Anokh Palakurthi's Reviews > We've Got People: From Jesse Jackson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement

It's not often when you describe a 400-page book as a "quick read" but Ryan Grim's "We've Got People" is that gripping. At the end of reading it, I'm not sure there's another single person who could have told the "people's" side of the inner conflicts within the 2010s Democratic Party just as well.

Grim's decade-long reporting is just so stellar. Grim is pretty transparent in his own ideological biases, but the stunning amount of anecdotes, interviews, research, and investigative work he's done in this book differentiates it from many others that I've read. I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to authors editorializing, but Grim's analysis and "character building" - for lack of a better term - especially shows in the homework he did on Rahm Emanuel, someone I'm now convinced is the single worst human being in the Democratic Party over the last 20 years.

There are a few gripes I have with the book, but mostly in terms of how the story could have been told. Grim's book is all about the "DC" perspective of the "big money vs. regular people" conflict, and it would have been nice to hear a little more directly from members of both sides. I also think Grim could have focused a little more on this conflict on international terms - he only mentions a few foreign policy topics in passing, but Obama's foreign policy successes/failures would have tied in quite nicely with the book. Lastly, I"ll say that I thought the second half of the book was solid, but a clear drop-off from the fantastic first half.

Regardless, this book is worth a read for the awesome dunks on Rahm Emanuel.