Realigners

Partisan Hacks, Political Visionaries, and the Struggle to Rule American Democracy

By: Timothy Shenk

Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar, Timothy Shenk

Introduction read by the author.

An eye-opening new history of American political conflict, from Alexander Hamilton to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

These days it seems that nobody is satisfied with American democracy. Critics across the ideological spectrum warn that the country is heading toward catastrophe but also complain that nothing seems to change. At the same time, many have begun to wonder if the gulf between elites and ordinary people has turned democracy itself into a myth. The urge to defend the country’s foundations and to dismantle them coexist—often within the same people. How did we get here? Why does it feel like the country is both grinding to a halt and falling to pieces?

In Realigners, the historian Timothy Shenk offers an eye-opening new biography of the American political tradition. In a history that runs from the drafting of the Constitution to the storming of the Capitol, Shenk offers sharp pen portraits of signal characters from James Madison and Charles Sumner to Phyllis Schlafly and Barack Obama. The result is an entertaining and provocative reassessment of the people who built the electoral coalitions that defined American democracy—and a guide for a time when figures ranging from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to MAGA-minded nationalists seek to turn radical dreams into political realities.

In an era when it seems democracy is caught in perpetual crisis, Realigners looks at earlier moments when popular majorities transformed American life. We’ve had those moments before. And if there’s an escape from the doom loop that American politics has become, it’s because we might have one again.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Not good enough

I was hoping for more. The author wraps up the book with Phylis Schlafly as the symbol of conservative realignment and Barack Obama as the liberal realigner. Both of these choices are too simplistic to capture the larger picture. It seems like the point is that American politics realigns from time to time for political expediency or in response to changing times. A much better choice for a deeper understanding of fundamental problems in our time is Yascha Mounk's "The Identity Trap" or Pluckrose & Lindsay's "Cynical Theories." These books do a much better job explaining the consequences of one political party losing its collective mind and how that might help another succeed, even when the other has nothing to offer voters. Bottom line: I didn't learn anything new and I really wanted to.