stronger.

Chapters on the constitutional convention/ratification and economic democracy were the highlights for me. A lot of the rest covers similar ground that anyone on the left has seen for a decade+ as we begged Democratic politicians for action, though packaged here very nicely.

[John Berner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nwanevu is preaching to the choir with me. There's this problem he identifies over and over where to solve [x] you need to change [y], but to change [y] you need to have already solved [x]. Like, to get rid of the filibuster, you need DC statehood, but to get DC statehood, you need to get rid of the filibuster. The Right of the People is all like this. That's not his fault, I think he's approaching the issues square-on, but it's an extremely frustrating position. His conclusion--to wait until organized labor magically comes to save us all--I found as pie-in-the-sky as any other option.

I, personally, think we're staring down something really ugly in the next few years. What Nwanevu is really doing, it seems to me, is laying the substantive groundwork for how we might rebuild society after the oncoming cataclysm (provided, of course, that said cataclysm goes our way).

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nwanevu does something truly radical here: he lays bare that democracy has never and will never mean the small town stump speeches at the local city hall. Democracy will require a tolerance for radicalism that liberals, especially now, have never quite been comfortable with. The aesthetics of democracy have and will be weaponized by both sides, but a true attachment to democracy means more polarization, more daily political fights, and both exhaustion and joy at every turn. It felt refreshing to hear that. My minor complaints are not truly important: I wish the history section was longer (I wanted academic press when this is a mainstream release), and I don’t share the same optimism for the labor movement being the key to radically different politics. The labor movement as we knew it is dead, it won’t be revived due to post-material politics and automation, and the left’s attachment to those early labor-union AFL-CIO aesthetics ultimately is a dead end. We need a new vector of material struggle, I’m quite fatalistic about any national movement. That being said, this book is a breath of fresh air. It’s polemical in the best ways, and it’s time that the left-liberal coalition stops holding their tongues, follow Osita’s example, and stand for the right to create a real democracy, even if its excesses makes you uncomfortable.

[Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic look at the structure of American Democracy in organized, simple terms. As someone with no background in political theory or American history besides what was required of me in high school (the bare minimum), I was able to get a lot out of this book because the material is presented so well.

Nwanevu's argument that American Democracy is not really true democracy is convincing and well supported, and he takes the time to break down each aspect of our government as it is laid out in the Constitution to highlight their shortcomings. He is thorough, covering the obvious topics like the three branches and the republican structure of our government, along with a complete chapter on how the economic structure of our country is perhaps as much of a limiting factor as our antiquated Constitution is.

Nwanevu gives adequate concern to those political theorists that disagree with his theories or might come to different conclusions. I appreciated seeing all the different viewpoints of what a democracy actually is and how it should function. I do find his argument somewhat limited in that he failed to really explore what our country might look like under an entirely different system, rather than the psuedo-democracy we actually have. It is easy to point to the classic monsters in the closet we learn about through history, but a thorough explanation of a fully authoritarian USA, whether that be some sort of autocracy or dictatorship or a fully-fledged libertarian oligarchy might really hammer the point home. Of course, these hypothetical situations can easily get carried away and devolve into hysterical fantasy, so I understand the author's restrained approach here.

Finally, although the book is very complete in its examination of the American political and economic society, I found it somewhat idealistic in terms of looking to how the changes the author suggests could actually be implemented. In part, this is due to the breadth of institutions the author examines - it's hard to suggest a singular course of action when so much needs to be changed. But pleading with the reader to just support promising legislation and participate more when able falls somewhat flat when the primary argument of the book is that your participation is inherently limited by the structure of the system. I'm not suggesting the author endorse revolution - I think this book exists to provide a more moderate alternative to what many people consider too radical - but this book is lacking the sort of explicit call to action that feels both attainable and satisfying. After all, we come away feeling like relying on the goodwill of our politicians is what got us to the point of needing this book in the first place.

