CURRENT AFFAIRS
TWO PRESIDENTS WITH DIAMETRICAL CHARACTER AND THEIR ROLE IN THE UNSETTLING OF AMERICA
BY Jermel Shim
Shim reflects on threats to American democracy in this nonfiction work.
America, writes the author, “is facing a crisis where its democracy is under assault.” The origins of this threat, per Shim’s analysis of contemporary politics, can be found in the Republican response to Barack Obama’s 2008 election as president. Almost immediately after Obama’s victory, Shim asserts, Republicans began a campaign to smear him personally and block any attempts at bipartisan negotiation. Fueled by racism, xenophobia, and a new brand of conservatism that eschewed conciliatory politics, Republican anti-Obama sentiments culminated in the 2016 election of Donald Trump, according to the author. Citing a myriad of examples, including the January 6 insurgency, Shim convincingly argues that Trump “has harmed America’s democracy and undermined its institutions.” While much of the book centers on Republican policies, campaign strategies, and rhetoric since 2008, it also places the rise of Trump within the broader context of American history. The modern incarnation of the Republican Party, argues the author, is “dynamically different” than it has been in any previous period in U.S. history (barring the Civil War), though its roots can be found in the country’s history of nativism, slavery, and systemic racism. While not shying away from the horrors and “flawed foundation” of American democracy, Shim notes the ways in which Americans have expanded opportunities as well and articulates his hope that this book will serve as an inspiration for readers to repudiate Trump at the ballot box. The book concludes with a pragmatic vision to rejuvenate American democracy post-Trump. A Jamaican-born U.S. citizen, Shim also includes vignettes illustrating his own engagement with U.S. politics, noting that he has voted for both Democratic and Republican candidates. The author of a number of previous books on politics and history, Shim writes in an approachable style tailored for a general audience, eschewing the jargon of policy wonks and inflammatory rhetoric of partisan firebrands. The book’s engaging style is supplemented by 380 research endnotes and strikes a fine balance between absorbing (if frightening) narrative and nuanced analysis.
A detailed, cautionary take on the precariousness of democracy.
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2024
ADDITIONAL WORKS AVAILABLE
A New Perspective on Race-related Problems in Corporate American Companies
Race-related issues in corporate companies are often understood as instances of racial job discrimination. However, racial job discrimination is merely a broad term that encompasses a variety of race-related challenges, many of which are rarely discussed in public discourse or within the corporate workplace. This book provides a new perspective on these race-related issues.
A New Perspective on Race-Related Problems in Corporate American Companies is not just another book in the genre of race-related workplace challenges. Rather, it seeks to bring broader race-related problems into focus for all corporate employees. It does so by identifying these issues, exploring their root causes, examining their impact on nonwhite employees, offering strategies for addressing or coping with them, and proposing a program to help reduce these problems within corporate environments.
Published: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1478711339
Racism in America: From the Beginning to the End
Racism In America: From the Beginning to the End by Jermel W. Shim is a straightforward narrative on racism in America, its evolution, and its history. Racism In America is a non-fiction read that delves deep into analyzing racism, not just in America, but at some level globally. The book is divided into chapters, each dealing with a topic such as racism among the Anglo-Saxons and its beginnings and history, how racism is ingrained in American society at all levels, how it contradicts the so-called written American values in the Constitution, the relation between religion, spirituality, and morality and how they are related and dependent upon each other at a fundamental level, why racism in a huge problem in America, how change and improvement can be brought about, the impact racism has on people and the different ways to cope with it, and a new program that puts forward some points and suggestions for a way forward and how this problem can be solved over time.
Unlike other books about racism, Racism in America provides new insight into the origin of racism, its contradictions with cherished American values, its persistence, its impact on people’s lives, and its reconciliation.
Published: Jan. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1478791775
The Long Road to Progress for Jamaica: The Achievements and Failures in the Post-colonial Era
The Long Road to Progress for Jamaica is a unique book that provides a broad analysis of Jamaica’s achievements and failures since becoming an independent nation on August 6, 1962. Despite some important achievements this book focuses more on the failures which have eclipsed those achievements.
Without ascribing blame for Jamaica’s postcolonial failures, The Long Road to Progress for Jamaica makes the case that these failures are the result of a flawed political system with questionable political leadership. Specifically, it addresses issues like political corruption, political tribalism, garrison constituencies, and violent crime as the core problems.
One unique feature of The Long Road to Progress for Jamaica is that it divides the postcolonial era into three political periods —The Foundation Period, The Social Chaos and Political Corruption Period, and The Maintenance of the Status Quo Period. All nine prime ministers to date are grouped in one of these periods based on their overall leadership effectiveness, accomplishments or failures.
Unlike other books that identify and discuss Jamaica’s problems, The Long Road to Progress for Jamaica provides practical solutions to reduce or eliminate the systemic problems holding the country back. Written in a style that is easy to follow and understand readers from the broad population and background of Jamaicans at home and in the Diaspora will find this book appealing.
Published: Jan. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1478791775
Whom God Has Blessed Let No Man Curse
Whom God Has Blessed Let No Man Curse chronicles Barack Obama's destined path to the presidency of the United States. The book outlines the journey that led him to the White House, including the key factors that contributed to his election in 2008 and his re-election in 2012. The central premise of the book is that Barack Obama is a blessed man—though not necessarily in the religious sense—and that he was destined to become president. Because of this divine blessing, his political opponents and detractors have failed, and will continue to fail, in their attempts to undermine him.
Whom God Has Blessed Let No Man Curse is not just the story of Barack Obama's rise to the presidency; it also examines his remarkable first term in office. No president before him has faced such blatant disrespect and animosity from political opponents. Despite the numerous obstacles, the public disdain, and the relentless propaganda, he remains unshaken and continues to carry out his presidential duties with notable success.
Published: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 979-8865353478
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