Unrigged
How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy
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- $37.99
Publisher Description
The “wildly undersold story” (Lawrence Lessig) of the next American revolution, and the inspiring citizen activists fighting to save America’s fragile democracy.
Our country is dominated by a political party that has no interest in governing, and that seeks to entrench its power by limiting democracy—going so far as to force people to the polls in the middle of a pandemic. Yet there is hope, as best-selling author David Daley argues in Unrigged, though it doesn’t lie in Congress, gerrymandered statehouses, or even the courts. We must, instead, look to the grassroots. Introducing us to groups that have pioneered innovative organizing methods—often combining old-school activism with new digital tools—Daley uncovers the story behind voting-rights victories nationwide and the new organizations reinventing our politics. The result is a vivid portrait of a new civic awakening, and an essential toolkit for reviving our democracy in the Trump era and beyond.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist and voting rights advocate Daley follows Ratf**ked, his investigation into how Republicans "weaponized gerrymandering" in the wake of President Obama's 2008 victory, with an uplifting survey of grassroots efforts to make American democracy more inclusive. In 2018, Daley set out to meet with such reformers as Louisiana resident Norris Henderson, who founded Voice of the Ex-offender, an organization that fights to restore voting rights to former felons, after his life sentence for murder was overturned in 2004. Daley also profiles three young Idahoans who traveled the state collecting signatures for a Medicaid expansion bill (it eventually passed with 61% of the vote); Native Americans battling restrictive voter ID laws in Nevada, North Dakota, and Utah; anti-gerrymandering activists in Michigan and Pennsylvania; members of the League of Women Voters, who helped to bring ranked-choice voting to Maine; and Amanda Litman, a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer who recruits millennial candidates and trains them in the art of running for office. Daley's wit (the offices of the Election Protection hotline are filled with "enough Starbucks cups to caffeinate The Walking Dead") and clear explanations of electoral processes make the book accessible to political neophytes as well as experts. This optimistic appraisal of the political scene will strike a chord with progressives gearing up for the 2020 elections.