Overall the book is quite good and I highly recommend reading it, especially if you are trying to better understand our country without the background to dive into more theoretical texts. I'll be suggesting it to many others.

[Ben Vore · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a recent interview with Ross Douthat, Osita Nwanevu said, "What are the elements of the system that allowed Donald Trump to rise as a political figure and that have sustained him? I think they’re, to an ironic extent, some of the elements that the founders hoped would prevent somebody like Donald Trump from coming into power." His book, The Right of the People, both diagnoses the problem of Trump and argues significant reforms are needed if America is to remain (reclaim?) its status as a functioning democracy.

Many of the proposals won't surprise the type of person who gravitates toward this type of book in the first place: Abolish the Electoral College. Reform the structurally un-democratic Senate. Expand the Supreme Court. Give D.C. representation. But the most interesting to me was Nwanevu's emphasis on material well-being as a way to preserve equality and combat civic indifference. He calls for economic reforms and the strengthening of labor unions, which he persuasively argues is a vision the Democratic Party could win with moving forward.

This is definitely not the most exciting book to read, but it's timely, well-written, and thought-provoking, not to mention hopeful -- something in short supply among those of us on the left right now -- that change is possible. For a book chock full of political theory, it also serves up a decent share of history, notably how the American Project has changed and evolved over the centuries. "I think democracy has a character to it to produce and generate and process change," Nwanevu told Douthat. "That makes this one of the reasons I think we should value it."

[Kyle Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genuinely reinvigorated a faith in democracy that I've felt dwindling in recent years for all the obvious reasons. I've never read Democracy for Realists, but I guess I've internalized a lot of their ideas through diffusion over the years, and this was a very welcome pushback against a lot of that. The historical dive was interesting, accessible, and unknown to a surprising extent. Most of the proposals in here were already things I've advocated for, but seeing them all in one place did reignite a bit of that spark that thinks maybe—just maybe—they might come to fruition some day. I don't have the slightest clue how we would get from here to there—and I have substantial concerns that none of this will ever matter if capital can just be reallocate their resources towards shaping the bespoke digital realities every American lives in now—but I've come away from this thinking that maybe anything less is woefully insufficient anyway, so it's a worthwhile north star. Maybe an earnest pro-democracy insurgency from the left is the exact kind of populist movement we need to pull us out of this nosedive. I've enjoyed Osita Nwanevu's writing for probably about a decade now, and this was no exception; might be my fastest read of the year.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 4 out of 5]

We like to say that our democracy is currently under attack, but how well can we articulate what democracy even is, or what our democratic ideals should actually be? Amidst the endless news cycle, it’s worth stepping back for a moment to reflect on first principles, and to reckon with the question of what we want, at a fundamental level, this country to be. This book gives you the opportunity to do that, and to help clarify your political values.

The first part of the book makes the case for democracy, or, rather, for a form of government that represents majority rule while preserving, as sacrosanct, certain basic rights, along with the concept of majoritarian rule itself. The alternative—rule by a minority, or a few, or one—is too risky, unstable, and unaccountable to the majority to ever work, in practice, for long.

While Nwanevu makes a compelling case, he does, to me, slightly downplay the inherent problems of democracy. When discussing the dangers of the masses voting to destroy the very systems and institutions that give them a say in the first place, Nwanevu writes:

“While we’ve seen that the people aren’t as fickle, inconstant, and irrational as their critics fear, this general anxiety should be taken seriously.”

Well, perhaps they ARE as irrational and fickle as we fear. They did, after all, elect Trump with the popular vote, and he is, as we speak, dismantling as many democratic processes and institutions as he can get away with. I’d say the fears are probably warranted.

And yet, what’s the alternative to democracy? The main problem with democracy is that it tends to devolve into all of the other alternatives on the table we’d like to avoid (i.e., minority rule in some form). It’s hard to not conclude, then, that democracy is our only viable option to prevent the rise of tyrants, even if it is susceptible to that very outcome.

