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It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics
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It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics

3.93  ·  Rating details ·  363 ratings  ·  65 reviews
It's time to do more than protest

The American electoral system is clearly falling apart—as evidenced by the 2016 presidential election. In It’s Time to Fight Dirty, David Faris offers accessible, actionable strategies for American institutional reform which don’t require a constitutional amendment, and would have a lasting impact on our future.

With equal amounts of playfu
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Kindle Edition, 202 pages
Published April 10th 2018 by Melville House
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Average rating 3.93  · 
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Conor Ahern
May 24, 2018 rated it really liked it
I came across David Faris because he writes for "The Week," which is a great place for opinion pieces and news for people who are unafraid to access such things even if they are adorned by unapologetic snark. He has contributed to the quixotic call for Democrats to pack the Supreme Court, a proposal that pretty much occupies the confluence of what's left of my propriety anxieties about orthodoxy and being a lawyer.

And I think that would probably be the thing that is used to discredit Faris and
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Mehrsa
Sep 16, 2018 rated it it was amazing
This book is hilarious and refreshing. Republicans have not been acting fairly and Democrats need to play hardball. I don't agree with all these plans, but I do agree with the general theme--all these things that we think are sacred are not. The Constitution says nothing about a 9 person Supreme Court and originalism has been used to create absurd takes on the second amendment. Why does California have the same number of senators as Rhode Island? It's ok to update the constitutional structure cr ...more
Jerry Smith
Apr 24, 2018 rated it liked it
Shelves: politics, 2018-read
I share Faris' contempt and loathing for what the GOP has become. I am tired of seeing the fascist crackpot conspiracy theories that come across the social media feeds upon which I still keep a scant eye. It is hilarious and pathetic to me that McConnell is currently whining that the Dems are holding up this administration's (and I love how DF calls it a Vichy Administration!) appointments as though this is unprecedented obstructionism and the GOP would never do such a thing. I detest him and al ...more
Marc
May 14, 2018 rated it really liked it
Shelves: politics
Great book about the structural changes that democrats should operate when they get back in power.

Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico seems very feasible if liberals control the White House and Congress as the author suggests.
Matt Morrill
Jul 06, 2018 rated it it was amazing
Red Meat for Liberals Like Me

For those of us who consider themselves part of the Left, this is the salve you need to balance out the daily antics of the dystopian slow motion clown car crash that is the Trump presidency. Faris lays out a 100 days campaign for the Democrats the next time they're in power to rectify some of the main structural disadvantages they face. I love his ideas, but I love his writing style even more. His creativity shows in all the different ways he refers to our current c
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Samantha
Really, really interesting ideas on how we can enact longterm and long-reaching progressive reform in our government. I really enjoyed the ideas in this book.
Bradley Herring
Jun 24, 2018 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: politics
I adored this book. David Faris, a contributor to The Week and associate professor at Roosevelt University, has taken stock of where the Democrats find themselves in the age of Trump and suggested a bold strategy to right the ship of American politics.

An obnoxious amount of leftist politics these days is fighting against the demand by the gate-keepers that we keep our politics civil and stick to norms. Just over the past week, we've seen tut-tutting from the usual suspects about bold moves from
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Antoinette Perez
Only in this country is fighting by the same rules as the other team considered fighting dirty! And yet. There's a good collection of ideas here, from the actionable and attainable to the "not in my lifetime but interesting anyway". Good read for anyone ready to think outside this iron, soundproofed, padlocked box we're in.
Derek
Oct 19, 2020 rated it liked it
Faris lifts up some good ideas that have been floating around a while, but does so with inflamed rhetoric combined with a strong reliance upon political science which suggests he hasn't had much experience actually trying to win any political victory in the real world.
Kaye McSpadden
Jul 24, 2018 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: read-non-fiction
THIS is what I've been needing. Feeling disheartened about the lack of a clear and unified response by Democrats to the growing disaster in American government, I've been desperate for a strong voice and a smart plan. While Faris may not have the stuff to actually BE a political leader (check him out on youtube), he has written a book that all Democratic and progressive leaders should read. (And so should YOU.)

