Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy

Our democracy is under assault from homegrown authoritarians, with most observers blaming Donald Trump and the Republican Party that submitted to him. Yet as Adam Jentleson shows, the problem not only goes back to the nineteenth century, but is less about the presidency than it is about our nation's most venerated institution: the United States Senate. A revelatory history of minority rule in America as expressed through the Senate filibuster, Kill Switch shows that white conservatives have long relied on the filibuster--which is not featured in the Constitution, and which, as Jentleson demonstrates, the Framers would have opposed--to shut down attempts to create a multiracial democracy. Featuring a new epilogue on filibuster battles under the Biden administration, Kill Switch will remain an essential warning about the costs of empowering this nation's right-wing minority.

- "Jentleson understands the inner workings of the institution, down to the most granular details, showing precisely how arcane procedural rules can be leveraged to dramatic effect." --Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
- "Careful and thorough and exacting." --Michael Tomasky, New York Review of Books
- "[An] excellent, surprising new book." --Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker

Author: Adam Jentleson
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Published: 08/16/2022
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.63lbs
Size: 8.29h x 5.46w x 0.87d
ISBN13: 9781324091981
ISBN10: 1324091983
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Civics & Citizenship
- Political Science | Political Process | Political Parties
- Political Science | American Government | National