Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the Lines

by David Pepper

“It’s the statehouses, stupid.”Laboratories of Autocracy shows that far more than the high-profile antics of politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Jim Jordan—and yes, even bigger than Donald Trump’s "Big Lie”—it’s anonymous, often corrupt politicians in statehouses across the country who pose the greatest dangers to American democracy.Because these statehouses no longer operate as functioning democracies, these unknown politicians have all the incentive to keep doing greater damage, and can not be held accountable however extreme they get. This has driven steep declines in states like Ohio and others across the country. And collectively, it’s placed American democracy in its greatest peril since the dawn of the Jim Crow era.But Pepper doesn’t stop there. He lays out a robust pro-democracy agenda outlining how everyone from elected officials to business leaders to everyday citizens can fight back.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Political Science, Social Science, Current Affairs, American

454 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2021

Reviews

[Trin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most infuriating book I've ever read. You should read it too.

[Gregory Mele · Rating 5 out of 5]

A decidedly depressing work that confirms what we've seen for years now -- if gerrymandering has allowed the most extreme elements of the political parties get House seats, that phenomenon is 10x worse at the state level. And because in most places Democrats ceded competing for state legislatures (which is now costing them badly in redistricting), we have state governments that are run like little fascist laboratories, not remotely interested in democracy, or even governing, so much as they are a terrible combination of cronyism and protecting their generally white, patriarchal, right-wing Protestant Christian view of America.

We've all just lived through this with the insanity of the "Big Lie" of the 2020 election, efforts to disenfranchise voters not friendly to current state majorities (or the implications of changing demographics in those states), the Texas abortion-bounty law, etc., and Pepper's critique of complacent voters who refuse to acknowledge the threat of radicalization is brought home daily with Senate "centrists" pretending they can negotiate voting reform in a bipartisan way, or the same voters who wanted Trump gone and lived through an insurrection, saying that they will reward the party who aided and abetted that insurrection in the midterms. It's a very concrete look, a confirmation that all politics are local, and a call to action -- though I have sadly low hopes for the last coming to pass.

I bought this shortly after the inauguration, and might have done my stomach more favors reading it sooner, than later.

[Tharen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a longtime resident of Ohio, I was curious to see the former Democratic Chair's take on how our state went from a swing state to one with a solidly Republican Legislature. Pepper breaks down the slow and steady work that went into increasing the Republican percentage of the vote and the legislature with the help of organizations such as ALEC and other dark money groups. The 2011 gerrymandering and its aftermath enabled the legislature to pass laws restricting and purging voters. I was especially struck by the decrease in registered voters that has occurred in many of the larger (read Democratic) counties in the State. Pepper ends with a list of things people can do to help bring more fairness to elections. Some of them are working as efforts to elect more democrats in state and local contests is slowly turning the tide. With this weeks Ohio Supreme Court rulings on the 2021 maps, there is hope that the tide is starting to turn.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extensively researched. He has sources, many many citations. This isn’t just opinion or screed. And it’s the most critical thing happening in America. It doesn’t sound like it’s about voting rights, but it is. And if your vote doesn’t count, democracy is over. Sounds dramatic! But it’s bureaucratic, sooooo boring that no one is watching. While we’re all watching the daily outrage, guys in back rooms are scheming to stay in power even when they can’t get the votes to compete. Get the book, prove me wrong.

[John Bohnert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author makes the case that statehouses across America are threatening our republic.
I knew some of what he talks about but also learned a lot.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first discovered David Pepper when I saw brief videos that he posted to explain on whiteboards how democracy is being threatened in our country. This easy-to-read book does an excellent job of not only what is going on at the state level of government, but also ways to protect our democracy at a federal and state level, as well as what we can do as individuals. Highly recommend.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scary but inspirational

Believe it or not, we're no longer living in a democracy. We're quickly turning. into an autocracy. This book explains how we got here & how we can survive. Well written & easy to read.

