When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic

by Burt Neuborne

A visionary legal scholar’s clear-eyed but reassuring defense of the Constitution’s power to withstand an authoritarian president

Noted constitutional lawyer Burt Neuborne opens his new book with a chilling narrative of how closely Donald Trump’s communications strategy resembles the toxic mix of deliberate falsehoods, white racism, and the search for scapegoats used by Hitler in the 1930s to topple German democracy. Neuborne is relatively confident, though, that it won’t happen here.

The American president is bound by four unprecedented sets of constitutional protections, all endorsed by both major parties, that stand between us and an authoritarian regime fronted by Donald Trump’s tweets: separation of powers, federalism, and two Bills of Rights protecting individual freedom and equality. Several important constitutional rights—a women’s right to choose, the right of gay marriage, and the Establishment Clause, promising freedom from other people’s religion—do risk erosion under a Trump Supreme Court. But Neuborne draws on more than fifty years as one of the nation’s foremost constitutional scholar/litigators to explain why bipartisan support for the key values underlying our basic constitutional protections means that, though the right and left may prioritize values differently, justices at both ends of the spectrum will unite to resist a wholesale dismantling of American democracy, and free speech, free press, freedom of religious practice, and the equality that are a hallmark of American democracy will endure.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History

192 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 2019

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, casual look at the constitutional and legal issues of the current Trumpian dystopia. If you're a fascist, it'll give you comfort; if you're a (lowercase) democrat (whether progressive, liberal, moderate, or even conservative), it may well give you nightmares. Regardless, anyone interested in the current politics of the Constitution or the law should probably read this book -- it's smart, timely, and simply a good read.

[Cathy Coudriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t read this book if you don’t like to hear the truth from a person who spent their life studying the subject and an expert on the subject. Because you might have to change your mind on how you think about the Supreme Court and our democracy.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nightmare fuel for rational humans.

[Mik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was gifted to me by someone who is as concerned for our republic as I am. It began as an overview of how the 45th President is destroying the fabric of our nation and constitution and had a FANTASTIC through chapter on comparisons to Hitler. Lest you think I'm off the rails, Trump is a fan of Hitler, having possessed and supposedly (??) read "Mein Kampf", the Nazi manifesto. I used to think it was too much credit to grant Donald Trump for having read such a work, however, it's clear many of his tactics are reminiscent. The book has some solid offerings/thoughts/opinions about how to handle such threat, but I find most of them to be implausible in today's environment. That's not to say, I don't think they're great ideas, just that I have a hard time seeing past our broken system to get them accomplished. The author has a legal background and there was a LOT of "legalese" in this book, which was work as a reader who is not a lawyer. In the end, I thought it was worth it, and appreciated the hope the author provided.

[David Feinman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was dense but excellent. It clearly articulated the many acts of constitutional defiance of president 45 while at the same time sharing practical solutions for the maintenance of our republic

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chock full of great examples and ideas, personally found it a bit dense toward the end.