The Ideological Brain, Leor Zmigrod

 

The Ideological Brain:  The radical science of flexible thinking by Leor Zmigrod

Started: June 11, 2025
Completed: June 17, 2025
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

What if you had an answer for every situation?  Wouldn't that make action easier?  There would be no need to think in any given situation, simply to take action based upon your prior understanding of what should be done.  What would that do to your brain?

A dogmatic thinker (in the extreme) ceases to interact with the real world to foster understanding, rather assets his/her dogmatic understanding as a way to frame the real world and pigeon-hole decision making.  Once one accepts a particular ideology, everything can be framed in terms of that ideology and the reason for action becomes clear based on the tenets of the dogma.

Zmigrod identifies ideologs by asking basic questions, performing simple tasks, and monitoring for specific brain activity.  Having identified a person with dogmatic thinking, Zmigrod starts to examine his/her perspective on the world and finds that dogmatic thinking shades into many areas, not simply the political.  Identifying that dogmatic thinking is a pervasive effect, Zmigrod attempts to understand dogmatic thinking in terms of genetics, physical structure, and culture.

Dogmatic thinkers are not predestined to think they way that they do from something physical (though there may be a disposition).  Dogmatic thinking is fostered through ritual and repetition.  Sometimes it is inculcated through mentally and physically painful initiations (although, Zmigrod makes the argument that the brain structure may allow the initiations to be passed rather than creating the thought pattern itself).  Culture can foster an environment which facilitates dogmatic thinking.

Zmigrod leaves open the possibility that ideologs can be reached and their thinking made more flexible, but she argues that the path an ideolog must follow to overcome this thinking is non-linear (she suggests a spiral of thought) and there are many ways that the ideolog can easily turn into dogmatic thinking on the way out (albeit perhaps via a different dogma).

Abundance, Klein and Thompson

 

Abundance:  How we build a better future by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

Started: May 9, 2025
Completed: May 12, 2025
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended by: Nobody, I seem to be on an Ezra Klein kick

Review:

So, the thesis of this book seems to be:  create abundance and then we will live in abundance.  That is true.  The obstacles to abundance are, well, OK.  If regulations are relaxed, then it will be easier and faster to build, well, everything.  So, why not ease the regulations?  After all, some of them don't make sense, like, well, zoning.  Oh, and, also make it easier to get research grants and make those grants on high risk projects.  After all, nobody is going to abuse that funding.  So, this is the liberal agenda without any safe guards.  Or is it?  Is this the conservative agenda?

Experience has shown that easing regulations leads to abuse.  Now, taking bigger risk on research grants and making it easier to comply with the paperwork for a research grant makes some sense.  The problem is that whenever regulations are eased, there are abuses and the those abuses (for, say, construction or even research) have been seriously egregious.  There is a case to be made that private money can get this stuff done faster.  When it happens that way, though, we end up fires that take out Chicago or San Francisco.  We end up with sinking buildings in Florida and buildings/roadways that cannot survive an earthquake in LA.  We end up with mining tailings in the water and air so thick it cannot be breathed.  But just the relax the regulations.  Maybe the onerous ones that prevent industrial sites near schools (Love Canal anyone)?  Or the ones that govern how mines are managed (Centralia Pennsylvania)?

I get that there is a real problem with NIMBYism and I can see how regulations (particularly zoning laws) facilitate that.  This book, however, simply says that those regulations which make it hard to build stuff (like environmental impact studies) should just be removed.  So, yes, the building would move forward faster and cheaper, but the world would not be better for the effort.  Why not look at how to make environmental impact studies for efficient and faster?  Maybe more people working on the impact study would help?  Maybe there is a way to consider cascading impacts that could be handled by integrated assessment teams?  Maybe NIMBY can be solved by reducing the impact of the rich on government (hold meetings when everyone can attend like 2:00 on the weekend), require petitions with signatures to halt things (instead of some wealthy guy hitting up his friend on council), and require quality of life impacts that match the quality of life impact of completing the project (so reduced value of the neighborhood housing is not used to weigh against providing housing for more people).  I don't know, but it feels to me like the authors cherry picked some regulations that they don't like and decided that no regulations are good if they impact PROGRESS.