[Tony Frampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has made me so angry, but left me feeling quite hopeful. I started it a week before the midterms, with the expectation that a “red wave” was coming to sweep the Republicans into office. I knew my vote was pretty meaningless for my US Representative, in a blatantly partisan gerrymandered district, and my Indiana Representative race was even worse, as the Republican ran unopposed. As I learned about the shenanigans in Ohio of the past 15-20 years (a primary focus of this book), I kept thinking about how I live next door under the thumb of a supermajority, also knowing that Indiana actually went blue for Obama in 2008. What steps did the Indiana General Assembly take to insure that couldn’t happen again? Time to dig deeper into local politics, that’s for sure. Now, nearly a week after the midterms, it seems like democracy held serve (as of this writing the Democrats held the Senate, and the House is incredibly close). Election Denialism and Trumpism seem to have lost, or at the very least neutered. Sure, my state selected a reprehensible candidate for Secretary of State, but across the country, voters held their ground (likely because of the Dobbs decision over the summer). So now, I’m feeling more hopeful, and will try and take some of the suggestions in this book to heart, and act locally, in my own form of resistance against those autocratic impulses found in the most deplorable of politicians. Won’t you join me?

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you haven't been paying attention, you may learn something about gerrymandering. You'll certainly learn a few things about Ohio. But the book really suffers from its incredible partisan lean--how does the author feel about governance in IL, MD, CA, or NY?
The book is desperately in need of an editor--the author never uses a sentence when a paragraph will do.

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A recent study by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a nonpartisan nonprofit, documents how deeply right-wing extremism has infiltrated U.S. statehouses. Of the 7,383 people who served in state legislatures in the 2021-22 session, eight hundred and seventy-five had joined far-right Facebook groups. (All but three were Republicans.)” (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...)

This is probably one of the most important books “woke” Americans should be reading right f-ing now, and if you have to ask “why?”, then you REALLY need to read this book. It’s only $7 on Barnes & Noble, maybe your public library will have it, and then there’s the Amazon Imperium if that’s all you have left. Bow to Bezos and sharpen your pitchforks. “[S]tate legislatures have atrophied as broadly representative bodies and become easily captive to narrow interests” and “are the most corrosive danger America faces . . . The ultimate danger is that these statehouses calcify into permanent undemocratic structures, forever immune from popular will, constantly damaging the common good while ripping apart American democracy itself” (pp. 15-16).

David Pepper is an Ohioan insider who is deeply concerned about the direction this country is lurching and wants to mobilize every able-bodied, clear-minded, and morally grounded American to fight for our representative democracy that is seriously in peril. It’s not “alarmist” when the evidence is overwhelming: the guardrails are barely holding together, society is militantly polarized, and the GOP is flirting with authoritarianism. Time is short. While everyone’s echo-chambers focus on the superstar wingnuts, Pepper sees the true insidious insurrection happening at the state level with meek, nearly faceless legislators bought-out by special interest groups.

”[T]he fundamental problem of broken government and broken democracy looks the same. Cesspools of corruption and dysfunction. Extreme policies way out of step with he popular will of these states. Lack of results combined with the lack of accountability. And an unrelenting focus on cementing an anti-democratic bulwark into place to allow all that work to continue with no end in sight. Absolute immunity from political consequences. And like Ohio’s did in 2021, all of these legislatures kicked off the year with a wave of assaults on basic notions of democracy for the future.” (p. 35)

Don’t like the certified results of an election? Flood your base with disinformation and set the dogs loose, pressure state politicians to overturn results, send anonymous death-threats by the thousands, tie up courts with devious chicanery, position biased state justices to decide key issues, send your gullible MAGA morons to violently storm the Capitol, attack police and politicians (blue lives matter!), declare war on the state (conspiracy!, freedom!), and enforce new voter-suppression laws at all costs.

Don’t like schools teaching accurate history that makes some Caucasians feel guilty for the moral crimes of their ancestors? Flood your base with disinformation and set the dogs loose, send anonymous death-threats by the thousands, tie up the courts with racist and sociopathic chicanery, storm your school boards and scare teachers away, ban books and control public libraries. (The GOP has never wanted an educated populace, btw (https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/s...). Mission accomplished.)

Xenophobic towards the LGBTQ+ community? Flood your base with disinformation and set the dogs loose, send anonymous death-threats by the thousands, demonize those you’re afraid of, tie up the courts with pathetic Bible-thumping chicanery, enact ludicrous laws, and force people to live in fear.

Don’t like women having absolute autonomy over their bodies? Flood your base with disinformation and set the dogs loose, send anonymous death-threats by the thousands, tie up the courts with misogynistic Bible-thumping chicanery, enact puritanical laws, and force people to live in fear.

