What Happens to Democracy When a Demagogue Comes to Power?
'It is hard to imagine understanding the Trump presidency and its significance without reading this book.” — Bob Bauer, Former Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama
What—and who—is a demagogue? How did America’s Founders envision the presidency? What should a constitutional democracy look like—and how can it be fixed when it appears to be broken?
Something is definitely wrong with Donald Trump’s presidency, but what exactly? The extraordinary negative reaction to Trump’s election—by conservative intellectuals, liberals, Democrats, and global leaders alike—goes beyond ordinary partisan and policy disagreements. It reflects genuine fear about the vitality of our constitutional system. The Founders, reaching back to classical precedents, feared that their experiment in mass self-government could produce a demagogue: a charismatic ruler who would gain and hold on to power by manipulating the public rather than by advancing the public good.
President Trump, who has played to the mob and attacked institutions from the judiciary to the press, appears to embody these ideas. How can we move past his rhetoric and maintain faith in our great nation?
In The Demagogue’s Playbook, acclaimed legal scholar Eric A. Posner offers a blueprint for how America can prevent the rise of another demagogue and protect the features of a democracy that help it thrive—and restore national greatness, for one and all.
A Macmillan Audio production from All Points Books
“Cuts through the hyperbole and hysteria that often distorts assessments of our republic, particularly at this time.” —Alan Taylor, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History
The bailouts during the recent financial crisis enraged the public. They felt unfair-and counterproductive: people who take risks must be allowed to fail. If we reward firms that make irresponsible investments, costing taxpayers billions of dollars, aren't we encouraging them to continue to act irresponsibly, setting the stage for future crises? And beyond the ethics of it was the question of whether the government even had the authority to bail out failing firms like Bear Stearns and AIG.
The answer, according to Eric A. Posner, is no. The federal government freely and frequently violated the law with the bailouts-but it did so in the public interest. An understandable lack of sympathy toward Wall Street has obscured the fact that bailouts have happened throughout economic history and are unavoidable in any modern, market-based economy. And they're actually good. Contrary to popular belief, the financial system cannot operate properly unless the government stands ready to bail out banks and other firms.
Taking up the common objections raised by both right and left, Posner argues that future bailouts will occur. Acknowledging that inevitability, we can and must look ahead and carefully assess our policy options before we need them.