The Forever War, Nick Bryant

 

The Forever War:  America's Unending Conflict With Itself by Nick Bryant

Started: March 2, 2025
Completed: March 8, 2025
Recommendation: Mild recommendation
Recommended By: I think that this came via The Guardian, but I cannot find a review from them, so I'm not sure how I stumbled across it.

Review:

I really thought that this was going to be about January 6th, the cover fooled me, mea culpa.  I am very familiar with the history that was reviewed in this book and I found only one memorable quotation:  America does not need to learn how to live with civil war, America needs to learn how to live with civil peace (or something like that...I listened to the book and I did not jot down the quotation as I heard it because I have a bit of a life today).  Aside from that, this is American history fairly well recounted with a focus on contentious issues (slavery, abortion, etc.)  I just really spent too much time on the book as it was mostly a retelling of history with which I was already familiar.

Shameless, Brian Tyler Cohen

 

Shameless:  Republicans' deliberate dysfunction and the battle to preserve democracy by Brian Tyler Cohen

Started: November 21, 2024
Completed: November 26, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: BTC

Review:

I have watched BTC on the Meidas Touch Network for a while.  He is an ardent and passionate supporter of democracy, progress, and Democrats.  This book is well written and while it documents the Republican shame, it feels like too little too late given the election outcome.  I definitely wouldn't feel that way if the election had gone against Trump (maybe I would have said it is a repeat of what has been clear to everyone).  So, the list of shameless hypocrisy from the right continues and we are stuck with at least two more years of it.  Worth the read if you need the proof or find the proof comforting.

The Quiet Damage, Jesselyn Cook

 

The Quiet Damage:  QAnon and the destruction of the American family by Jesselyn Cook

Started: November 3, 2024
Completed: November 7, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My wife

Review:

Sometimes you need particular examples to better understand the whole problem.  This book fills that void.  Cook has done a great job of talking with individuals on both sides of QAnon (believers and those who love the believers).  This provides a perspective into how people started to follow Q so quickly and also how they got out.  Meanwhile, the examples provided covered the range fairly well of how family members reacted.  Calling for mental health and some way for children to deal with difficulty being caught in schools is undoubtedly the correct answer.  In the current environment, however, it is hard to imagine this will happen any time soon.

How Wars End, Dan Reiter

 

How Wars End by Dan Reiter

Started: July 30, 2024
Completed: DNF
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: Nobody, but I think I saw a summary in a Chicago Press email

Review:

I got through 60 pages.  This is hard, academic reading.  I thought that maybe it would be uplifting and it would be optimistic about how wars could end.  Instead, it is a book about leverage and negotiation.  This book works on the tipping points where a peace deal is possible while identifying that the tipping points must be sufficiently small that both combatants agree it is basically a stalemate and the "loser" is at least relatively confident that the "victor" will not just turn around and attack again.  While this is eminently practical and surely how the mechanics of peace actually work, for me, it was just depressing.  I could not keep reading (which is a reflection of my thoughts on Ukraine and Palestine and not a reflection of the quality of the book).

The Death of Truth, Steven Brill

 

The Death of Truth:  How social media and the internet gave snake oil salesman and demagogues the weapons they needed to destroy truth and polarize the world--and what we can do about it by Steven Brill

Started: August 23, 2024
Completed: August 26, 2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

A fair portion of this book is Brill defending his company.  That is less than satisfying.  It seems like it is a decent company with good intent.  It also seems like the company is having a hard time finding customers in an environment where it should probably have lots of customers.  OK.  Tell me once.  It also seems like the GOP has tried to eliminate the non-partisan company.  That completely sucks.  Tell me once.

The idea that there should be a single objective truth, is not controversial.  Brill makes the argument well, that everyone wants "their truth" instead of "the truth."  He argues this on several levels and the arguments are compelling.  Understanding at least a little bit about what people are able to accept helps guides his methods to fixing this problem.  I have to admit that I don't think that the fixes he offers are going to work, but clearly I'm not the expert.

Say More, Jen Psaki

 

Say More:  Lessons from work, the white house, and the world by Jen Psaki

Started: August 16, 2024
Completed: August 18, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody, I really enjoyed her press conferences

Review:

Psaki was such a breath of fresh air in the White House briefing room, I simply cannot describe how important her appearance there was.  In addition, her deft handling of Steve Doocy was wonderful.  I was so very impressed that when I read she had a book coming, I immediately put in for it at the library (after about 45 other people had already had the same idea).  Her quick little book is approachable and focuses on communications strategy using vignettes from her time at the white house, state department, and home.  I enjoyed it though I have no plans to become an interviewer or do press relations. 

