The ruling of the minority over the majority is baked into American history. While the American ideal of democracy and "one person one vote" is touted as the way our country is supposed to run, it's not what actually happens. Beginning with the founding fathers who were almost all land-owning, slave-owning, white men with a complete distrust of those in the country who weren't like them, actual democracy was thwarted. They cooked the books when it came to representation and deemed themselves the actual voters.
This has been carried on throughout the almost 250 years of our existence in this country. To preserve power, the right has used the boogeymen of rampant immigration, the replacement theory, and crime, They have also attacked the actual vote by closing polling places, limiting voting hours, using draconian methods of voter IDs and gerrymandering, to maintain minority white support-and it works, ie the Supreme Court Justices that Obama wasn't able to nominate.
His epilogue gives readers a little hope -with grassroots movements and concerned citizens being politically involved, things can be changed-but they must be very aware of the problems in order to fix them. Reading this book made me angry-when the whole history is laid out it seems like an insurmountable problem. Berman did a great job of putting things together and giving readers a potential pathway out.
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
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