Give Logic a Chance.

[shkarlson]

It's been my custom not to post reviews of Regnery books because too often the editing turns what might be solid arguments into polemics more effective at shoring up people already convinced than it is in persuading persuadable minds.  It is for that reason that I offer former representative Tulsi Gabbard's For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind as Book Review No. 8.

It's particularly unproductive for Regnery to have done its usual polemical work on For Love of Country as the representative was for a while active in the Bernie Sanders campaign, and has the honor of being called a "Russian asset" by Hillary Clinton while continuing her commission in the Reserves even after leaving both Congress and the Democrats.

As such, she might bring a novel perspective to both the usual Regnery ditto-heads and to voters leaning toward the Democrats or hoping to keep their independence.  The chapter headings are surely provocative.

1. The End of Our Democracy?
2. Fading Light of Freedom.
3. No Free Speech.
4. They See God as the Enemy.
5. The Elitist Cabal of Warmongers.
6. Fomenting Racism.
7. What's True?  The Powerful Decide.
8. Families Under Fire.

She concludes, "Elite politicians from both parties are terrified of our freedom and that we, the people, may actually begin to use our power."  Yes, there's an element of both-sides-ism in that observation, and yet, although she invokes a conversation with the late Daniel Ellsberg, yes, he of the Pentagon Papers, the topics and the people she brings in as anecdotes and experts are more often those familiar on the populist right rather than as onetime colleagues in the Sanders campaign.  That's unfortunate, as the Wise Experts in the age of Trump tend to either agree with or argue with and then vote for Democrats, but that second cohort includes populists of the left or in the so-called rainbow coalition who are not yet ready to write for Fox News or Pajamas Media.

Cross-posted to Cold Spring Shops.