Four Threats
The Recurring Crises of American Democracy
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Narrated by:
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Andrea Gallo
About this listen
An urgent, historically grounded take on the four major factors that undermine American democracy, and what we can do to address them.
While many Americans despair of the current state of US politics, most assume that our system of government and democracy itself are invulnerable to decay. Yet when we examine the past, we find that to the contrary, the United States has undergone repeated crises of democracy, from the earliest days of the republic to the present.
In The Four Threats, Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman explore five moments in history when democracy in the US was under siege: the 1790s, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Depression, and Watergate. These episodes risked profound - even fatal - damage to the American democratic experiment. From this history, four distinct characteristics of disruption emerge. Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power - alone or in combination - have threatened the survival of the republic, but it has survived, so far. What is unique, and alarming, about the present moment in American politics is that all four conditions exist.
This convergence marks the contemporary era as a grave moment for democracy. But history provides a valuable repository from which we can draw lessons about how democracy was eventually strengthened - or weakened - in the past. By revisiting how earlier generations of Americans faced threats to the principles enshrined in the Constitution, we can see the promise and the peril that have led us to today and chart a path toward repairing our civic fabric and renewing democracy.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
"Four Threats helps us see that the principal forces challenging our democracy today - polarization, conflict over who is considered American, economic inequality, and presidential abuse of power - are not new. And, in turn, we gain powerful insights into our current predicament - and how we might overcome it. We recommend this book to all citizens concerned about the fate of American democracy." (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, best-selling authors of How Democracies Die)
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Robert C. Lieberman (P)2020 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. But it is also a nation of xenophobia. Here, Erika Lee shows that an irrational fear, hatred, and hostility toward immigrants has been a defining feature of our nation from the colonial era to the Trump era. Benjamin Franklin ridiculed Germans for their "strange and foreign ways." Americans' anxiety over Irish Catholics turned xenophobia into a national political movement. Forcing us to confront this history, America for Americans explains how xenophobia works, why it has endured, and how it threatens America.
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Essential to Understanding America
- By Edward Chin-Lyn on 11-09-20
By: Erika Lee
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The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America
- The Thom Hartmann Hidden History Series
- By: Thom Hartmann
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Thom Hartmann asks: What if the Supreme Court didn't have the power to strike down laws? According to the Constitution, it doesn't. From the founding of the republic until 1803, the Supreme Court was the final court of appeals, as it was always meant to be. So where did the concept of judicial review start? As so much of modern American history, it began with the battle between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and with Marbury v. Madison.
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A must read to understand why voting is essential.
- By Brandon WIlliams on 10-05-19
By: Thom Hartmann
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The Presidents and the Constitution
- A Living History
- By: Ken Gormley - editor
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 21 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In this sweepingly ambitious volume, the nation's foremost experts on the American presidency and the US Constitution join together to tell the intertwined stories of how each American president has confronted and shaped the Constitution. Each occupant of the office - the first president to the 44th - has contributed to the story of the Constitution through the decisions he made and the actions he took as the nation's chief executive.
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great book about the presidency & Constitution
- By Rob on 12-27-16
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Rule and Ruin
- The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party
- By: Geoffrey Kabaservice
- Narrated by: Michael Bulter Murray
- Length: 21 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The chaotic events leading up to Mitt Romney's defeat in the 2012 election indicated how far the Republican Party had rocketed rightward away from the center of public opinion. Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government and force a U.S. debt default. Tea Party activists mounted primary challenges against Republican officeholders who appeared to exhibit too much pragmatism or independence. Moderation and compromise were dirty words in the Republican presidential debates. The GOP, it seemed, had suddenly become a party of ideological purity. Except this development is not new at all.
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Kabaservice doesn't make the case
- By MJE on 01-22-16
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What It Took to Win
- A History of the Democratic Party
- By: Michael Kazin
- Narrated by: Lee Goettl
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In What It Took to Win, the eminent historian Michael Kazin identifies and assesses the Democratic Party's long-running commitment to creating "moral capitalism" - a system that mixed entrepreneurial freedom with the welfare of workers and consumers. And yet the same party that championed the rights of the white working man also vigorously protected or advanced the causes of slavery, segregation, and Indian removal.