Autocracy, Inc., Anne Applebaum

 

Autocracy, Inc.:  The dictators who want to run the world by Anne Applebaum

Started: August 15, 2024
Completed: August 16, 2024
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a quick wallow into the world of autocrats.  It is, as one might imagine, slimy.  Autocrats do not hide in the shadows.  They are big, bold, and literally attacking democracies on many fronts.  This quick read offers a good flavor of autocratic behavior without getting caught up in the details of each dictator.  Rather, the book looks at what they have in common, how they support one another, and what democracies can do to defend and go on the offensive.  The steps are pretty obvious and can be summed up with:  Do Not Tolerate Corruption.  That goes a long way and it is amazing the many little ways that democracies do, indeed, tolerate corruption.  We must stop!

Ours Was the Shining Future, David Leonhardt

 

Ours Was the Shining Future: The story of the American Dream by David Leonhardt

Started: March 10, 2024
Completed: March 17, 2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

A large portion of this book was well covered ground and it isn't pretty.  The conclusion was surprising to me.  I guess I live in a bubble of progressivism.  I'm really tired of being told what to do by the far right (the right bothers me less).  I've always seen progressivism as supporting freedom (yes, to a certain extent stopping military grade weapons in the hands of citizens has always seemed like a good idea because, somehow, someone who shouldn't have such a weapon seems to have no trouble getting one), but not stopping gun ownership.  So, I've always thought of myself as trying to find the line where your freedom intersects someone else's freedom and tried to come up with an approach that leaves each with as much freedom as possible.  In this sense (and probably others), I am a universalist.  I've never had much faith in what my wife calls, "tribalism," and this author addresses as "community."  So, I need to be louder about how much I value patriotism (though, nationalism seems a stretch too far).  Though I am personally a pacifist, I understand that a nation in a group of anarchic nations needs a military.  I understand the need to have a border so that the United States does not become overwhelmed and unable to help those who would flood into the country without some sort of restriction.  On the other hand, I don't like the USA being the police of the world (particularly when armies are simply not designed to be police).  I don't think that people who are genuinely at risk should be turned away when they show up at the border claiming asylum.  I feel like if we helped make the world a better place for everyone (there is that universalism again), then fewer people would feel the need to come to the United States--so, we should strive to make the world a better place where we can.  To me, these seem like basic and fundamental truths.  I am learning, however that others view those positions as disloyal to the USA.  I dunno, that is going to be a hard discussion.  I don't like lying.  I especially don't like misleading people for your own benefit.  That is just wrong.  That, to me, is evil.  The enormous greed is evil.  I just don't see how I can have a useful discussion with people who live in a world where misleading people is a good idea and where endless greed is just fine.  I guess that is where I draw my line.

The Squad, Ryan Grim

 

The Squad:  AOC and the hope of a political revolution by Ryan Grim

Started: 12/27/2023
Completed: 12/31/2023
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is only structurally about the squad.  It is mostly about the most recent phase of progressivism and is an extension of the author's prior work about the Rainbow Coalition.  That is rather interesting on its own merits and is the basis of the recommendation, but if you are looking for a book about the squad, this is probably not it.  Yes, they are mentioned, but this book only casually talks about how they interact with a few poignant scenes rather than an actual description of how they work together (if at all).  Grim repeatedly reminds the reader that "The Squad" does not really exist and that the name came from a casual mention over twitter and does not really represent a group that coordinates.  If that is fully true (which it may be), then this book is a true disappointment.  It feels to me, however, that there is some truth to the name and that this book simply does not have the insight to identify the nature of the group.

