The Broken Branch
How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track
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Narrated by:
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Paul Mantell
About this listen
Congress is the first branch of government in the American system, write Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, but now it is a broken branch, damaged by partisan bickering and internal rancor. The Broken Branch offers both a brilliant diagnosis of the cause of Congressional decline and a much-needed blueprint for change, from two experts who understand politics and revere our institutions, but believe that Congress has become deeply dysfunctional. Mann and Ornstein, two of the nations most renowned and judicious scholars of government and politics, bring to light the historical roots of Congress's current maladies, examining 40 years of uninterrupted Democratic control of the House and the stunning midterm election victory of 1994 that propelled Republicans into the majority in both House and Senate. The byproduct of that long and grueling but ultimately successful Republican campaign, the authors reveal, was a weakened institution bitterly divided between the parties. They highlight the dramatic shift in Congress from a highly decentralized, committee-based institution into a much more regimented one in which party increasingly trumps committee. The resultant changes in the policy process - the demise of regular order, the decline of deliberation, and the weakening of our system of checks and balances - have all compromised the role of Congress in the American Constitutional system. Strong majority leadership in Congress, the authors conclude, led not to a vigorous exertion of congressional authority but to a general passivity in the face of executive power. A vivid portrait of an institution that has fallen far from the aspirations of our Founding Fathers, The Broken Branch highlights the costs of a malfunctioning Congress to national policymaking, and outlines what must be done to repair the damage.
©2006, 2008 Oxford University Press, Inc. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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By: Ira Katznelson
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents
- From Wilson to Obama
- By: Steven F. Hayward
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Academics, journalists, and popular historians agree: our greatest presidents are the ones who confronted a national crisis and mobilized the entire nation to face it. That’s the conventional wisdom. The chief executives who are celebrated in textbooks and placed in the top echelon of presidents in surveys of experts are the bold leaders - the Woodrow Wilsons and Franklin Roosevelts - who reshaped the United States in line with their grand “vision” for America. Unfortunately, along the way, these “great” presidents inevitably expanded government - and shrank our liberties.
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Really enjoyed it
- By Jkc-007 on 02-15-17
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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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To End a Presidency
- By: Laurence Tribe, Joshua Matz
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser, Laurence Tribe - preface
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The history and future of our democracy's ultimate sanction, presidential impeachment, and a guide to how it should be used now. To End a Presidency addresses one of today's most urgent questions: when and whether to impeach a president. Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz provide an authoritative guide to impeachment's past and a bold argument about its proper role today. In an era of expansive presidential power and intense partisanship, we must rethink impeachment for the 21st century.
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A Primer on Impeachment and our Present Dilemma
- By J.B. on 05-20-18
By: Laurence Tribe, and others
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Enlightened Democracy
- The Case for the Electoral College, 2nd Edition
- By: Tara Ross
- Narrated by: Tara Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Enlightened Democracy traces the history of the Electoral College from the Constitutional Convention to the present. The Electoral College protects our republic and promotes our liberty. Americans should defend their unique presidential election system at all costs.
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Hold your breath
- By Ein on 03-13-20
By: Tara Ross
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Why the Right Went Wrong
- Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond
- By: E. J. Dionne Jr.
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Why the Right Went Wrong offers a historical view of the right since the 1960s. Its core contention is that American conservatism and the Republican Party took a wrong turn when they adopted Barry Goldwater's worldview during and after the 1964 campaign. Since 1968, no conservative administration could live up to the rhetoric rooted in the Goldwater movement that began to reshape American politics 50 years ago.
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Outstanding, refreshing, inspiring
- By James Adams on 03-19-16
By: E. J. Dionne Jr.
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Power Grab
- The Liberal Scheme to Undermine Trump, the GOP, and Our Republic
- By: Jason Chaffetz
- Narrated by: Jason Chaffetz
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In Power Grab, Chaffetz pulls back the curtain on the world of hypocrisy, political intrigue, and procedural malfeasance that is Washington, DC. With stories you won't hear anywhere else, he shows how the left weaves false narratives, drums up investigations in search of a crime, and refuses to direct congressional oversight towards its appropriate target: the government. Democrats weaponize nonprofit advocacy groups and monetize partisan anger to line the pockets of their political allies.
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Power Grab
- By Margaret on 10-01-19
By: Jason Chaffetz
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The Quiet Man
- The Indispensable Presidency of George H.W. Bush
- By: John H. Sununu
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In this unique insider account, John H. Sununu pays tribute to his former boss - an intelligent, thoughtful, modest leader - and his overlooked accomplishments. Though George H. W. Bush is remembered for orchestrating one of the largest and most successful military campaigns in history - the Gulf War - Sununu argues that conventional wisdom misses many of Bush's other great achievements.
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Outstanding Biograpy
- By Warren Brookes on 07-25-15
By: John H. Sununu
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The Impostors
- How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics
- By: Steve Benen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The award-winning producer of The Rachel Maddow Show exposes the Republican Party as a gang of impostors, meticulously documenting how they have abandoned their duty to govern and are gravely endangering America.
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Three Card Monte Politics
- By J.B. on 06-19-20
By: Steve Benen
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Four Threats
- The Recurring Crises of American Democracy
- By: Suzanne Mettler, Robert C. Lieberman
- Narrated by: Andrea Gallo
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Four Threats, Lieberman and Mettler explore five historical episodes when democracy in the United States 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, and on occasion antidemocratic forces have prevailed. From this history, four distinct characteristics of democratic disruption emerge. Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power...have threatened the survival of the republic.
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Very informative
- By Angela Fobbs on 12-31-20
By: Suzanne Mettler, and others
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Working Class Republican
- Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism
- By: Henry Olsen
- Narrated by: Derek Shetterly
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Conventional political wisdom views the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century - FDR and Ronald Reagan - as ideological opposites. FDR is hailed as the champion of big-government progressivism manifested in the New Deal. Reagan is seen as the crusader for conservatism dedicated to small government and free markets. But Henry Olsen argues that this assumption is wrong.
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Refreshing and insightful
- By Thomas Marks on 12-16-19
By: Henry Olsen
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History Teaches Us to Resist
- How Progressive Movements Have Succeeded in Challenging Times
- By: Mary Frances Berry
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Despair and mourning after the election of an antagonistic or polarizing president, such as Donald Trump, is part of the push-pull of American politics. But in this incisive audiobook, historian Mary Frances Berry shows that resistance to presidential administrations has led to positive change and the defeat of outrageous proposals, even in challenging times.
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a MUST read
- By Jim Ballows on 10-18-21
What listeners say about The Broken Branch
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Steven
- 01-08-23
We’re hopeless
It’s definitely true that all branches are broken, corrupt and leading our great nation to ruin all for personal/tribal power!!!
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