For the first time, I now understand why it is that Democratic candidates keep losing
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David Wineberg
Jan 09, 2018 rated it liked it
It’s Time To Fight Dirty is built on the false premise that the only way Democrats can take over from Republicans is to be worse than Republicans. They should be at least as obstructive, uncooperative, unreasonable and irrational as the Republicans were during the Obama Administration. This is not a recipe for a better democracy. Or a better country. It is a recipe for disaster – a race to the bottom. But in David Faris’ world, winning is everything.

Faris maintains acting civilly only lets Repu
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John O'Sullivan
Nov 06, 2018 rated it really liked it
This is a great read for progressive audiences that are engaged with politics, but don't feel like there's any overarching vision in the DNC. Faris picks four concrete reforms, explaining how they would happen and how they would help Democrats. The bullet-point summary of this book would serve as a great campaign platform. Give statehood to places that deserve it, expand voting rights for all, move Supreme Court appointments to a 2-year cycle, and get rid of First Past the Post. Those are all id ...more
Quentin
Nov 05, 2018 rated it it was amazing
A short and biting book that is unsparing in the challenges that progressives face to enact legislation, and the steps they will need to take to do so.

Faris argues that since the 1990s, conservatives have wages what he calls a "procedural war" in Washington, D.C., exploiting ambiguities in the constitution and procedural norms that are otherwise un-codified, to enact a regressive agenda. Faris argues that progressives will need to focus on addressing these deficiencies if they want to get anyth
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Jeff
Oct 19, 2018 rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition
An aggressive and convincing game plan for the next ten years, if we have that long.

“...Democrats and their progressive allies must fight. They must fight dirty. They must seize all the tools granted to them by the Constitution and they must not hold back on using any of them because it will strike some people as unsportsmanlike. They must not apologize. If they can muster the will to do the things outlined in this book, we might eventually find ourselves, for the first time in our history, with
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Kim  Scripture
Dec 10, 2018 rated it really liked it
He's right. But he is a bit glib on some of his more difficult ideas...such as dividing California into separate States. But some of the directives are very attainable. Except you need all of the Democrats to get on board so I hope they or their staff are reading this book (or other's like it). Folks could write their elected official and suggest aggressive pursuit of the attainable ideas (like National Voter reform).
Kaitlin Barnes
May 25, 2020 rated it really liked it
This book has some radical ideas and I am here for it!
Ed
Apr 26, 2018 rated it it was ok
Since it is unlikely that the 2020 election will give us a socialist majority in both the House and Senate, it is very important what strategies and tactics the liberal Democrats of today are cooking up for their inevitable next turn at the wheel. David Faris’s It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics shows that liberals (or at least a certain faction of liberals) are actually beginning to think about the exercise of power in governance and also b ...more
Dan
May 13, 2018 rated it it was ok  ·  review of another edition
Rating: 2/5 (It's okay). When I read an excerpt of It's Time to Fight Dirty in the Guardian, it easily went to the top of my "To-Read" List. I was ready to print off Remember Merrick Garland! T-shirts and signs as we rallied to restore democracy from the throes of political capture and constitutional crisis. When I read David Faris' book however, I was disappointed to discover that the title wasn't just bombast designed to attract readers. He really does write the book as a(n) (unrealistic) game ...more
Steven
Aug 19, 2018 rated it really liked it
I dig Faris's insult comic schtick. And I agree, more or less, with his essential premise. I'm not sure about all of his specific proposals, of course, but the basic idea that the Democrats should start throwing punches, and in general take power more seriously, is indisputable. So I suppose this is a book for me. About those specific proposals, though. I'm reasonably confident that breaking California up into six states is a non-starter--both for the obvious retail-politics reasons and because ...more
Aileen Day
Jan 18, 2019 rated it really liked it
Overall I was surprised with how radical this book was, I should have known by the name, but I think I was taken back because Democrats are playing it way too safe in fear of losing the messaging, news flash we always lose the messaging. Mitch wasn't worried about that with the supreme court hold up on Gardland, his supporters even support that snake move. These ideas laid out also seem extreme because of how locked in our rules seem to be, even norms that are strict rules in the Constitution, s ...more
Robert Starr
Nov 16, 2019 rated it liked it
Speaking as somebody who doesn't actually know anything about anything: Every Democratic politician should read this book. They won't and, even if they did, they'd do that typical Democrat thing where they laugh and shake their head and say, "That's not how things work." And if it was 10 years ago, I'd believe them.