Don’t like the FBI actually doing their jobs holding your toddler-tyrant accountable? Flood your base with disinformation and set the dogs loose, send anonymous death-threats by the thousands, try to ban agencies who threaten your illicit and seditious behaviors, and incite civil war from the safety of your moms’ basements (don’t forget to iron your Homelander capes—you need to look awesome in those selfies later!).

Afraid of the next election? Gerrymander districts, overturn civil rights, enact draconian voter-suppression laws to suffocate the historically marginalized, and manipulate every lever of the system as best you can while white-knuckling the retention of power for as long as possible. (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...)

Why is all this happening? Because certain Caucasians are terrified of losing their perceived dominance and power, prestige and privilege. Despite the euphemisms and double-speak, the excuses and finger-pointing, the chest-thumping and flag-waving, and the tried and true fantasyland villains of this demographic, it’s really that simple and it exploded after America elected our first Black man to the Oval Office. Again, the evidence is overwhelming.

Fueled in large part by 24-hour “news” networks rabidly pumping disinformation, and the murky depths of the internet so easily feeding the delusional (remember, politicians want an undereducated, easily influenced populace), our fragile republic has become, what Barbara F. Walter and other experts call, an “anocracy”, a form of government loosely defined as a mix of democratic and autocratic features (think Orbán’s Hungary, which the GOP is idolizing ad nauseam right now—coincidence?), and what Walter deftly detailed in her How Civil Wars Start and How To Stop Them, another important book you should read. Of all the people to glom onto, they chose the historic grifter and emotionally stunted Trump? (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/...) Historians will judge us harshly 100 years from now.

Using his home state of Ohio, the “most corrupt state in the nation” according to USA Today, as his main illustrative example, but seeing the reverberations throughout numerous other states following the playbook of Christian-Caucasian ultra-conservatives wet-dreaming of the 1950s, if not the 1850s, Pepper follows the dark money and manufactured messaging to highlight the “direct causation between the corrupt and extreme politics of the statehouse and poor public outcomes”, as well as how such corrupt and extreme politics have infested the fabric of political society far greater than Richard Nixon could ever have fantasized, with loud-mouthed minorities dictating the “norms” for everyone else. We are in the most extreme crucible since the Civil War. Politicians, overall, seem to be getting dumber and dumber too, a reflection of the people who elect them. Maybe an idiocracy is a better word for our future. Smart phones and the internet, coupled with weakened education systems, have made more people idiotic, aberrantly narcissistic, and skillfully manipulated by those they lionize.

From Karl Rove to Citizens United to Steve Bannon to the ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) to sadistic billionaires like Charles Koch and Peter Thiel (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/...) and Barre Seid (https://www.propublica.org/article/da...), “[e]xtremism. Poor public performance. Corruption. Election rigging. They all go together, reinforcing one another” (p. 115). This is their strategy and it’s the desired future of a cult-like party desperate to hold onto power in the face of . . . progressivism? Bibles and guns, gutting the public sector, attacking workers and wages, defunding education and social welfare, plundering and poisoning the environment, and the timeless vice of pay-to-play greed, Greed, GREED where the super-wealthy and their hand-puppet politicians win over and over again. It’s really quite insane. “[W]hen enough pillars protecting democratic governance erode, and when enough figures in positions of power are willing to defy both the law and bedrock democratic norms, autocracy arises” (p. 215).

We should be focused on protecting the environment and reshaping the economy to do so; we should place quality, affordable education for all as a prime priority; we should have single-payer healthcare for all as a human right; we should have safe cities with police trained as social workers instead of soldiers; we should take money out of politics and place all those billions into social safety nets; we should tax the filthy rich and their corporations to reinforce our national infrastructure; and, we should abort the Electoral College and follow the will of the majority on every issue, from sane gun control to reproductive rights to collective bargaining to single-payer healthcare to dealing with climate change. Pepper illustrates how many statehouses are directly going against the will of the majority, and you should be furious about that.

What can be done to combat this? “‘Laboratories of autocracy’ thrive when there is no attention on most districts or candidates, or the statehouse, or the corruption, or the failed public outcomes. When there are no debates or forums. Their dream scenario is to have no conversation at all—a victory party on filing day—in as many places as possible. So, each run itself is something to celebrate. The odds may be long on Election Day, but the challenger disrupts the other side’s ideal outcome the moment they file to run. In that alone, they are already a champion of democracy” (p. 253). Pepper is advocating for a surge of people to challenge this threat directly. Ideally (to me), we need young, vibrant, multicultural folks to bring truth to power by all means necessary, and never relent until the hyper-conservative fringe is back into the crevices from which they came. We need people who grew up online, who can control their emotions (which knocks me out of the running), and can speak to and emphasize with the lower classes—because those are the people we need the most. We need people who hold honesty and integrity above all else. I am in solidarity with THOSE people.

