WHY POLITICS SUCKS With Just A Few Modest Proposals That Might Make It All Suck A Little Less

by Steven Womack

"We’re Americans. We have the best government money can buy."

With these words, Edgar and Shamus Award-winning mystery writer Steven Womack begins his investigation of one of the greatest crimes ever committed against the American people: the American political system.

The first in a series of eight "broadsides" examining issues in contemporary American life, WHY POLITICS SUCKS is a hard look at our dysfunctional, thoroughly corrupt, inefficient and broken political system. Contemporary politics, according to Womack, has descended into a cesspool of influence buying, lobbying, and pandering to the worst instincts in our national psyche. Our political life has never seemed more toxic, angry, bitter, and out-of-touch with the realities of American life. Our infrastructure decays, our children fall behind the rest of the world in education, the middle class disappears, while the poor, sick, and elderly are abandoned to survive as best they can. Meanwhile, the corporations, the connected, the powerful and the wealthy have literally raced to outbid each other for control of what should be our government.

As Womack reveals, politics has never been a pretty business. From the earliest days of the republic, politicians, legal scholars, and ordinary citizens have struggled to even figure out what corruption is. How does a democracy exist when it is for sale to the highest bidder?

All is not lost, though. Womack offers, as the subtitle suggests, a few modest proposals that might just turn things around and make politics suck just a little less.

81 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 4, 2016

About the author

With the publication of his novel, FADE UP FROM BLACK: THE RETURN OF HARRY JAMES DENTON, Steven Womack brings back his award-winning MUSIC CITY MURDERS series, featuring P.I. Harry James Denton

Womack began his first novel when he was eighteen-years-old. A short eighteen years later, he finally sold one. His first published novel, MURPHY'S FAULT, was the only debut mystery on the 1990 New York Times Notable Book List. Since then, he has published ten more novels, winning both the Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as receiving multiple nominations for major mystery awards.

His Edgar and Shamus Award-winning Harry James Denton MUSIC CITY MURDERS series--DEAD FOLKS' BLUES, TORCH TOWN BOOGIE, WAY PAST DEAD, NOBODY'S CHAIN LAYS STRAIGHT, A MANUAL OF MURDER and DIRTY MONEY--has been republished by Spearhead Press.

A scriptwriter as well, Womack co-wrote the screenplays for PROUDHEART, which was nominated for the CableAce Award, and VOLCANO: FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN, an ABC television movie that was one of the most-watched television movies of the year.

Womack lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where for twenty-five years he anchored the screenwriting program at the Watkins Film School of Watkins College of Art. He also served five years as Chair of The Film School. When the college closed in May, 2020, he was the longest serving faculty member at the college.

A licensed pilot, Womack loves to fly and scuba dive in his spare time. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any spare time since 2001.

Visit his website at www.stevenwomack.com