The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington by David Sirota

From the Publisher

An All-Access Pass to the Populist
Insurrection Brewing Across the Country

Job outsourcing. Perpetual busy signals at government agencies. Slashed paychecks. Stolen elections. A war without end, fatally mismanaged. Ordinary Americans on both the Right and Left are tired of being disenfranchised by corrupt politicians of both parties and are organizing to change the status quo. In his invigorating new book, David Sirota investigates whether this uprising can be transformed into a unified, lasting political movement.

Throughout the course of American history, uprisings like the one we are seeing now have given birth to powerful movements to end wars, protect workers, and expand civil rights, so the prospect of today’s uprising turning into a full-fledged populist movement terrifies Wall Street and Washington. In The Uprising, Sirota takes us far from the national media spotlight into the trenches where real change is happening—from the headquarters of the most powerful third party in America to the bowels of the U.S. Senate; from the auditorium of an ExxonMobil shareholder meeting to the quasi-military staging area of a vigilante force on the Mexican border. This is vital, on-the-ground reporting that immerses us in the tumultuous give-and-take of politics at its most personal.

Sirota also offers a biting critique of our politics. He shows how the uprising is, at its core, a reaction to faux “bipartisanship” in the nation’s capital—the “bipartisanship” whereby Republican and Democratic lawmakers join together in putting the agenda of corporate interests above all those of ordinary citizens.

Ultimately, Sirota reminds us that the Declaration of Independence, “America’s original uprising manifesto,” says that governments “derive their powers from the consent of the governed.” Irreverent and insightful, The Uprising shows how the governed have stopped consenting and have started taking action.

The Washington Post - Michael Kazin

David Sirota, a 32-year-old progressive activist and journalist, spent a year on the road chronicling what he thinks are the stirrings of a mass revolt against the wealthy and the powerful. He may not have the Establishment quaking in its Guccis, but his always energetic, often ironic reporting certainly made the quest worthwhile…The Uprising is a hard book to dislike or dismiss. Sirota reports cleverly and in pleasing detail about a complex world of political conflict that the journalistic throng obsessed with presidential candidates and their handlers seldom notices.

Publishers Weekly

Sirota (Hostile Takeover) chronicles how ordinary citizens on the right and the left are marshaling their frustrations with the government into uprisings across the country and analyzes the effectiveness and longevity of their efforts. Citing developments as disparate as progressive political victories in the Montana state senate and the rise of the California Minutemen militia, the author weaves entertaining case studies, keeping his tone conversational, the narrative fast-paced and the content accessible. Sirota hits numerous high notes, including a fine elucidation of continuing Democratic support for the Iraq War, a breakdown of the "echo chamber" qualities of beltway television shows like Hardball and salient observations of how and why the Democratic Party severed ties with the liberal uprising of the '60s era. According to Sirota, "The activism and energy frothing today is disconnected and atomized. The only commonality between it all is rage." It remains to be seen whether this rage will snowball into something large enough to upset entrenched political systems, but for the time being, this book presents a rousing account of the local uprisings already in effect. (June)

Kirkus Reviews

The time to reclaim America has come, declares blogger and political columnist Sirota (Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government-and How We Take It Back, 2006). He starts at the 2006 YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas, then moves on to a dozen other places where people are "mad as hell" about the monied elite's domination of government. In Albany, Sirota zeroes in on the Working Families Party, which has exerted clout over Democratic politicians through a quirk in New York State's electoral system known as "fusion voting" (cross-endorsing another party's candidate), enabling disgruntled progressives to pull the WFP lever without throwing an election to a Republican. In Southern California, he spends an evening with the Minutemen who patrol the Mexican border looking for undocumented immigrants. This right-wing militia group, Sirota argues, shares the economic anxiety that motivates left-wing activism against corporate consolidation, outsourcing and tax cuts for the wealthy. In Washington, the author checks on two branches of antiwar activism: the anti-establishment "Protest Industry," a ragtag group largely outside the political system; and a bunch of insiders he calls The Players, who try to change that system from within. Sirota hopes to demonstrate that the ingredients for a cohesive populist movement are all around us, if only those who would benefit from the demise of the American political establishment would join forces and make it happen. He damages his case with too many wide-eyed, faux-naive asides-it's especially unconvincing when Sirota, a former Senate employee, is shocked to "discover" that lobbyists have massive influence over the Montana statelegislature. Winking bad-boy references (a hangover-induced vomiting spell halted by an epiphany that "it's all connected") don't enhance his credibility either. A disparate collection of tales about Americans fighting against the economic and political tide that Sirota never succeeds in drawing together to make a compelling case that the populist uprising is upon us. Agent: Will Lippincott/Lippincott Massie McQuilkin

Product Details

• ISBN: 0307395634
  
• ISBN-13: 9780307395634
• Format: Hardcover, 352pp
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
• Pub. Date: May 2008
• Sales Rank: 16,212

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents