The Next Republic: The Rise of a New Radical Majority

Summary

A book for this moment: Both an assessment of our current political leadership and a vision of those who can bring substantive change.

Who are the new progressive leaders emerging to lead the post-Trump return to democracy in America? National political correspondent and award-winning author D.D. Guttenplan's The Next Republic is an extraordinarily intense and wide-ranging account of the recent fall and incipient rise of democracy in America.

The Next Republic profiles nine successful activists who are changing the course of American history right now:

• new labor activist and author Jane McAlevey
• racial justice campaigner (and mayor of Jackson, Mississippi) Chokwe Antar Lumumba
• environmental activist (and newly elected chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party) Jane Kleeb
• Chicago’s first openly gay Latino public official Carlos Ramirez-Rosa
• #ALLOFUS co-founder Waleed Shahid
• young architects of Bernie Sanders amazing rise, digerati Corbin Trent and Zack Exley, founders of Brand New Congress
• and author and anti-corruption crusader Zephyr Teachout.

Additionally, the introduction to The Next Republic ties in the election and first year of the Trump presidency to the current rise of populism of the left, and there are three historical chapters that describe key moments in American history that shed light on current events: the Whiskey Rebellion, the Lincoln Republic, and the Roosevelt Republic. Guttenplan understands the magnitude of the problem of democracy, and at the same time the great possibilities for its resurgence. Like a cross between George Packer's The Unwinding and John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, The Next Republic is both unyielding and deeply hopeful, the first book to come out of the Trump ascendency that stakes a claim for seeing beyond it.