159 books
—
59 voters
“That openness meant those opposing the liberal consensus seemed out of step, people who would be left behind. The Archie Bunker types seemed to be a dying breed, and modern Americans could afford to be charitable toward them, just as they had been toward the Confederates whose ideology the modern Archie Bunkers shared.”
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
“The key to the rise of authoritarians, they explained, is their use of language and false history.[3] Authoritarians rise when economic, social, political, or religious change makes members of a formerly powerful group feel as if they have been left behind. Their frustration makes them vulnerable to leaders who promise to make them dominant again. A strongman downplays the real conditions that have created their problems and tells them that the only reason they have been dispossessed is that enemies have cheated them of power.”
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
“But for all of Whitman’s celebration of the many peoples in the United States, the demand of poorer white men for inclusion in the government was based on the idea of keeping other marginalized people out. States’ rights democracy kept white men in charge, for they were the voters who determined the shape of the state governments. Those white men advanced their own interests at the expense of their Brown and Black neighbors, declaring it the nation’s “Manifest Destiny” to push Indigenous Americans off their lands and take over parts of Mexico to establish plantations and plantation slavery there. Above all, they protected and extended the practice of human enslavement that people like Elizabeth Freeman had successfully challenged seventy years before.”
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
“General Grievous,” he said, “you’re under arrest.”
The bio-droid general stalked toward him, passing through his screen of bodyguards without the slightest hint of reluctance. “Kenobi. Don’t tell me, let me guess: this is the part where you give me the chance to surrender.”
“It can be,” Obi-Wan allowed equably. “Or, if you like, it can be the part where I dismantle your exoskeleton and ship you back to Coruscant in a cargo hopper.”
“I’ll take option three.” Grievous lifted his hand, and the bodyguards moved to box Obi-Wan between them. “That’s the one where I watch you die.”
― Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
The bio-droid general stalked toward him, passing through his screen of bodyguards without the slightest hint of reluctance. “Kenobi. Don’t tell me, let me guess: this is the part where you give me the chance to surrender.”
“It can be,” Obi-Wan allowed equably. “Or, if you like, it can be the part where I dismantle your exoskeleton and ship you back to Coruscant in a cargo hopper.”
“I’ll take option three.” Grievous lifted his hand, and the bodyguards moved to box Obi-Wan between them. “That’s the one where I watch you die.”
― Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
“The administration’s full-blown embrace of the long-standing attempt to destroy the active federal government of the liberal consensus did more than that. It re-created exactly the conditions the liberal consensus was designed to end: it enabled a few well-connected individuals to turn a public need into a private fortune. When other countries sent masks, gowns, and so on, they went not to the states or to FEMA but to the private sector to sell at up to fifteen times their usual cost. The official in charge of distributing the materials said this was because the private sector already had efficient distribution systems in place and, he told reporters, “I’m not here to disrupt a supply chain.”[2]”
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
― Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
Noah’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Noah’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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