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I started reading this before the election, and overall it is an excellent intro to how and why the systems of American democracy, capitalism, and politics are not pure at all. I think some core points are very powerful to keep in mind when discussing or hearing any political discourse:
Core points:
- Talking points: Why in the richest country in the history of the planet, are people still struggling to get by, having to work multiple jobs just to put food on their tables? Why can corporations, interest groups, and ultra-rich individuals pay to get what they want done in government, when there is supposed to be a fair and equal election process free from these types of partisan influences? Why do corporations consistently get to exploit the public to make record profits while receiving tax cuts and bailouts from the government? Why do the politicians seem to get absolutely nothing done to improve the lives of the people they are supposed to be representing? I think these are all questions that most people would agree are problems today.
- Both major political parties are heavily incentivized by and beholden to their financial backers to pursue their agendas. Due to loose political election rules, and the 2010 Citizens United case, there is essentially no limit on political contributions from interest groups and billionaires. Due to the near necessity of these political contributions to defeat other incumbents and interest group candidates, even if a candidate doesn't want to, it is almost impossible to win without them. Therefore, any candidate looking to change the systems in place to do such a thing as abolish these contributions is very rare, and the entrenched establishment opposes such regulations, despite being popular among the people. Donald Trump's greatest talent is manipulation of the masses through modern media, so he capitalizes on the feeling of the system being 'rigged', but of course doing something about the system other than tearing it down would be the antithesis of his actual existence. This leaves me to wonder how to actually achieve such reform when so much is against it happening. A salient example is about the health insurance industry, who has an army of lobbyists in Washington to control the politicians, when in reality the existence of the health insurance industry helps nobody actually achieve anything health related.
- The Democratic party has been unfocused and lost their primary support base for a reason. The bottom line is that people are struggling, and want an answer to make their lives materially better. They need to actually make changes to help the working class with higher wages, better healthcare, and worker rights; regulate big industries that screw over the everyday man rather than bail them out when they are in trouble without anything more than a slap on the wrist; and reform the system to make it easier to vote and harder to exploit tax and political loopholes. Whether or not the plight of the lower and middle class is actually their fault directly is a different question, but their recent messaging certainly doesn't help. How can a struggling family that can barely afford rent even begin to care about Trans rights, the subtleties of peace in Gaza, or pronouns? Bernie softly criticizes the shift to identity / social politics here as needing to reframe the focus of the party to the middle class, which I certainly think is true. Recent evidence also includes the absolute media strategy failure of the Harris campaign to not reach across the aisle to a group of voters that would be likely to listen to them (The bases of Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, other alternative media, etc.). Refusing to do so only reinforces this caricature of them as not actually human. I listened to the Nancy Pelosi NYT Post-mortem on the election, and I had to turn it off after 10 minutes. It's much clearer to me what the word "Establishment" means now -- she went on and on about how the election wasn't actually lost and that the Democratic party has a great identity still.
- Fundamentally, capitalism encourages those who have money to make more money, while the state has the mandate to protect the marginalized people, and also is the catch-all scapegoat when things go wrong. The erosion of societal programs (infrastructure, social security, lack of protections for workers, decline of education, etc.) while the federal debt skyrockets, among other factors, leads to a massive increase in mistrust in the government. Showing that a candidate authentically wishes to and can help build this back is important to retain hope for the future of American politics.
- Change takes gradual, grassroots uprising of ideas and movement. Anyone in power wants to resist this change, so actually getting it done is insanely difficult. I mostly wonder what the next step for this movement is, considering Bernie is like 85 years old.

Criticisms:
I think it's unlikely for a person who wholly disagrees with Bernie to consume some media with him on it, nevertheless read a book on him. I would have appreciated more discussion into what specifics would be useful to know about for certain policies. Realistically I'm not going to read the Senate proceedings, so something beyond the summarized talking points about changes to:
- healthcare/pharma/insurance (What to do with the corporations that would be hollowed out by this, they won't go down without a fight)
- political reform (Would presidential power be enough to implement these, how else would they be enacted, considering almost all elected officials in Congress are beholden to those interests?)
- taxes (Some details about progressive tax plans, and how they would help reduce the federal deficit?)
- military spending (The military as it exists is helpful for American Hegemony, which relates to the Dollar's purchase power. Just saying "let's cut the spending" is not going to work, there has to be some strategy here. A counter to the immediate Realist counterpoint would be welcome)
- Education (How to actually reform the existing system to be more like the Scandinavian models that sound great: How about societal implications of the role of education and being educated in comparison to East Asian countries? )
- Robotics and AI (I have no clue how this could be properly regulated, though he does provide some pie in the sky suggestions)
- Unions and workers rights (There are some more specifics about this, but it would be interesting to know more details)

More criticisms:
- The section about the DNC, the Democratic party, and Joe Biden seemed to be strategically cut down. Of course I understand Bernie is still in office and it can benefit his agenda to not offend people who he has to work with still, but I think these sections are not scathing enough. Defeating Trumpism is also an important motivation for Bernie, but I think to make his point even better, going all guns blazing on the system would be more useful. Point out the hypocrisy on both sides, and lay out the path for the next generation to pick up.
- The tone is very casual at times, it almost feels like Bernie narrated it through a speech to text app. This is probably intentional to keep his usual tone, but perhaps some academics in this area would dislike this aspect and make it less of a 'serious' text.

Conclusion:
Overall, I would definitely recommend it as it's an accessible intro to all of these ideas and why the current political landscape is the way it is. I'm still new to many of these concepts, and it helps me be much more informed when speaking about what the real issues of Americans today are.