If we've learned anything from the Trump administration (and the years leading up to it) it's that there aren't any rules, so long as your party is united.

The ideas Faris puts forth h
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Devin
Jun 09, 2019 rated it liked it
So, I agree with almost every structural reform proposal to the American system in the book, and taken together the arguments are strong and deserve to be closer to the center of the political conversation. I'd need more persuasion to go beyond dividing California in half, just the once, but that's a minor quibble.

A couple of issues: 1) feels slightly mean to say but the references and writing style just felt a bit much at times to the point of distracting from the main points of the book. 2) Fo
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Krloz Ruben
Jul 25, 2018 rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition
The 4 stars is for trying. If you want to read a biased book, obviously this one is it. Unlike “Listen, Liberal!” This book is more of a fallacy than realistic. Also, a one-sided government is surely to work wonders. No way for a bipartisan approach to policies here. Then again, it’s a book about Democrats regaining the power they lost. Not how to win back the trust of the American people, no. Not how to pay for all the amazing things he suggests, no. Well, unless you count taxing the rich. I’m ...more
Peter
Nov 17, 2018 rated it it was amazing
Shelves: politics
Modern Voting Rights Act: ensure universal voting rights for all citizens including people serving in prison, create automatic voter registration, abolish racist voter id restrictions/requirements, and guarantee enough polling places and early voting so that voting takes less than 5 minutes. Make election day a holiday and require all states to have at least 4 weeks of early voting. If they refuse, their politicians should be removed from office.

Expand the supreme court, create term limits, mak
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Melynda Nuss
Aug 24, 2019 rated it it was amazing
This book is absolutely one of my favorite post-2016 political books. It's not about fighting "dirty" in the conventional sense. There's no ballot box stuffing or smear campaigns. Instead, Faris explains how Democrats can overcome structural factors, like the fact that the Senate currently favors small rural states that tend to vote Republican, or the fact that Republicans have figured out how to stuff the Supreme Court with young, healthy ideologues that will be thwarting the will of the majori ...more
Brad
Jul 01, 2018 rated it liked it
I heard Faris interviewed on Chapo and was impressed enough with his vision to give the book a read. The ideas proposed by the book are 100% correct, though I think that they would be better framed as “ways to make our representative democracy more representative” than “ways to give progressives more advantages”, though those are parallel objectives. I also found some of the jokes and insults to be pretty sophomoric. I don’t mind immaturity if it’s funny, but this is a serious subject that is no ...more
Dan Sussman
Jun 04, 2019 rated it really liked it
For those of us who oscillate between despair and murderous anger at the Trump-soaked wrecking ball that is the GOP, this book is an interesting tonic. The message: fight back using the same sort of low tactics adopted by the Republicans.

The best ideas are interesting, effective and, if the political winds are blowing in the right direction, do-able. ( e.g. Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico, Supreme Court term limits). Some are pipe dreams (split California into seven states, each with its own
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Tanner
Oct 09, 2018 rated it really liked it
Read this book. The ideas range from eminently practical (DC statehood and a federal election holiday) to nuts and likely impossible (six Californias). The real reason to read it isn't necessarily policy though, it's to replace the feeling of dread and despair in our current situation with a surge of hopeful rage. The book's also damn entertaining, Faris has a Shakespearean knack for insults that had me giggling out loud on public transportation.
Jake
Oct 14, 2018 rated it liked it
All of the ideas in this book are sensible and not even "dirty" in the sense that most people would presume. Were the Democrats a Party interested in capturing political power and representing the interests of their base they would adopt all of the ideas in this book; unfortunately, this is not the case. Anyway, Faris is a witty and entertaining writer and this is a good read, although I think the day that these policies are adopted by the Democrats is unlikely to ever come.
Derek Lynch
Dec 31, 2018 rated it really liked it
David Faris makes an excellent argument on how the Democratic Party can expand their electoral power. Expanding statehood for DC, Puerto Rico, and breaking up California into several states; packing the Supreme Court; expanding the House of Representatives; and passing a Modern Day Voting Rights Act are all brilliant proposals and Faris does a great job of not only defending these arguments but adding levity to the book through subtle humor.
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