Ultimately, it falls on this simple question: Are you for actual democracy, or are you against it? All other issues do not matter existentially-speaking right now. I don’t care about your personal pronouns, the Greenland ice sheet could collapse no matter what we do now, and no issues of “identity politics” will matter if the system itself is ruled by those who overtly hate you. When you vote, and enlist all others to do likewise, ask them the question above, because the clock is ticking and democracy is quickly being suffocated.

Visit Pepper’s site (https://www.laboratoriesofautocracy.com/) and join our ranks to fight encroaching, accelerating autocracy at every level of government, before it’s too late.

* Postscript: Smash the control machines. InfoWars is broke, NewsMax is on the ropes, and Fox News is facing serious lawsuits. We must keep unrelenting, unforgiving pressure on them. We will not tolerate lies, disinformation, and weaponized propaganda used to destabilize society.

Links for allies in this fight:

The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (https://www.irehr.org/)

The Southern Poverty Law Center (https://www.splcenter.org/)

The Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/)

ProPublica (https://www.propublica.org/)

Politifact (https://www.politifact.com/)

Check My Ads, dedicated to cutting off advertisers from disinformation machines like Fox News (https://checkmyads.org/)

Frontline, who will be airing “Lies, Politics and Democracy” on Sept. 6, 2022 on PBS (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/)

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is an important topic to read about, the writing is just awful. I had to skim a lot because I couldn’t get through it.

[Sheila Carson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book to find out how states have passed laws and used their state officials to make certain outcomes more likely. Specifically I wanted to know how much gerrymandering affects elections. Wow, what an eye opener! In chapter after chapter Pepper gives specific examples of how Ohio was able to manipulate elections through gerrymandering districts.

This is actually a shocking read because you soon find out that the successful gerrymandering that happened in Ohio was then copied by most other states. And not only that but voter purging, and voter ID requirement laws have been designed, not to avoid voter fraud which is extremely rare, but to keep certain types of voters from voting. Indiana was the first state to require IDs. You’d be surprised to see how much effort it takes to get enough documentation to get the proper ID in Indiana if you move often, if you’re low income, if you have two or three jobs, etc. And you also need to have a car to get around to get the IDs because our public transportation is nearly nonexistent in smaller towns.

And it gets worse—because the state representatives who are elected to write laws don’t have time and experience to read and understand every issue, so who comes to their rescue to draft legislation ? Yep, an army of well-paid lobbyists. The lobbyists are not only in the room where it happens but they are the architects and drafters of most of law-making in certain states. Look up American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for info on their agendas and to discover which companies contribute to the lobbyists. See also https://www.commoncause.org/issues/alec/

Knowing what our democracy’s problems are is half the battle, and in the final third of the book, Pepper starts showing us how to fix the problems.

Based on reader feedback, Pepper wrote his follow up book, Saving Democracy, to get right to the solutions. If you want to skip straight to the solutions I recommend reading Saving Democracy instead. People who want specifics of how we got here will want to read this book.

We have a lot of work to do to keep our democracy. Let’s all do what we can. Especially when we have insights into what works. Start by talking with your neighbors about issues they care about and build connections. Then build trust. I thank you for caring about our country, and I ask you to care enough to get really involved in helping candidates who support the constitution and really want to serve their constituents. I have done so through canvassing. It’s a process I wish every citizen would consider.

[Darryl Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that Laboratories of Autocracy did a great job of answering the question: "how did our country get to this place?". I had some vague ideas, and knew about some of the players (like ALEC), but Pepper clearly describes how the systematic dismantlement of our democracy was accomplished at the statehouse level. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories, but this book convinced me that there is a decades long conspiracy to enrich and empower a minority at the expense of the vast majority of Americans. Their methods use statehouses as laboratories, trying out various schemes to benefit corporations, the wealthy and their elected minions. Various methods were used, gerrymandering, boilerplate laws benefiting the powerful minority, secrecy, and misinformation, to name a few. One of the most insidious players in this story is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC sounds quite benign, but in fact it is a powerful force in thwarting the will of the American people. Many of the voter suppression laws, stand your ground laws, and anti-environmental laws have come from ALEC.
Pepper ends his book with 30 ideas on what we can do to save democracy. He has also written a follow up book entitled "Saving Democracy: A User's Manual For Every American". While Laboratories of Autocracy can be a bit depressing, I decided to read it before reading Saving Democracy, because I really wanted to understand how and why we got to this sad state of affairs. Now that I understand better what is going on, I have a better idea of where the problems are coming from and therefore what to do.

