Book #40 of 2019:

Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance by Bernie Sanders

This latest book from Bernie Sanders was published shortly before the Vermont senator officially announced that he would once more be seeking the Democratic nomination for president, but it has clearly been written with the intent of making that case to voters. And since the author’s favored policies are fairly well-known after his unsuccessful previous attempt in 2016, this volume is aimed less at explaining that progressive platform and more at arguing for its current popularity around the country and detailing in diary fashion how Sanders has fought to enact it since losing the nomination last time around.

Overall, the latter goal is better achieved than the former, with Bernie often asserting that Americans are with him on a topic without offering any particular proof to that effect. But he does offer specific concrete actions that he’s taken to shift the nation leftwards, from campaigning tirelessly on behalf of Hillary Clinton, to holding townhalls on the need for single-payer healthcare, to joining protests for a living wage at Disney parks and the fight-for-fifteen more broadly, to introducing legislation with Elizabeth Warren for universal childcare, and so much more.

In the end, this is a politician’s campaign book, an ephemeral object that might be helpful in the context of an election but likely won’t even be worth remembering a year from then. And even within that genre, this one is a little unpolished, with its journal entries often coming across as strange after the fact: the senator includes his initial opposition to Brett Kavanaugh, for instance, without any reference to the later allegations that have surfaced about the eventual Supreme Court justice’s alcohol abuse and sexual assaults, and he brags about helping certain candidates win their primaries even when they have not gone on to victory in the general.

Common criticisms of Sanders also remain relevant, such as an occasional unfortunate tone-deafness on issues of race. He is quick to describe groups of his supporters or people affected by an issue as “white, black, Latino, Asian-American, and Native American,” but less skilled — although improving, especially compared to many other Democrats — at discussing the particular concerns of particular racial communities. Voters who have never liked the independent Vermonter are unlikely to be won over by anything in this book, but readers like me who have previously felt their support cooling may well end up feeling the Bern once more.

★★★☆☆

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