So, how do you prevent what Plato predicted would always happen: demagogues manipulating the masses into ceding them unmitigated power. This is no easy dilemma to solve, but we have no choice but to try. Since we will never reach unanimity on any political topic, democratic deliberation is the only viable nonviolent method of conflict resolution. And it needs to be institutionally protected, which the Constitution is unequivocally failing to do. This is the topic Nwanevu covers next.

In the second half of the book, Nwanevu makes two claims: (1) America is not a democracy and (2) we should want to make it one. The final part of the book describes how.

First things first. Nwanevu advises us to not get too caught up in what the founders intended, beyond the basic rights enshrined in the Declaration. As Nwanevu writes:

“What’s more, even if the Founders had been morally perfect—and as intelligent as they genuinely were—the fact remains that the Constitution has us working to address the problems of the twenty-first century through institutions designed by men of the eighteenth—people who would have been dazzled by a lightbulb. America is a much larger and more complex society than they ever dreamed it would be; the American people have needs and expectations that would have staggered them.”

Why constrain ourselves to archaic thinking, and why revere a document that told us in the most literal terms that black people were not fully human and that women didn’t have the capacity to hold political opinions? There should be nothing stopping us from improving on a document that was meant to evolve with the times.

The founders themselves would agree: Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison that the Constitution should be written anew every 19 years! “The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead,” he would write. This is why an amendment process was built into the Constitution in the first place, although it is clearly overly burdensome.

In any case, 250 years later, surely we have learned something since before the invention of the lightbulb. Might we not use that knowledge to create something better, enhancing our democratic ideals while further protecting our civil liberties and insulating ourselves against tyrannical rule?

Nwanevu thinks so, and his ideas are compelling.

Let’s start with the fact that, as Nwanevu points out, the one-person-one-vote democratic ideal is egregiously violated in the United States. Setting aside corporate money in politics and the ability of politicians to essentially buy elections, consider all the ways in which your vote could be made virtually meaningless.

Politicians can gerrymander your vote to be worthless based on how they draw maps, underrepresenting you in the House. If you live in a populous state like California, you are underrepresented in the Senate. And even if you vote for a politician that proposes a bill with overwhelming popular support, the filibuster and supermajority requirements to pass the bill allow minorities to kill it. All of this on top of the fact that the Electoral College can make your vote for the President mean far less depending, again, not on your equal standing as a US citizen, but on where you live, and that nine unelected and politically appointed judges can strike down overwhelmingly popular laws that they simply don’t like.

Here’s a particularly outrageous example:

“Our largest state today, California—which, on its own, would be among the forty largest countries in the world—has a population more than sixty-seven times larger than our smallest state today, Wyoming. Mathematically, because both have an equal two seats in the Senate, each resident of Wyoming thus has sixty-seven times more representation in the chamber than each resident of California.”

It’s hard to call this democratic, or even representationally democratic. The US is a rather blatant example of an aristocratic republic, and unless you think this is a good thing, it needs to be fixed.

How to do so is not so easy, and here’s why: the people in position to make the changes must do so by ceding their own entrenched power. This is like getting people to pay more taxes voluntarily. And so unless there is enough popular pressure, it’s unlikely to happen. It would be nice to think this book could push people in the right direction.

As for the solutions, Nwanevu’s suggestions all aim at more equitable representation, including familiar recommendations like eliminating the filibuster and instituting more widespread ranked-choice voting to make elections more competitive and less radical. One particular example to pay attention to is the replacement of gerrymandering with ranked-choice voting for the House.

Other suggestions are more radical, but make democratic sense. For example, abolishing the Senate and simply making the House more representative, as two-thirds of the world’s countries have only one legislative house anyway. Another example would be electing the president via popular vote by abolishing the Electoral College.

These are more or less familiar political examples, but one often-neglected area that Nwanevu considers in greater detail is the establishment of democracy in the workplace. He notes, correctly, how, despite our aversion to political tyranny, we seem to happily submit to it in the workplace. We allow our employers to dictate our work hours, our pay, our dress, our outside activities, and even what we can and can’t talk about, all while giving us little to no control over our own jobs or the direction, ownership, or control of the business.