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Timely and informative History Book
- By Asha Sceanca on 03-24-22
By: Michael Kazin
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Kill Switch
- The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy
- By: Adam Jentleson
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Every major decision governing our diverse, majority-female, and increasingly liberal country bears the stamp of the US Senate, yet the Senate allows an almost exclusively White, predominantly male, and radically conservative minority of the American electorate to impose its will on the rest of us. How did we get to this point? In Kill Switch, Adam Jentleson argues that shifting demographics alone cannot explain how Mitch McConnell harnessed the Senate and turned it into a powerful weapon of minority rule.
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Don't bother, narration intolerable!
- By Joseph on 03-08-21
By: Adam Jentleson
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The Second Founding
- How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution
- By: Eric Foner
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation's foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time.
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Excellent book - problematic narrator
- By Jennifer on 10-01-19
By: Eric Foner
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James Madison
- America's First Politician
- By: Jay Cost
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history; his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist Papers and then helped to found the Republican Party just a few years later. This so-called Madison problem has occupied scholars for ages.
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Good listen
- By James Shannon on 06-27-22
By: Jay Cost
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Freedom's Dominion
- A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power
- By: Jefferson Cowie
- Narrated by: André Chapoy
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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American freedom is typically associated with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. But for centuries, whenever the federal government intervened on behalf of nonwhite people, many white Americans fought back in the name of freedom—their freedom to dominate others. In Freedom’s Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie traces this complex saga by focusing on a quintessentially American place: Barbour County, Alabama, the ancestral home of political firebrand George Wallace.
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Very easily read and I learned a lot
- By Kev All on 02-05-23
By: Jefferson Cowie
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9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America
- And Four Who Tried to Save Her
- By: Brion McClanahan
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Of the 44 presidents who have led the United States, nine made mistakes that permanently scarred the nation. Which nine? Brion McClanahan, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers and The Founding Fathers' Guide to the Constitution, will surprise listeners with his list, which he supports with exhaustive and entertaining evidence.
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Political opinion without substance.
- By Ella's Dad on 04-27-18
By: Brion McClanahan
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Big Agenda
- President Trump's Plan to Save America
- By: David Horowitz
- Narrated by: Ian Patterson
- Length: 3 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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One battle is over, but there are many more to come. This book is an indispensable guide to fighting the opponents of the conservative restoration. It identifies who the adversaries are, as well as their methods, motivations, and agenda, including the particular issues with which they will try to advance their destructive goal - and it lays out a strategy to defeat all of it.
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Title doesn't match content.
- By Gigi on 02-12-17
By: David Horowitz
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No Property in Man
- Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding
- By: Sean Wilentz
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Americans revere the Constitution even as they argue fiercely over its original toleration of slavery. Some historians have charged that slaveholders actually enshrined human bondage at the nation's founding. The acclaimed political historian Sean Wilentz shares the dismay but sees the Constitution and slavery differently. Although the proslavery side won important concessions, he asserts, antislavery impulses also influenced the framers' work. Far from covering up a crime against humanity, the Constitution restricted slavery's legitimacy under the new national government.
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Excellent review of Slavery and the Constitution
- By Amazon Customer on 01-01-19
By: Sean Wilentz
What listeners say about Four Threats
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- James F Hunt
- 09-15-20
A Must Read
Our American Democracy needs the support of All Americans. This is a must read for everyone who believes in Democracy and wants it to continue.
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- Angela Fobbs
- 12-31-20
Very informative
This book is a great history lesson and shows us what's going around in our society and how we can change it. and we are in big trouble so I would highly advise everyone to read this book and take heed.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-29-21
What could be more balanced
I absolutely agree with the author on the four pillars of democracy. I also absolutely agree with the premise that when more than two of these pillars are threatened, democracy itself may backslide. However, I do not agree with the author in that only one party has participated in denigrating each of the four pillars of the listed democracy. For me, that made this book a little bit hard to digest as it is not just one party who has participated in the downgrading of our great nation
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