From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Devil's
Bargain comes the revelatory inside story of the uprising within the
Democratic Party, of the economic populists led by Elizabeth Warren,
Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In his classic book Devil's Bargain, Joshua Green chronicled how the
forces of economic populism on the right, led by the likes of Steve
Bannon, turned Donald Trump into their flawed but powerful vessel. In
The Rebels, he gives an epic account of the long struggle that has
played out in parallel on the left, told through an intimate reckoning
with the careers of the three political figures who have led the charge
most prominently. Based on remarkable inside sourcing and razor-sharp
analysis, The Rebels uses the grand narrative of a political party
undergoing tumult and transformation to tell an even larger story about
the fate of America.
For many years, as Green recounts, the Democrats made their bed with
Wall Street and big tech, relying on corporate money for electioneering
and embracing the worldview that technological and financial innovation
and globalization were a powerful net good, a rising tide lifting all
boats. Yes, there were howls of pain, but they were written off by most
of the elites as the moaning of sore losers mired in the past. There
were always some Democratic politicians representing the old labor base
who resisted the new dispensation, but these figures never made it very
far on a national level. For one thing, they didn't have the money. But
as income inequality ballooned, widening the gulf between the wealthy
elite and everyone else, pressures began to build.
With the 2008 crisis, those forces finally erupted into plain sight,
turning this book's protagonists into national icons. At its heart, The
Rebels tells the riveting human story of the rise and fight of
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from the
financial crisis on, as outrage over the unfairness of the American
system formed a flood tide of political revolution. That same tide that
would sweep Trump into office was blunted on the left, as the Democratic
party found itself riven by culture war issues between its centrists and
its progressives. But the winds behind economic populism still howl at
gale force. Whether the Democrats can bridge their divisions and home in
on a vision that unites the party, and perhaps even the country, in the
face of the most violently deranged political landscape since the Civil
War will be the ultimate test of the legacies of all three characters.
A masterful account of one of the defining political stories of our age,
The Rebels cements Joshua Green's stature at the first rank of
American writers explaining how we've arrived at this pass and what lies
ahead.
