It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism

If you REALLY care about this country, regardless of party affiliation you should get this book. Filibusters and secret "holds" are being put on perfectly decent Senate legislation just to gum up the works by both parties. It is all for partisan or personal gain and has already caused a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history.
It's not all doom and gloom. The authors offer some powerful ideas to get us out of this mess including ways to get MORE of us to vote, not less. Required reading for anyone who puts country before party as they should.

As a moderately involved political individual, I could have written the book. For me, no real revelations about conservative strategy, motives, etc. For a conservatives to write this book along with others expressing similar ideas about the current group of conservatives like David Fromm is quite revealing. I have almost zero confidence in any of the suggestions at the end of the book being adopted, worthy and necessary as the are. The money now makes the rules and the rich have it. If I were younger I'd head for Canada! The middle class will be gone in twenty years and the vast majority of society will mirror India.

Nice try by Mann and Ornstein. The observations are spot on.

Passage of Power by Robert CaroThe legislative comparrisions are striking. Since the ' 60s, things are so vastly different. Politicians talked back then, now just talking past one another. Deal making was possible then.....not really so much now. Kennedy got nothing done legislatively, then Johnson steps in, takes feeling for Kennedy and passes most of Kennedy's programs. Could that happen today.......doubt it!

Excellent

It kind of is......It's on Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Sat Nite Live and Bill Maher all the time.

It makes me sad that even conservatives are even saying this stuff. It validates my pessimistic feelings toward US and it's future.

Mann and Ornstein have done the country a great service with this book. I follow politics relatively closely and there were some eye-openers for me in this thoughtful and well-written book. While it is not a surprise that both Mann and Ornstein (a liberal and conservative) share a common view about just how seriously dysfunctional the federal government is, what is a surprise is that they place most of the blame squarely on the extremism in the Republican party. They note that Republican extremism is not directed toward advancing their policies so much as toward advancing personal interest of their leaders or the political (not ideological) interests of their party. Multiple examples of how Republicans in the Senate have used the filibuster and other parliamentary tools to delay votes on bills or on appointments - taking up huge amounts of valuable time that should be spent on the important business of the country - that ultimately passed with votes along the lines of 95-2. What could the point of this be? Only to make the government and the majority party look ineffective. Shame on the Republicans.

Mann and Ornstein offer a variety of ideas to address the problems.They look for ideas that have been tried around the world but they have been in this business for a long time and have a clear-eyed view of what is likely to fly in the U.S. and what probably won't. They propose a range of ideas that can at least begin to counter the Republican's "gum up the works" efforts.

Anyone who has an interest in politics should read this book, especially those of us who have found ourselves exasperated by US politics in the recent past. This book sheds light on the political process, its disfunction, and the reasons and remedies for that disfunction.

two old hands at political observation and analysis present a detailed story of what those of us who follow politics with interest and increasingly with despair have noticed. their analysis is cogent and convincing. despair is mitigated by their suggestions for reform, most of which would only take a congress where the republicans agree to cooperate to implement (!!!). a very pleasing narration by William Hughes helps the medicine go down.

Among political nonfiction it is one of the best.

Not at all. It has actually made me want to learn more.

Just about everything. I have heard him read other books and he is one of the best!

There was a lot to process, so I found it helpful to break it up in order to think about what I'd been hearing.

Enjoyed this very much and plan on a second listen.

I like this which puts the current situation in a historical context. I appreciate the comparison to parlamentary democracy where we seem to have taken the worst of our two party system and imported the worst of parlamentary politics. I do hope we move to reform. Well read. Had trouble setting this aside.

It was very good to hear a book written by a bipartisan pair. It kept my attention and I wanted to continue listening until each chapter was complete.

I liked that is was timely - I had seen the authors on a talk show and saw the topic as one that was current. It scared me to think that it was worse that it looked. They seemed to be people who, at one time, were from either side of the aisle and now were on the same side of the issue. That is truly what drew me to the book. How did we get here? How can we see our way out of the mess? Or really - CAN we see our way out.

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That the GOP has fractured and is having a hard time recognizing their own party at times. It is interesting that the Speaker has been unable to get things done because the "Young Guns" have tied his hands; so many things being done contrarily are done for the sole purpose of keeping President Obama a one term President not for the good of a country.

This was an excellent book.

Not sure.

Not applicable.

He was good reader.

No extreme reaction but it did help with focusing my ideas and thoughts on how politics works today.

This is a worth a read by anyone interested in learning about why our political system is so screwed up. Spolier Alert: one party is more to blame than the other and yes that would be the Republican party.

Anyone concerned with the future of governance must read/listen to this book.

The solutions section at the end is thoughtful and pragmatic, showing how change can be accomplished.

His was a steady reading appropriate for nonfiction.

There is clear evidence that gridlock is not caused equally on both sides of the aisle.

Importantly, these two authors represent think tanks, one that leans left and one that leans right. It is not a partisan rant.