Digital Civil War

Confronting the Far-Right Menace

By: Peter Daou

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

The Far Right's rise to power has ignited a digital civil war that rages across multiple fronts and multiple platforms. It is waged with words and images that are designed to inflict psychological harm, to injure through verbal violence, to intimidate and incite, to wreak havoc with rhetoric. The combatants are citizens, activists, politicians, pundits, coders, conspiracists, trolls, agitators, hackers, and journalists. At stake are the nation's bedrock principles: equal rights, fair elections, freedom of speech, racial justice, and the rule of law.

In Digital Civil War: Confronting the Far-Right Menace, Peter Daou, a veteran digital media adviser to major political figures, provides a firsthand account from the war's front lines. He explains that the unceasing toxicity of social media - often treated as an aberration - is a feature, not a bug, of digital warfare.

A better understanding of how the underlying value systems and moral arguments of the warring parties play out online, Daou argues, aids us in confronting the Far Right's takeover of the Republican Party and the consequent assault on truth, facts, and the foundations of our democracy.

©2019 Peter Daou (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Not as advertised

This book's title and the description are not truly reflective of the content. I was expecting a book that discussed, in depth, the digital underpinnings of the increasing toxification of US politics and culture. Instead, what's presented is a blow-by-blow timeline of the major dramas and traumas of the disastrous Trump presidency peppered with random Tweets, Facebook posts, and other social media quotes. (Worse, these artifacts are all given equal weight, whether it's an official government Tweet or some random nobody posting on Facebook, which I found extremely bizarre.) I don't disagree with any of the analysis the author provides -- we're politically on the same page -- but this isn't the content I was expecting.

Also, the narrator is truly awful. He reads (or, rather, acts out) the book like a left-wing version of Rush Limbaugh -- literally on the verge of shouting much of the time -- and worse, attempts a different "character" for each quote, most of which come off as mocking or otherwise over-the-top. Not a good choice for the thoughtful listener and does a real disservice to the author.

STOP SCREAMING!!!

if you are ready for a non stop screaming rant , this book is for you. I am a liberal who hates Trump and all the damage the GOP has done to our democracy! But I could not even finish this book - it hurt my ears to keep listening.. Maybe if you read it, it might be better.