[wally · Rating 1 out of 5]

started and finished 21st february 2023 and when i say finished i mean that i was at the 2% complete mark and i stopped, full stop, returned to library kindle loaner after reading this line given the shenanigans from the prior november and december, during which trump supporters around the country plumbed, unsuccessfully, for ways to overturn election results on wholly unfounded conspiracy theories...

bullshit, of the purest ray serene.

from Stealing Your Vote: The Inside Story of the 2020 Election and What It Means for 2024 None of the contested state legislatures changed their state voting laws due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So how did we have a tidal wave of new voting procedures, rules, and policies? The governors and secretaries of state in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona simply used the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to break the law.

there's a whole book's worth of evidence of fraud but why bother?

pepper begins his polemic with voting problems in ohio and sounds like a legitimate complaint but i no longer care. i don't need someone to beat me over the head with their polemics given the nature of politics today. have at it if that is your game.

[Melissa Greenberg Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Pepper, in his book Laboratories of Autocracy, examines the often hidden world of state legislatures and their enormous and ever-growing power and influence. Pepper demonstrates, with impressive statistics, how the far right capitalizes on gerrymandering and corporate-run organizations to adaptively ensure political victories, even when the popular vote is at odds with those election results. This book not only presents new and unsettling information on corruption and coercion within state legislatures, but it also provides real world solutions so that the reader may take meaningful action to challenge this toxic status quo. Pepper keeps a close eye on the Constitution when expounding on how our state governments became breeding grounds for such undemocratic practices that largely stay under the radar. In order to understand and preserve our government as we know it and how the founders intended it, Pepper asserts that we must first know government at the state level and address the autocratic tendencies that are already disabling our democracy.

[Jonna Higgins-Freese]

42: "In OH budget, similar to most states, the biggest ticket items are Medicaid (49.3% in the 2022/23 budget) and primary and secondary education (21.8%), followed by higher ed (7.3%), corrections & criminal justice (7.3%) health and human services (4.5%, and other items incldeing support for local government, economic development, transportation, environmental protection, natural resources/parks and other items. (42).

General Assembly issuing statewide mandates trumping local ordinances (45)

state legislators pass laws on every topic, have direct control or major leverage over statewide officials, an da lot of say over what happens to federal monies and policies within their state. they can overrule local governments on any number of topics and set rules and construct the playing field of elections from everything to state office to Congress to the presidency (49).

special exemption that people in rich neighborhood only had to pay property taxes to local schools if they sent their kids there (69)

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well researched, well intentioned, and easy to engage with book. Focuses on political corruption at the state legislature level, some of it legal (such as gerrymandering and such). The author is a former public servant and thoughtful and knowledgeable on the issue. Uses his home state of Ohio for most of the examples, but I imagine the same lessons apply to many states. In the end, I didn't love it because of the second half of the books which is a "what to do about it" call to arms. He mainly advises to vote democrat, resist, blah blah, the same deep partisan politics that have contributed to the mess we are in. Politicians are often corrupt, especially when the system encourages or rewards it, but encouraging them to be even more partisan and polarized doesn't seem like the right solution to me.

[Karla Kitalong · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has convinced me that I don't pay enough attention to local and state politics. I need to do much better. Section 3 offers 30 action items, many of which seem doable, even if you don't want to actively campaign for candidates or promote or join causes. One of the suggestions is to read local and regional newspapers and share relevant content through social media. I had a standoff with our local paper and unsubscribed a year and a half ago after having read it for a lifetime. Maybe it's time to rethink that decision. I highly recommend this book, but like many topics, the people who are really dug in politically will not appreciate his views.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book. Great explainer of how all extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression, aggressive corporate interests and decimation of local newsrooms are all coming together to create an environment in so many states where elected leaders are extremists who are completely out of sync with the will of the people. Only reason I didn’t give it a 5 was because I thought in a few places it got a little dense and numbers-heavy, and it was a little too Ohio-centric (The author is an Ohio politician). Although it certainly has extreme problems in its politics and is a fascinating example I would have liked to have seen the book go into a little more depth about other states .

