Thank you to the author, for providing this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Mr. Book just finished How America Works … And Why It Doesn’t, by William Cooper.
I do completely agree with this author, about how neither complete reverence to the Constitution or complete condemnation is the correct approach. He was right that “Some parts of the Constitution are, in fact, quite dreadful. And some parts are, unquestionably, extremely positive. America’s founding document should thus be condemned and celebrated—not one or the other. It is indeed a great irony of human history that the same document that contains numerous searing abominations—some of which still reverberate today—also sets forth an essential architecture of government that has dramatically increased human flourishing.”
I completely reject the author’s bothsideism in the terms of you can’t attack a right-wing Supreme Court because liberals have done the same. If you look at the history of the United States, the only really time we’ve had a liberal court was from the middle of FDR’s second term through the end of the Warren Court. The rest of American history has given us very conservative Supreme Courts.
It did not take me long into the book before I realized that I really am not the target audience here. The author’s writing style and content is not aimed at me. I have degrees in United States history and in political science, I’ve passed two bar exams and I read literally hundreds of books on US history and politics every year. This is really an introductory level book focused on readers who have not spent decades of their lives studying American history, politics and the Constitution and spend hours every day on political podcasts and news articles. But, I’ll try to continue to review this one as best as I can.
There are a few times in which the author is completely right on what he says. For example, he was right that most Bush 43 critics were silent on Obama’s abuse of presidential power. I spent 8 years attacking Obama from the left and occasionally referred to him as “George W. Obama” and wish that the left wasn’t so accepting of his actions. But, every time the author makes good points, he has to undermine them by saying multiple things that I find absurd. For example, if he thinks that Trump’s speech on January 6 was protected by the 1st Amendment, he is showing that he never practiced constitutional law.
When I read his claim that the Democrats “radical progressive wing is far too influential” and whose policies “are unmoored from reality”, it was time to conclude that this author is no idea what he is talking about. I stopped reading right there and am ready to declare this is an F.
In retrospect, there was what should have been a big red flag about this author. This author had previously written a book of critical essays on Trump that Mr. Book gave a C. If a book like that could be so poorly written that it would just get a C, I should have known better here.
I considered not posting this at Goodreads. The author was kind enough to give a review copy and I would have been content to just post this at the blog. But, when I saw that the only review so far posted at Goodreads was the author’s own review giving himself 5 stars, I knew I couldn’t let that be the only rating sitting there. That blatant conflict of interest “review” could not be the only one there.
Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an F equates to 1 star. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).
This review has been posted at Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews.
