Experience a "brilliant exploration" (Walter Isaacson) of America's
political culture war and a hilarious call to arms for the elite, with
three chapters on foibles of the pandemic era.
"I can think of no one more suited to defend elitism than Stein, a funny
man with hands as delicate as a baby full of soft-boiled eggs." --Jimmy
Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The night Donald Trump won the presidency, our author Joel Stein,
Thurber Prize finalist and former staff writer for Time Magazine,
instantly knew why. The main reason wasn't economic anxiety or racism.
It was that he was anti-elitist. Hillary Clinton represented Wall
Street, academics, policy papers, Davos, international treaties and the
people who think they're better than you. People like Joel Stein. Trump
represented something far more appealing, which was beating up people
like Joel Stein.
In a full-throated defense of academia, the mainstream press,
medium-rare steak, and civility, Joel Stein fights against populism. He
fears a new tribal elite is coming to replace him, one that will fend
off expertise of all kinds and send the country hurtling backward to a
time of wars, economic stagnation and the well-done steaks doused with
ketchup that Trump eats.
To find out how this shift happened and what can be done, Stein spends a
week in Roberts County, Texas, which had the highest percentage of Trump
voters in the country. He goes to the home of Trump-loving Dilbert
cartoonist Scott Adams; meets people who create fake news; and finds the
new elitist organizations merging both right and left to fight the
populists. All the while using the biggest words he knows.
