Democratic Party activist Kuhn debuts with a well-researched if caustic and overlong indictment of the GOP. Contending that "the vulnerable state of our democracy is not the result of one administration... but rather a decades-long siege by the GOP," Kuhn sketches the history of McCarthyism and the John Birch Society, and explains how Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign brought "conservative extremism" into the Republican mainstream, setting the stage for the anti-government policies of Ronald Reagan. Kuhn also delves into the influence of corporate interests on electoral institutions, the alliance between right-wing evangelicalism and the GOP, and the various ways Republicans seek to "slow down, throw sand in its gears, shrink it, and eventually get it small enough to drown it in a bathtub." Though Kuhn marshals plenty of data and litters the book with witticisms, he minimizes Democratic missteps and sometimes overreaches in his eagerness to blame conservative ideology for America's ills: "What makes Americans any more naturally susceptible to being fat and unhealthy than, say, Canadians? The answer: nothing. The only difference is that our government regulation is not only lax but goes unenforced." This exuberant polemic will strain the patience of even those who agree with its findings. (May)

Recent attempts to undermine voting rights and other political actions have led some to conclude that today's Republican Party has become unapologetically antidemocracy. Kuhn has put together a comprehensive examination of how the GOP has subverted the democratic process and its concurrent institutions in the U.S. and continues to do so. The GOP has always been skeptical of government programs, other than defense and culture-war issues. Likewise, it has always been fixated on private enterprise, specifically corporate culture. In the eyes of the GOP, the larger the corporation, the better. Kuhn goes on to look at the party's underhanded electoral tactics and its ongoing disinformation strategies. Through these and other strategies, the GOP has come dangerously close to collapsing democracy in America. Much of what Kuhn says will be familiar territory for those who keep up with current events, but he nevertheless manages to pull together multiple avenues of inquiry into a depressingly detailed portrait of an American political party's apparent efforts to bring us all under the rubric of authoritarianism.