You may be surprised to hear that it doesn't need to be this way. There are numerous examples of co-operative businesses in the US and abroad that give their employees democratic control and ownership of the firm and, as research suggests, this makes the firm more, not less, productive. The key takeaway is that we have the power to demand more as workers—through unions and legislation—than we are led to believe. This book can open your eyes to those possibilities.

I suppose my sole criticism for the book is that not much attention is paid to what a new constitution would or should look like, if a new constitutional convention were ever to be called. Nwanevu makes the case for a new American founding, and yet provides little guidance on what that would look like from the ground up. Most of his proposals, while appealing, are more or less modifications to the existing constitutional order. This was an opportunity for him to apply the democratic ideals he so thoroughly defended to a new constitutional order, including an updated political, as well as economic, bill of rights. Perhaps this will be his next book.

Overall, this is an important book to solidify your understanding of democracy and its superiority to other systems of governance, to understand why America is a deeply flawed democracy, to recognize that the biggest danger of the current administration is the erasure of what little democracy we have left, and, finally, to understand how to get ourselves back on track, to live up to the ideals of the founding that the founders themselves were unprepared, or unwilling, to actualize.

[Mark Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book takes the ax to the root of the tree. Here, Osita Nwanevu exposes the underlying true concerns of the drafters of the US Constitution—and control of democracy rather than its preservation was their greater concern. Through analysis of the Federalist Papers and other historical documents, Nwanevu illustrates how the Constitution is deliberately designed to frustrate democratic wishes of the citizenry at large. Instead, the founders were primarily concerned with preserving the established wealth structure and with it the suppression of any debt relief—this is a motivation almost identical to that of our contemporary billionaire class. It's striking how this aspect of political alignment and influence has barely changed at all over time. Although the original Articles of Confederation had the drawbacks commonly noted in popular history, Nwanevu points out a specific flaw enabled by the Articles that was of critical alarm to the men of wealth who developed the new Constitution: The Articles of Confederation were too democratic for their taste. Specifically, state legislatures were passing laws granting debt relief to ordinary citizens—this was the unforgivable situation in the eyes of wealthy elites that created the need for a complete reset of the whole system of government.

The result of the founders' efforts may find resonance in the Robert Anton Wilson quote: "The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning." With the US Constitution deliberately designed against popular governance, the author explores some practical approaches for correcting the current stack of cards. In addition to getting money out of politics, including neutering the Citizens United decision, Nwanevu suggests specific reforms to build practical democratic agency for people both in law and within the economy—these include the following essential changes in the relationship between workers and employers:
1. Reviving unions and labor power—the arguments for this are obvious.
2. Reforming corporate governance—the cooperative governance model allows workers to affect more than just pay and working conditions, extending to selection of board members and business decisions. This approach is successfully used in several European countries.
3. Promoting worker ownership—something that goes in line with the "ownership economy," a concept related to increasing the proportion of Americans who own assets, to give people a personal stake in society. This arrangement, such as the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and other models of worker stock ownership and control, have proven helpful not only for improvements in workplace quality of life but also company profits as well—these examples debunk the canard that helping workers hurts a company's economic health in a zero sum assumption.

One of the often neglected points in the public discussion of election fairness is the nexus Nwanevu presents between electoral freedom (the legal right to vote) and the actual ability to exercise that freedom without sacrificing essential economic well being (such as one's own employment)—or suffering other constraints (such as lack of child care) that introduce real world obstacles for some to go vote and enjoy other civic privileges, that exist in name only for far too many citizens. It's uncanny how the issues surrounding the US Constitution described by the author in this book rhyme so closely with the greed and oppression railed against by the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures from millennia ago—Jesus the Nazarene also drove those points home in several of his parables, as well as the famous incident in which he physically thrashed the money changers and flipped over their tables. There indeed is a place for Jubilee debt relief in our own time (a concept that alarmed the wealthy founders about the Articles of Confederation). This clear eyed presentation by Nwanevu firmly establishes that true economic freedom is a prerequisite for true democracy—let's see that all the essential components of democracy are established and maintained.

