Kill switch : the rise of the modern Senate and the crippling of American democracy / Adam Jentleson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jentleson, Adam, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Congress. Senate.

United States.

Representative government and representation--United States.

Representative government and representation.

Filibusters (Political science).

Proportional representation--United States.

Proportional representation.

Democracy--United States.

Democracy.

Filibusters (Political science)--United States.

United States--Politics and government--1945-1989.

Politics and government.

United States--Politics and government--1989-.

Physical Description:

x, 325 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, [2021]

Summary:

"An insider's account of how politicians representing a radical minority of Americans are using "the greatest deliberative body in the world" to hijack our democracy. Every major decision governing our diverse, majority-female, and increasingly liberal country bears the stamp of the US Senate, yet the Senate allows an almost exclusively white, predominantly male, and radically conservative minority of the American electorate to impose its will on the rest of us. How did we get to this point? In Kill Switch, Adam Jentleson argues that shifting demographics alone cannot explain how Mitch McConnell harnessed the Senate and turned it into a powerful weapon of minority rule. As Jentleson shows, since the 1950s, a free-flowing body of relative equals has devolved into a rigidly hierarchical, polarized institution, with both Democrats and Republicans to blame. The current GOP has merely used the methods pioneered by its predecessors, though to newly extreme ends. In a work for readers of How Democracies Die and even Master of the Senate, Jentleson makes clear that, without a reevaluation of Senate practices--starting with ending the filibuster--we face the prospect of permanent minority rule in America"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. I RISE OF THE FILIRUSTER

ch. One Birth Of A Notion

ch. Two "Victorious In The Midst Of Unbroken Defeats"

ch. Three Dawn Of The Supermajority

ch. Four An Idea Whose Time Has Come

pt. II TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY

ch. Five The Superminority

ch. Six Outside In

ch. Seven Means Of Control

ch. Eight What It Takes

ch. Nine The Uniter.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-300) and index.

ISBN:

9781631497773

1631497774

OCLC:

1198990339