Author: jack

An excellent read for those of us wanting a better understanding of how our government works or doesn’t work. It is timely and informative.

The book being reviewed is “United States of Oligarchy: How America’s Wealthiest Ally with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy” by Casey Michel.

I could not have summarized the author’s credentials better than his own website. (https://www.caseymichel.com/)

“I’m the Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation, as well as a writer, analyst, and investigative journalist working on topics ranging from kleptocracy, illicit finance, and dark money to foreign lobbying and foreign interference.

I’ve written three books on the intersection of international corruption, foreign influence, and democracy in America and abroad, all published by St. Martin’s Press.“

I thought the discussion of oligarchy in general in the early part of the book was important to clarify what came later. The discussion of the influence of a relatively small number of very wealthy Americans (as opposed to vast majority of Americans) was disturbing. The influence of foreign oligarchs was even more disturbing.

The author gives many carefully researched examples of the super-wealthy controlling or having much influence over the government. Some may find it so disturbing it will be depressing. I found it best to take break from reading at frequent intervals in this section of the book.

I thank Netgalley (https://www.netgalley.com ) for the chance to read this before publication.
The book should be published on August 4 2026.

I think this is an important book and should be read by those on all sides of the political spectrum.

This is a review I posted about 2 years ago on Goodreads and it seems relevant to current events,

It is by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt whose earlier book “How Democracies Die” I had reviewed about 4 years ago. They are professors of government at Harvard University. They like many other Americans were shocked by the violent insurrection of January 6, 2020.

Coups and violent insurrections happen in some democracies but most of us thought they would not happen here. This book is an attempt to figure out why and how it happened. And, of course, how we can prevented it from happening again.

The answer is complicated and so the authors discuss many things. I think the information was presented well and explained in a way that was easy to follow.

For example, the United States democracy can be usefully compared to other democracies to see how other have address similar problems. To prevent majorities in large states from imposing rules that benefit them at the expense of small states, the founders decided to give all states an equal number of Senators in the Constitution.

This apparent equality leads to situation where California with 39 million residents and Wyoming with less than 600 thousand residents are equally represented in the Senate. To make matters worse the Senate has a filibuster rule where a minority of 41 of 100 Senators can block a bill. So the minority of Senators, often representing a very small percentage of the population can defeat a bill favored by a majority of Senators and a much larger majority of citizens.

The authors call such situations tyranny of the minority or anti-majoritarian institutions.

The Electoral College is another problematic institution. In recent years, it has often resulted in the candidate with fewer votes of the citizens winning the Presidency by winning the most electors.

The authors closed “How Democracies Die” like this:
“Democracy is a shared enterprise. Its fate depends on all of us.”

The authors closed their introduction to “Tyranny of the Minority” like this:
“Our institutions will not save our democracy. We will have to save it ourselves.”

I highly recommend this book. It was interesting, thought provoking, and well written. Importantly, it leads to a better understanding of our government. This understanding is an important step in saving the democratic institutions of our government and attempting to reform those less democratic parts.