[Jac Filer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll preface this review by saying that the author and I fall on different sides of the political divide. And while I largely disagree with his conclusions, I am glad that I read this book, and I gained some new perspectives on a couple of matters.
First, I appreciate that this is a book that, as a conservative, I could actually read. Too often, I've picked up progressive-leaning books meant to energize like-minded people with emotionally manipulative arguments and incendiary language. Those books quickly end up in the DNF pile.
By contrast, Osita Nwanevu takes a reasoned and structured approach designed to invite the reader to think critically (and perhaps differently) about the issues he covers. He starts with a detailed examination (covering more pages than I would expect from a book of this size) of certain aspects of our nation's founding and the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. He relies heavily on the writings of James Madison, either to lay the foundation for his point or to highlight areas where he believes the founders erred. Yet, even when taking a critical view of the founders' ideas, he is careful not to judge them strictly through a 21st-century lens.
That said, I think he missed the larger point of Madisonian thinking, that political power should be proportional to its proximity to the voter (with the most power retained locally, and the least federally).
In missing this, he ends up taking an inconsistent and self-contradictory view at times. He criticizes state governments that produce legislation to override local decisions, yet champions federal efforts to curtail state laws. This contradiction exposes the writer's own bias toward progressive outcomes, over and above democratic outcomes.
Still, though I remain unconvinced by his larger arguments and conclusions, I did find merit in a few of his arguments, particularly his examination of the size of our House of Representatives, and the need for more competitive House districts.

[Serge · Rating 5 out of 5]

The controversial premise at the heart of this book is the governed should govern. Nwanevu identifies equality, liberal rights, and majoritarianism as core facets of democracy and agency, dynamism, and procedure as its key values in practice. He concedes early in the book the trade-offs between participation and deliberation and the electorate's susceptibility to manipulation. In the first few chapters, Nwanevu males the case for some of the epistemic benefits of democracy. He reviews the basic tenets of liberalism and republicanism and endorses some aspects of freedom as non-domination/non-interference. He calls into question equal state representation in the Senate's basic design and the increased use of the filibuster over the last century. Given the shift to direct election f senators, the filibuster is an onerous counter-majoritarian relic (not explicitly named in the Constitution). Nwanevu mocks the Electoral College and questions the wisdom of state by state indirect election. He laments the undue influence that swing states exercise in general elections and is highly critical of the imperial presidency that has taken shape since FDR. Nwanevu endorses the National Popular Vote Compact, opposes the Presidential veto and Presidential signing statements. He is skeptical of judicial review within the particularly partisan context with within which justices are nominated and confirmed. He details the erosion of voting rights in light of the dismantling of the VRA since Shelby County v Holder. He considers the amendment process for the Constitution an insurmountable hurdle (or nearly so) to a democratic politics. Undemocratic institutions benefit vested interests that stifle our political imaginations according to Nwanevu. He decries our grossly gerrymandered republic so easily swayed by disinformation in the name of graft, corruption, and mischief. I will pair this book with Katznelson and Kesselman's The Politics of Power for my AP Gov students

[Brenden Gallagher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a longtime fan of Osita Nwanevu, a fine writer who does the difficult dance of being the most leftwing pundit who can find himself ensconced in a staff position at a large mainstream publication (The New Republic). In "The Right of the People," Nwanevu coalesces some of his chief concerns in his TNR writing into a compelling case for American Democracy.

Nwanevu's argument that America is not currently a democracy is straightforward, well-reasoned, and timely. Not only does he draw attention to familiar problems like the electoral college, the Senate, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, but he carefully outlines the ways in which corporate influences use federalism to their own ends. The canard that arbitrary land masses deserve equal representation instead of people has created the phenomenon of states that represent industries like banking (Delaware) and resource extraction companies (Wyoming), while a Californian's Senate vote is worth about 60 times less than someone voting in a small state.

