House on Fire
Fighting for Democracy in the Age of Political Arson
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Congressman David Cicilline offers his provocative takes on Republicans, Democrats, and the world of politics in the wake of Donald Trump.
The rioters were still in the Capitol, shattering the door to the House Chamber and bellowing “Hang Mike Pence,” when David Cicilline, safely locked inside his office, began writing the articles of impeachment that would lead to Donald Trump’s second Senate trial. He helped prosecute the case, earning admiration from his fellow progressives and a national following. But by summer he would be calling out some of those same colleagues for caving to special interests and attempting to block his plan to rein in the Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google.
Beyond sounding an alarm, House on Fire identifies the key threat to our democracy—that the GOP has become a Trumpist authoritarian cult—and outlines how we fight back. A response that must include both citizen opposition and practical reforms, including an end to the Senate filibuster, discarding the Electoral College, expanding the Supreme Court, and requiring that justices adhere to a code of ethics.
Cicilline actually believes in politics and the system. He used them both to deliver for the people in a once-corrupt city he ran as mayor and in Washington, where he has risen to help lead the Democratic Party in Congress. In HOUSE ON FIRE, Cicilline spares no one from criticism as he argues for a politics that produces results and warns that without it Trump, or someone worse, will take power in 2024 and make us wish for the days when the only thing we complained about was gridlock.
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Rhode Island congressman Cicilline debuts with a fiery if somewhat self-aggrandizing account of his efforts to fight "corruption and self-dealing" in government. A former mayor of Providence, R.I., Cicilline forcefully critiques his predecessor, Vincent "Buddy" Cianci ("the municipal version of a petty dictator"), who served from 1975 to 1984 and then again from 1991 to 2002 and was forced out of office on both occasions by felony convictions. Cicilline draws on his experience as a criminal defense attorney in 1980s Providence to share colorful if disturbing stories of mob violence, police misconduct, and political favoritism, and details how he reformed corrupt practices when he was elected mayor. (In one amusing anecdote, a local restaurateur is shocked to learn that a liquor license cost just a couple hundred dollars, not the $35,000 he had previously paid.) This background, Cicilline argues, prepared him to serve as comanager of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial. Cicilline offers informative, behind-the-scenes details about disagreements within the Democratic Party over how best to fight Trump, but veers into campaign mode when detailing his work on antitrust legislation and President Biden's infrastructure bill. This political memoir loses steam the further the author's career advances.