Tired of Winning, Jonathan Karl

 

Tired of Winning:  Donald Trump and the end of the grand old party by Jonathan Karl

Started: 12/23/2023
Completed: 12/25/2023
Recommendation: Mildly recommended
Recommended By: My wife who loves the cover photo, but, more importantly, heard an interview with Karl

Review:

It is good to hear a Republican condemn Trump (as Cheney did).  This book, however, feels like a story of how Trump betrayed his party as much as how Trump betrayed the United States.  Since I feel like the GOP made Trump (yes, Trump took over the party, but it was sliding his direction since Mitch McConnell decided to make the Republicans the Stop Obama party and worked to make him a one-term President.  Some might point back to Gingrich, but I think the "win at all costs" mentality may have been formulated by Gingrich, but it became a party mindset under McConnell and has culminated in Trump.  So, Karl does his best to point Trump as a non-Republican and as a loser (I agree that in many ways he is both), while not accepting that the Republican party has fully embraced Trump and it is hard to see where that will end.

The Struggle for a Decent Politics by Michael Walzer

 

The Struggle for a Decent Politics:  On "liberal" as an adjective by Michael Walzer

Started: 10/15/2023
Completed: 10/15/2023
Recommendation: Mildly Recommended
Recommended By: my wife

Review:

For most of this book, this seemed like an academic parsing of words.  I guess I should have been ready for that from the title.  Towards the end, there was a little bit more on the application.  As theory books go, this was very readable and very approachable.  Like most political theory, I felt that this book described what already happens rather than builds a coherent theory.  I know that is unfair to this author who is a full fledged theorist and who went to great lengths to make this book coherent from a theoretical point of view.  All the same, it sort of felt like using "liberal" as an adjective was pointed at, "what is the liberal version" of a lot of different types of politics.  In addition, he did address what types of politics are simply incompatible with "liberal."  I guess the heart of the issue is that the way that Walzer defines "liberal" (which may be entirely correct) was at odds with my understanding (which probably is closer to "progressive") so I frequently found his uses of the term jarring leading to less understanding and not more.

Blowback, Miles Taylor

 

Blowback:  A warning to save democracy from the next Trump by Miles Taylor.  Taylor is the person who wrote the anonymous op-ed about working to limit damage from Trump.

Started: 9/13/2023
Completed: 9/19/2023
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Kudos to Miles Taylor for facing the death threats, suffering the office, and destroying his savings trying to stop Trump.  Despite any smear anyone may make, this is a person who saw an opportunity to make a difference for his country and leaped on it.  He also lost his personal life.  And there was the drinking.  So, this is a guy who faced some pretty daunting stuff and he was pretty honest about how he really didn't feel up to the moment.  It is difficult to tell in any personal recounting how big a role an individual had in a larger movement (in this case "Never Trump"), but if Taylor is to be believed, he provided a fulcrum on many occasions and carried the lumps for his efforts.

Taylor is definitely not my friend.  He harkens back to the "compassionate conservative" era.  You remember, when Reagan made up the lie about welfare mothers all gaming the system.  Or, "read my lips" Bush who converted his time in the spook world into the highest office in the country (sound familiar Putin?).  Or, Bush 2 who couldn't seem to talk his way out of a box while starting wars and claiming that the "mission was accomplished" after it had only begun.  I always wondered why all conservatives didn't want to be compassionate and from asides in this book, it sounds like a little boy who is repeating what his Mama told him to say.  To be fair, however, Taylor did fight against separating families at the border and numerous other truly horrific ideas that Trump developed and tried to implement.

I do think that he wants to find a way to negotiate with the irascible Democrat, but "common ground" always seems to end up deep into the red. Taylor is a non-MAGA Republican which is an important step away from the cliff that democracy faces.  It is clear, however, that Taylor does not see clearly how the Republican party laid the ground work for Trump and continues to provide the infrastructure that feeds his kind of horror.  It is clear, however, that he figures if he can move 8%, he's stopped Trump from being elected which should give you some insight into how deeply down the hole the vast majority of Republicans are.

I truly want to like this book.  It literally ended with  book burning talking about how pretty it was when the pages burned.  I think this was intended as a metaphor for Taylor getting rid of his hidden past as Anonymous.  It is a literal example, however, of the current Republican Party approach to cultural issues (burn it down).  It is also entirely too close to home with the LGBTQ book banning.  I dunno, the book was a pile of mixed messages with a few decent ideas.  It is interesting to me, however, that there was never talk of trying to find a middle ground with Democrats, just a middle ground with the far right and right inclined independents.

Mapping Mass Mobilization, Olga Onuch

 

Mapping Mass Mobilization:  Understanding revolutionary moments in Argentina and Ukraine by Olga Onuch is actually a text book, but I was struggling to understand how so much of the populace rose up to defend Ukraine and this book was recommended.

