The central message of this book: the American Right has been winning elections, gaining supporters, and enriching donors by stoking racial resentment and fear through coded language. The Left has one of four choices to make: they can try to beat the right at their own game of racial dog-whistling ( ...more
In 2016, Donald Trump won. Not only did he win, but the right wing won – they won back the presidency, defeating the left. In the United States, the left has recently found itself divided. In 2016, the Democratic party found itself at odds with its own members, with different parts of the electorate ...more
This book has crucially important analysis and concrete suggestions for how progressive candidates can rip up the playbook that Trump and other right-wing faux populists use to divide and conquer the working and middle class. This is how we win in 2020 and beyond. ...more
An insightful and essential book about how to message progressive politics in the age of Trumpism. Racial dog whistles-in combination with other strategies like a culture war around religion and gender--have for decades worked to pull white people away from economic populism. The answer, Haney Lopez ...more
I really liked this book. This book is for organizers who want to learn more about messaging that can move persuadable people to action. The lessons in this book are important pieces of the puzzle of how we organize to build progressive majorities after the election of Joe Biden.
I won this book as a Goodreads Giveaway. The book provides a lot of insight into both the Republican and Democratic parties, and his race has played a role in both parties to help win elections. Overall, I found this book educational and thought provoking. Slight hesitation about the accuracy of som ...more
This book was interesting and convincing, and I strongly recommend it. Merge Left breaks down in easy-to-follow terms (backed by research) how messaging that addresses race and class together can reach critical voters and change outcomes of elections. ...more
There's a lot here and I found it fascinating, especially in light of 2020 and dog whistling. I don't entirely agree with the premise, but it certainly requires thinking and reassessing your beliefs. ...more
Insightful points with lots of concrete examples about how race and class play with and against each other in political forums. Most interesting to me was the examples of essentially the same idea being conveyed with slightly different wording or framing and how it changed the audience's reception o ...more
Had read the author's book and was very curious about this book. This conversation about trying to reconcile the issues of race, class and more to build winning coalitions for elections and addressing tensions is a timely and ongoing conversation. So I thought this book would be a good read.