They Don't Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy - Hardcover

Lessig, Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062945718 ISBN 13: 9780062945716

Publisher: Dey Street Books, 2019

Synopsis

“This urgent book offers not only a clear-eyed explanation of the forces that broke our politics, but a thoughtful and, yes, patriotic vision of how we create a government that’s truly by and for the people.”―DAVID DALEY, bestselling author of Ratf**ked and Unrigged

In the vein of On Tyranny and How Democracies Die, the bestselling author of Republic, Lost argues with insight and urgency that our democracy no longer represents us and shows that reform is both necessary and possible.

America’s democracy is in crisis. Along many dimensions, a single flaw―unrepresentativeness―has detached our government from the people. And as a people, our fractured partisanship and ignorance on critical issues drive our leaders to stake out ever more extreme positions.

In They Don’t Represent Us, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig charts the way in which the fundamental institutions of our democracy, including our media, respond to narrow interests rather than to the needs and wishes of the nation’s citizenry. But the blame does not only lie with “them”―Washington’s politicians and power brokers, Lessig argues. The problem is also “us.” “We the people” are increasingly uninformed about the issues, while ubiquitous political polling exacerbates the problem, reflecting and normalizing our ignorance and feeding it back into the system as representative of our will.

What we need, Lessig contends, is a series of reforms, from governmental institutions to the public itself, including:

• A move immediately to public campaign funding, leading to more representative candidates
• A reformed Electoral College, that gives the President a reason to represent America as a whole
• A federal standard to end partisan gerrymandering in the states 
• A radically reformed Senate
• A federal penalty on states that don’t secure to their people an equal freedom to vote
• Institutions that empower the people to speak in an informed and deliberative way

A soul-searching and incisive examination of our failing political culture, this nonpartisan call to arms speaks to every citizen, offering a far-reaching platform for reform that could save our democracy and make it work for all of us.

About this title

About the Author:

Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, host of the podcast Another Way, founder of equalcitizens.us, and co-founder of Creative Commons. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. Lessig has received numerous awards, including a Webby Life Time Achievement Award, the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, the Fastcase 50 Award, and he was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and the author of ten books, including Republic, Lost. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Review:

“Lessig is right that a representative American democracy, desirable in itself, would also solve most of the problems that now seem insoluble. It is hard to imagine a more thoughtful and appealing companion in the hard work to move our system to where it ought to be: in our own hands.” (Timothy Snyder, bestselling author of On Tyranny and The Road to Unfreedom)

“Lessig, a leading proponent of campaign finance reform, now aims at something even bigger: fixing our broken system of representative democracy. This book is brimming with promising and provocative proposals to fix campaign finance, gerrymandering, the electoral college, the filibuster, and the mind-numbing effects of cable news and social media. It is a bold and bracing repair manual for government of, by, and for the people.” (Michael J. Sandel, bestselling author of What Money Can’t Buy)

“Lessig is a modern-day Paul Revere with a warning we must heed: Our representative democracy no longer represents us. The change we need is deep and serious. And it can’t be fixed with by one election, party, or politician. This urgent book offers not only a clear-eyed explanation of the forces that broke our politics, but a thoughtful and, yes, patriotic vision of how we create a government that’s truly by and for the people. We ignore his alarm at our own peril.” (David Daley, bestselling author of Ratf**ked and Unrigged)

“Everything Lessig writes should be carefully read. Read it, consider it, and most important, act on it. Our democracy is at stake.” (Nancy MacLean, bestselling author of Democracy in Chains)

“The American experiment in representative government is on life support. In his brilliant book, Lessig provides the medical record and a recommended course of care to save the patient.  Every American should read it ... stat!” (Roger McNamee bestselling author of Zucked)

“Full of original, provocative insights and surprising stories, this book is for all who seek to create effective democracy in America.” (Frances Moore Lappé, bestselling author of Diet for a Small Planet and coauthor with Adam Eichen of Daring Democracy.)

“Lessig proposes the making of a nonpartisan politics to breathe life into the corpse of America’s dysfunctional democracy. He does so with fierce and plainspoken clarity. A challenging work of the political imagination, unsweetened with pious cant.” (Lewis H. Lapham, editor and founder of Lapham’s Quarterly)

“Lessig is the thinking man’s popular reformer and this book is a powerful, patriotic and above all useful guide to the fixes for American representative democracy. Agree or disagree, it every citizen should read this book.” (Tim Wu, bestselling author of The Curse of Bigness)

“Lessig shines as one of democracy’s most passionate and complex thinkers. With spare prose and relentless reasoning, he combines the vision of a true seer, deep knowledge of the American Constitution, the laser focus of a neurosurgeon, and the practical sensibilities of the world’s best car mechanic. Lessig inspires the realization that a more democratic future is both necessary and possible. His book is a love letter to the American people and a down-to-earth blueprint of an evolving future in which we work together to fulfill the promise of humanity’s most important idea: We the people are endowed with the inalienable right to rule ourselves, free from the tyranny of kings, dictators, plutocrats, or computers.” (Shoshana Zuboff, bestselling author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Professor Emerita, Harvard Business School)

“Lessig has long been the leading voice on how corruption undermines American democracy. In this book, he trains his trademark wit and incisiveness on an even bigger problem: Our political institutions, he shows, are deeply unrepresentative. Thankfully, Lessig has an original plan for how to build on the principles of the Founding Fathers to make our institutions serve all Americans.” (Yascha Mounk, author of The People vs. Democracy)

About this edition

• Publisher: Dey Street Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0062945718
• ISBN 13: 9780062945716
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352