Books
MADISON'S SORROW (Pegasus Books) BUY IT NOW
An eye-opening cultural history of the political revolution that has destroyed the Republican Party and unleashed an illiberal crusade against the ideals of the Founding Fathers.
The story of America is the struggle between our liberal ideal and illiberal resistance. Donald Trump catalyzed a reactionary revolution by tapping into the dark, shadowy side of American democracy that embraces exclusion and inequality.
Arguing that the contemporary Republican Party is waging a counterrevolution against the core beliefs of the nation, journalist and scholar Kevin C. O’Leary cracks open American history to reveal the essence of America’s liberal heritage by critiquing the reactionary illiberal currents that periodically threaten American democracy. American politics is no longer an ongoing debate between liberals and conservatives because the new Republican Party embraces the feudal values of the Old World. While there are millions of conservatives in the population, the elected leadership of the GOP is deeply reactionary.
Today’s marriage of white-identity Southerners and their northern allies to moneyed libertarians is no run-of-the-mill political partnership. Instead, it is extraordinarily dangerous. Clearly, conservatives have lost their party. And without conservatives debating liberals in an intellectual, respectful manner to address the nation’s problems, Madisonian democracy breaks down.
A stimulating reinterpretation of the American experience, Madison’s Sorrow exposes the intellectual and moral deficiencies of the illiberal right while offering a robust defense of the liberal tradition.
SAVING DEMOCRACY (Stanford University Press, 2006) BUY IT NOW
Saving Democracy presents a bold yet practical plan for reinventing American democracy for the twenty-first century. This book shows how it is both possible and inherently sensible to combine the traditional townhall and the Internet.
The book diagnoses contemporary political ills as symptoms of corruption in our large republic and develops a new understanding of representative democracy. Building on the ideas of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, Saving Democracy offers a new theory of representative government, one that empowers citizens and bridges the enormous gap that now exists between the political elite and the average voter.
Under O’Leary’s plan, in each of the nation's 435 congressional districts a local assembly of 100 citizens, selected by lot, would meet to discuss the major domestic and international issues. The role of this assembly would be deliberative and advisory and its views would constitute a second, more sophisticated and informed measure of public opinion than traditional public opinion polls. The next step would be the establishment of the People's House, which would hold actual legislative power.