Started: 2/4/2023
Completed: Did Not Finish
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By:  I'm not entirely sure.  I was wandering around a bunch of websites and this book kept coming up under "further reading."

Review:

This is remarkably dry and assumes a ton about people and places I can hardly identify.  Way too in depth for me and after six months I had to call it quits.

It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, Bernie Sanders

 

It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders

Started: 5/23/2023
Completed: 5/28/2023
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

Bernie has a number of good points--particularly about the need for Democrats to focus on the working class.  I find myself highly aligned with Bernie Sanders and my only issue with this book is the repetition.  This is useful in a political speech and probably a necessary part of debate prep.  It is a little bit boring in a book.

The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning, Peter Zeihan

 

The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning:  Mapping the collapse of globalization by Peter Zeihan

Started: 4/19/2023
Completed: 4/25/2023
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: My parents

Review:

The vast majority of this book tests how bad things could be if other things happen.  Zeihan argues that these things have basically already happened or are inevitable.  Here is the causal chain:

GIVEN:
    Mass consumption economies depend on consumers
WHEN:
    The population of the world is aging out of high consumerism, and
    Lack of consumers cause contraction of capital, and
    The United States will not be able to afford "Pax Americana" on the high seas
    Nation states will turn to piracy on the high seas disrupting global trade
THEN:
    Really bad things happen

The causal chain is really discussed in the section, "The End of More."

There are a bunch of dependencies and, as Zeihan acknowledges, the Russian attack on Ukraine changes the dynamics a bit (we can see mass starvation caused by disruption of global trade or not).

Uncounted, Gilda R. Daniels

 

Uncounted:  The crisis of voter suppression in America by Gilda R. Daniels

Started: 1/15/2023
Completed: 1/21/2023
Recommendation: Not Recommended (unless you are unfamiliar with the Jim Crow era)
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a long-form legal brief.  Arguments are repeated ad nauseum.  If one is unfamiliar with the history of voter suppression, particularly in the Jim Crow era, this book has a lot of information.  If one is familiar with it, well, this book has a lot of the information you already know.  I truly do not think that this book identifies a "crisis."  It may, but the argument was not clear.  I think it strongly builds the argument that America was build on voter suppression and it is on-going.  I do not think it builds a case that there is a particular crisis right now.  Maybe the "wrongness" of voter suppression might have been more accurate or "contrary to Chief Justice Roberts' assertion, voter suppression continues."  There really isn't anything new here, there is no real plan to address voter suppression (except to encourage people to come up with creative ideas).  I cannot recommend this book (unless you are wholly unfamiliar with the Jim Crow era).

The Betrayal, Ira Shapiro

 

The Betrayal:  How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans abandoned America by Ira Shaprio

Started: 1/11/2023
Completed: 1/15/2023
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My Wife

Review:

In fairness, this book contains entirely information I already knew.  It is collected, however, in terms of Mitch McConnell.  Shapiro argues eloquently that what is wrong with America is embodied by McConnell.  I agree with him.

The Destructionists, Dana Milbank

 

The Destructionists:  The twenty-five year crack-up of the Republican party by Dana Milbank

Started: 9/20/2022
Completed: 9/24/2022
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My Wife

Review:

This is an amazing analysis.  Unlike many other books by journalists, this is not a collection of stories.   This is an in-depth, continuous story that tracks from start to finish furthering the thesis that the Republican Party's destructive force started under Gingrich.  The book is both well researched and provides a wealth of personal anecdotes as this was history Milbank lived in real-time.  The argument--that Trump was neither the starting point, nor pinnacle of destructive politics--is well developed, articulately argued, and spiced with numerous samples along the way that provide an evidentiary scaffolding.  This book is also well-written.  There are few repeats as Millbank assumes the reader does not need to be constantly reminded of what was just said.  I cannot begin to hold in my hand the vast number of references to individual speeches, particular talking points, and repeated examples of scurrilous hypocrisy.  Trump is not an outgrowth of any of this, he is the nodule of cancer that develops when the environment is right.  We have an entire political party which did not develop, but grew up on, positions untethered to facts.  This does not bode well for the future and points out how impossible it is to "negotiate" with people who simply ignore reality.