Perhaps most helpfully, Nwanevu also offers a number of prescriptions to bringing a truly democratic system to life in America. Here, he runs the gamut from popular mainstream liberal ideas like Supreme Court term limits and abolishing the electoral college to more left-wing proposals like sectoral bargaining.

In a realm of theoretical political discourse that is often dominated by annoying libertarians ("Actually, we're a Republic, you know?!"), it is a small blessing to have such a clearly argued book that states the reasons why America is not currently a democracy, what aspects of our system perpetuate political inequality, and how the country could become a true democracy.

"The Right of the People" is a straightforward yet thoughtful blueprint for how America could become a democracy and my hope is that Nwanevu's hard work has some lasting impact.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first part was thoughtful and well researched, although there were a couple of remarks that felt one-sided. The second part was an extremely biased overview of potential changes. There was only one-sided analysis of benefits, no discussion at all of negative aspects of those changes. No detailed discussion of changes proposed by conservatives. At least every couple of pages there disparaging remarks regarding Trump, the Republican Party, conservatives, wealthy people, businesses, etc. most of those remarks were not associated with evidence to support them. The author probably assumed most people already knew that evidence and believed it, but to me it seemed mostly like name-calling by some of the elite opinion writers (who dominate the rights of individuals with their power of the press). There were no concrete recommendations for change, merely ideas that at first seem reasonable.

The US has many problems with government, I hope that any change is well thought out from all perspectives and determined to be better than what we have. Mr. Nwanevu seems to forget the the United States is made up of a limited federal government composed of consenting sovereign states for all other matters. In my opinion, many of our problems are the result of the federal government exceeding those limits, gradually at first, but more rapidly in the 21st century.

[Aaron Cantú · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a country where the opposition party has intoned about "losing our democracy" for nine years with little reflection on the actual state of this democracy, Nwanevu decides to take these warnings seriously. He journeys into history and academic debates about what "democracy" actually is, or supposed to be, and how we've hardly ever been one save for progress on the franchise and local democratic practices like ranked choice voting. In fact, as he writes, the Constitution was drafted to limit democracy in response to Shays's Rebellion and states minting their own currencies, undermining debts on which the elitist founding fathers profited.

That governing structure, and the necrophilic institutional reverence for it (uncommon across the world), has left us stuck in an increasingly unequal society dominated by the rich and insane. There are all sorts of good reforms that Nwanevu manages to string together into a coherent, inspiring vision of what a "new founding" should look like. I just disagreed that we should aim for getting it done in a century, although I understand how politically difficult it would be to achieve even a fraction. The planet will be much hotter and the weather more chaotic in the early 2100s, so our baseline existence will likely be even harder then - and surely that will have political consequences.

[Eric Miller]

9/10. really incredible read. as a (recovering) political science major there, were a lot of topics that I have learned about in the past in this book. but when you really lay bare all of the flaws of american government side by side, it’s absolutely astonishing to see just how
rigged American politics are for conservative dominance in every possible way and at every possible level.

In a country that feels like it is becoming stupider and more brazenly evil by the day, it is a heartening reminder that much of it is being done without the consent of most americans, and is not the system that really anyone would set up today if we had a true say. maybe one day we can have a government that isn’t entirely populated by pedophiles who can only pass laws that further enrich large corporations, pad out the coffers of the american gestapo, and send bombs to drop on children in gaza.

I will say that this book reinvigorated a genuine belief in democracy in myself that I have felt slipping over the past several years. I think there is a real appetite in america for a pro-democracy movement and could truly be the sort of insurgent populist campaign that could get us out of this mess.