[Jerald Wuorenmaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I may have been in the wrong audience for this. It came across as overbearing and repetitive, especially toward the end. But I suppose that might have been the point.

I live in an area whose state legislators are well known to much of the general public and usually represent the views of the majority in a responsible way. But I was interested to hear more about what was happening in other states. There wasn't a whole lot of that, other than Ohio (which really is a travesty).

Being that the second half or so of the book was truly a call to action, hammered home again and again, it will probably be effective to the extent that it reaches the people who need to hear it.

[Lauren Pumpkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVED the action plan at the end!

I'm personally a big fan of Pepper, I've met him and heard him speak on several occasions. This book was very well-written, cited, and researched and you could never expect less from this author. I'm giving it 4 stars because I think it is a bit one-sided. But still very factual at that!

Regardless, I imagine this book will be cited in future thesis, research papers, and books many decades into the future for the context and insights into Ohio elections and influences.

[Angel Millet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book proves the GOP does not believe in democracy. Authoritarianism is their thing.

This book shows how they subvert the will of the people by changing the rules that would allow p to vote against laws that will weaken their control and keep them in powers. We see it happening all across the country in Republicans controlled states.

This review just scratches the surface on what they will do.

We may be one election away from the destruction of our country and it's democratic (small d) values.

This book is a must read for anyone that truly love the United States of America and all it represents.

[Ethan Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an absolute read for anyone who wants to understand the reasons democracy is struggling in America. At its heart, it is an issue of rogue - usually Republican - state legislatures suppressing voting rights and gerrymandering unfair districts. Pepper not only goes into the details of how they work, but he also offers ideas for how to get involved and organize.

I did find that it went on a bit at points and could be slightly repetitive (hence the 4/5), but that doesn’t mean it is any less an important or necessary read.

[Michael Donahoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be very informative and interesting. There is a lot of information about what is going on in politics today in Ohio, which carries over to the whole country. Some information is scary, some makes you mad. At times I had feelings of hopelessness, yet the author ends the book with several suggestions on what can be done to help make a change. I think everyone interested in the political life of their state and the country should read this book.

[Will Atkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

misleading Title

The author says in the intro chapter, it’s not just about Ohio! Don’t believe it. Virtually the entire book is about Ohio, with a couple “and Texas” or “and Florida” thrown in for good measure. Folks, it’s all about Ohio. And whatever Senate Bill 5 was. He mentions it often, as if anyone not from Ohio knows what he’s talking about. Decent list of action items at the end saved the book for me.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and Comprehensible

David Pepper clearly communicates why American Democracy is endangered and why. He spells out what ALEC is and what the endgame goals are. He’s very motivating in proposing action to stop ALEC and what to do. Unfortunately since he wrote the book, several proposals he made have fallen through. Still hoping and this is a big clear reminder what’s at stake. State governments are a big deal. Vote!

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book for what it is. What it is, is a passionate cry for us to hold on to and fight for democracy at the state level. What I really like about the book is how the author gets there. He gets there through a very important, and well written, recent history of Ohio. I live in Ohio–things often don’t look great here. The author brings a lot of that ugliness into focus and suggests that, once we can see it, maybe we can still do something about it.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Up to date accounting of trends that can be seen across the US. Gerrymandering IS the worst. It literally ties our hands as voters. The notion that legislators who run unopposed literally celebrate on filing day because they don’t have to run… makes me ill. The author focuses mainly on Ohio but gives plenty of relevant examples and names names (which can be cross checked on social media like Twitter). Plenty of citations. Great advice for ways to become politically active. Easy read.

[Kathy Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just what I needed

I have followed David Pepper on X and been impressed with his insights. What a pleasure it was to read this book with so many references to both Cincinnati and Ohio. As a 74-year old with cancer, I’ve often asked myself what I could do to make things better. Although I was really discouraged with just how deep the problems are in this gerrymandered state, I now have hope that things can change.

[Trudy Krisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent political science read! David Pepper examines the assault on voting and democracy from the ground up. He knows of what he speaks as he’s been the Ohio Chair of the Democratic Party. Lots of good examples of towns and citizens ruined by the current descent into autocracy in the U.S.