Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality
The Republican Party appears to be divided between a tax-cutting old guard and a white-nationalist vanguard--and with Donald Trump's ascendance, the upstarts seem to be winning. Yet how are we to explain that, under Trump, the plutocrats have gotten almost everything they want, including a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, regulation-killing executive actions, and a legion of business-friendly federal judges? Does the GOP represent "forgotten" Americans? Or does it represent the superrich?
In Let Them Eat Tweets, best-selling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson offer a definitive answer: the Republican Party serves its plutocratic masters to a degree without precedent in modern global history. Conservative parties, by their nature, almost always side with the rich. But when faced with popular resistance, they usually make concessions, allowing some policies that benefit the working and middle classes. After all, how can a political party maintain power in a democracy if it serves only the interests of a narrow and wealthy slice of society?
Today's Republicans have shown the way, doubling down on a truly radical, elite-benefiting economic agenda while at the same time making increasingly incendiary racial and cultural appeals to their almost entirely white base. Telling a forty-year story, Hacker and Pierson demonstrate that since the early 1980s, when inequality started spiking, extreme tax cutting, union busting, and deregulation have gone hand in hand with extreme race-baiting, outrage stoking, and disinformation. Instead of responding to the real challenges facing voters, the Republican Party offers division and distraction--most prominently, in the racist, nativist bile of the president's Twitter feed.
As Hacker and Pierson argue, Trump isn't a break with the GOP's recent past. On the contrary, he embodies its tightening embrace of plutocracy and right-wing extremism--a dynamic Hacker and Pierson call "plutocratic populism." As Trump and his far-right allies spew hatred and lies, Republicans in Congress and in statehouses attack social programs and funnel more and more money to the top 0.1 percent of Americans. Far from being at war with each other, reactionary plutocrats and right-wing populists have become the two faces of a party that now actively undermines democracy to achieve its goals against the will of the majority of Americans.
Drawing on decades of research, Hacker and Pierson authoritatively explain the doom loop of tax cutting and fearmongering that characterizes our era--and reveal how we can fight back.
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This book makes intelligible how the nightmare of our current politics has happened. With their usual acuity and verve, Hacker and Pierson confront us with an uncomfortable reality: extreme economic inequality has left America vulnerable to a right-wing extremism that has destroyed other countries' democracies in the past. Hacker and Pierson's message is not that democracy in America is doomed. But to save it, we need to come to grips with the underlying economic forces pulling it apart today.--Daniel Ziblatt, Professor of Government at Harvard University and coauthor of the New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die
This essential book makes clear that American democracy is threatened less by Trump than by the extreme economic inequality that set the stage for his election. Growing plutocratic power preceded Trump, and will outlast him. Unless these larger forces are reckoned with, the authors warn, the United States may be locked in an escalating 'doom loop.'--Jane Mayer, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Money
Democracy, or plutocracy enabled by dog whistle politics? Those are the heart-stopping stakes, according to the compelling volume in your hands. Read this book and get in the fight.--Ian F. Haney López, author of Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America
Hacker and Pierson provide a persuasive and insightful explanation of the current extremes of American political polarization: it is the response to a fundamental and deep problem for conservatives, of how to enlist support for their self-interested economic policies in order to maintain a plutocratic society that benefits the few. Hacker and Pierson show that the conservative Republican Party's appeal to nativism and tribalism, while deep rooted in US history, is not inevitable. There is yet hope for American democracy. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding contemporary American politics.--Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2011 Nobel Laureate, economic sciences
A standout among recent releases, timed for the 2020 presidential election cycle, that seek to help readers make sense of the often-confusing political climate.... The authors, both political scientists, find evidence to build their thesis by carefully analyzing recent history.... The answers the authors come up with are cogent and distressing--and convincing. Highly recommended.--Gary Day, Booklist
Let Them Eat Tweets is the perfect title for a wise and passionate book that distinguishes between a populism genuinely challenging to elites and the 'plutocratic populism' of Donald Trump whose purpose is to entrench the power of the already privileged. Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson have an admirable record of seeing around corners and their warnings about threats to majoritarian democracy--from the right and from the way our institutions are working--are telling and worrying. In the face of this danger, they offer realistic hope that democratic action can rescue democracy itself. An important book for our moment.--E.J. Dionne Jr., author of Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country