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed this book because much of this information I already knew. If you are new to reading about American government, history or current American politics I would recommend this book. It gives a good history about Democracy in general and American Democracy (which we actually have never achieved) specifically. It also presents good ideas for reforming our government, some even provocative (i.e. coming up with a new Constitution). But I have heard most of these ideas from other books and sources, "The Tanya of the Minority by Stephen Levitsky, and "Bad Law" by Elie Mystal just to name a couple. I did like the last Chapter, Toward a Democratic Economy, where he explains how we should become an Economic Democracy and our ecumenic concerns can be represented and workers should have a say in their workplace.

[Steve Nolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I get mondo bored about stuff prior to 1900, so going back to the Founders made me tune out so much. (I get why it's in the book! It's good to talk about what they were actually doing with The Constitution, and all that. I just snooze off.)

Getting into the stuff *outside* of normal government-based representative politics was good - unions are democracy for work! That's a fantastic way to spin them! - was cool.

We're clearly gonna need something else after whatever the fuck is going on right now ends, hopefully it's closer to this than whatever the current administration is trying to bring about.

[Mattschratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good accounting, in both philosophical and practical halves, of why democracy is a good idea and why it would be good to try it. I read this more or less immediately after I read The Fort Bragg Cartel, so it was nice to see as robust an account as you can find of why you are not insane to believe that other people exist, that they have some claim on you, that you cannot dominate them for no reason, and so on (and of course that you have a claim on others, and the right to be free from domination by them).

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

First part of the book, laying out the history and evolution of American democracy is fairly well done.

Once we get into the solutions, the wheels come off. In a convenient coincidence, every single proposed "fix" to American democracy would almost surely favor the authors preferred ideology. There is very little steel manning for the existing systems.

Disappointingly unserious, this turns out to be just another tribal manifesto.

[Dave Oakley · Rating 5 out of 5]

very clear eyed assessment of the structual impediments to a functional democracy and the long (LONG) road to building one. Really liked the focus on deomocratizing the workplace as an essential element of any broader project. Happy to see worker cooperatives get a shout out for the role they could play!

[John DiLillo]

every american should read this book! actually proposes real, tangible solutions for the root problems facing our country, instead of just stewing in misery or offering proposals to paper over the cracks. a truly engaging historical read as well — if you’re anything like me you’ll learn more about the constitutional convention than you did in history class.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does not live up to the promise stated in its title: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.

If you’re looking for a basic introduction to our democracy, its shortcomings, and some reforms to improve our democracy, you’ll enjoy this book.

If you are genuinely interested in creating a new democracy as promised in the title, you will be disappointed.

[Chris Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really appreciated the chapter containing quotes from the founders in deliberation of our constitution and their general disdain for the working class. Which goes to show anyone who argues for a federalist interpretation of the constitution is at best wholly uninformed on the topic and at worst a liar.

[Drew Jamieson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obliterates Jason Brennan. 

"Brennan argues we ought to consider disenfranchising voters who break from the experts for their ignorance . By the same logic , one might say Brennan's unwillingness to defer to the judgment of most scholars in his field should disqualify him from democratic debates."

Loved it.

[Mike Seay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to democratic theory. None of this was particularly new to me, but the conciseness and accessibility of the argument I think is a great project. This is clear and the arguments are sound. It could go even further, but still I think it lays a good path forward for democratic reforms.

[Lindsay Hiner · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An incredibly important work, but also quite dense. The first half was a slog, the second much more palatable. Overall, such important themes and a great outline of the work before us, however seemingly insurmountable.

[Lia · Rating 5 out of 5]

An immensely readable book synthesizing reams of text about the merits of a democratic experiment. Nwanevu writes with wit, patience, and passion as he argues that the American project needs a democratic makeover. A must read for those wondering where we go from here.

[Jo Ben Whittenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense at times and overall verging on textbooky - but is a well written summary of the case for democracy and the need to push the US towards engaging in new powerful democratic policies in our politics and economy

[Joseph Wiltanger · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Mihir Mehta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly like this book because of the scope it chooses for itself and how it fulfils that scope.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book to buy for your uncle (positive).