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and How Democracies Die, the bestselling author of Republic, Lost argues with insight and urgency that our democracy no longer represents us and shows that reform is both necessary and possible.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

Print length

352 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Dey Street Books
Publication date

November 5, 2019
Dimensions

6 x 1.13 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0062945718
ISBN-13

978-0062945716
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Sergey Menshikov

Balanced analysis of the problem with interesting ideas proposed

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2021

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Lessig's description of the representation problem does not leave much room for interpretation, it's pretty well argued. He does critique Republicans, but he does the same to Democrats - his analysis of "safe seats" in California creating left extremists is very believable.

You might not agree with his analysis of the media, but it also rings very true, again both left and right - they need to sell their content, so the content is made to excite the base, again, feeding extremists.

The solutions offered have many good points, you might not agree, but he asks for a discussion. His best examples feature people battling the representation problem in a completely nonpartisan way.

In short - you owe it to yourself to read at least the first chapter where he describes the representation problem. I believe that even if you skip the places you don't like, the book is very well worth the time.

Favorite quote: "Our actual system doesn't benefit the elite (on balance); it benefits no one. ... is not an oligarchy leveraging its power to steer government to the wealthy's ends. Our system is vultures feeding on the carcass of a dead water buffalo"

5 people found this helpful

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Bill de la Vega

great analysis and advice for a (nearly) intractable problem

Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2020

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Finished this book today and I thought it was great. If you are looking for a breakdown of structural issues in our political systems, it would be hard to do better.

I follow politics pretty closely and am very concerned with recent trends - so it's right up my alley. It should be broadly appealing - if you're concerned and/or confused, this may be a good introduction.

I think some of the low ratings are from people who don't like the author, more than a commentary on the book. E.g. this is not a history book (but it has lots of footnotes to source material).

One 2 star review says "too much politics sprinkled". Ahh, it is about issues with the way government in the USA works, so yeah, it has a lot of politics in it!

7 people found this helpful

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Ben

This is an instant classic.

Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2019

This is a brilliant book. A master at the height of his craft. Lessig has been writing seminal books for a long time. This one is perhaps the most powerful, because it takes several of his most passionately argued theses about money in politics, election reform, and media/democracy -- and it constructs a big story about what ails America today. He is humble about where he got it wrong before and open about the questions for which there are no clear answers. It is argued like a law professor -- often beautiful in its precision; yet it is perfectly accessible to anyone with a newspaper knowledge of American law and government. And while he doesn't hide is political views, the ideas presented here are rendered so plainly and fairly that partisans of all stripes will find that they resonate.

The book will be most impressive to those that have spent time on these issues before. But it is written in such a way that the beginner and the expert alike will find lots to learn. There are many great books on the topic of how to make democracy work again. I have read a lot of them. But I can't think of a better one than this. He does not shy away from the complexity of the problems, the deep roots of their history and the scars of past struggles. He offers ideas large and small that can help us see positive change without boiling the ocean. But what is most inspired about this work is that it fosters hope that we can be the America we want to be again. At a time when it seems all politics is the politics of strife, conflict and emergency -- Lessig shows why we must be stay with it.

14 people found this helpful

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George S. Leaf

Lots of opinion light on facts

Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2020

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Far too many biased statements with no reference sited nor back up data.

6 people found this helpful

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blairf

Phenomenal take on political corruption

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2020

Absolute masterpiece describing our nation's true system of government and how far we've swayed from it's original purpose. Great points on voter issues and how to correct the way we choose elected leaders.

One person found this helpful

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AnonymousMan

Raises an Eyebrow

Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2020

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I can agree on some points, but lots of non-sequiturs where biased statements are being made. This is one of "those" books that raises an eyebrow for presenting concrete biases as facts despite having only one author.

[Claim] -> [historical analysis] -> [moderate opinion] -> [strong claim (usually about racist Republicans)] -> [retraction to moderate opinion to show how unbiased he is]

It's ok to show bias, but at least have a solid line of thought that anyone can follow. I understand though: it's written for his audience, not written for an argument. I've read history books that are more subtle than this for something claiming non-partisanship. The author makes rather strong claims that a history book wouldn't touch with a 50-foot pole.

7 people found this helpful

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Terry Jennrich

This book contains one valid idea. The rest are either wrong or biased.

Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2020

The one correct point he made is that Congress does NOT represent the average American Voter any more, if it ever did. We do need to fix this problem. But Mr. Lessig's proposals are not likely to solve the problem by creating better informed representation between the people and their representatives in Congress and the state legislatures. The issue is how do we hold our representatives accountable for enacting polices people want compared to the types of laws and policies that Congress passes? And how do we educate the voters not to want bad or dumb polices? He did not really solve those sub issues. So I cannot recommend anyone read this book.

6 people found this helpful

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MQD

Interesting but too much politics sprinkled

Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2019

Making it through Chapter one and am disappointed that the author has resorted to party line politics with misleading statements mixing meanings to get people hot under the collar. I used to enjoy listening to him but he has resorted to tactics to sell books in this one. I gave it two stars because I just started and wanted to be generous.

Moving to Harvard seems not to be a good influence.

Will revise if needed as I go.

7 people found this helpful

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