The Demagogue's Playbook

The Battle for American Democracy from the Founders to Trump

By: Eric A. Posner

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

"Narrator Peter Berkrot's vocal tone has a flinty mid-20th century quality that works well with this historical review of how demagogues in the U.S. have repeatedly exploited populism since the founding of the nation. Serious but never overwrought, he has a lovely way with phrasing that enhances the richness of these sentences while deftly moderating the undercurrent of alarm in the writing." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

What Happens to Democracy When a Demagogue Comes to Power?

"It is hard to imagine understanding the Trump presidency and its significance without reading this book.” — Bob Bauer, Former Chief Counsel to President Barack Obama

What—and who—is a demagogue? How did America’s Founders envision the presidency? What should a constitutional democracy look like—and how can it be fixed when it appears to be broken?

Something is definitely wrong with Donald Trump’s presidency, but what exactly? The extraordinary negative reaction to Trump’s election—by conservative intellectuals, liberals, Democrats, and global leaders alike—goes beyond ordinary partisan and policy disagreements. It reflects genuine fear about the vitality of our constitutional system. The Founders, reaching back to classical precedents, feared that their experiment in mass self-government could produce a demagogue: a charismatic ruler who would gain and hold on to power by manipulating the public rather than by advancing the public good.

President Trump, who has played to the mob and attacked institutions from the judiciary to the press, appears to embody these ideas. How can we move past his rhetoric and maintain faith in our great nation?

In The Demagogue’s Playbook, acclaimed legal scholar Eric A. Posner offers a blueprint for how America can prevent the rise of another demagogue and protect the features of a democracy that help it thrive—and restore national greatness, for one and all.

A Macmillan Audio production from All Points Books

“Cuts through the hyperbole and hysteria that often distorts assessments of our republic, particularly at this time.” —Alan Taylor, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History

Critic reviews

<p>Praise for <i>Radical Markets: <br><br></i>"I have always been motivated to find ways to unite the power of technology and markets with the goal of creating a more egalitarian society, and the authors of this book offer an exploration of these apparently contradictory strands."--<b>Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft</b><br><br>"Perhaps the most ambitious attempt to rethink democracy and markets since Milton Friedman. Twenty years from now this just might be the book people are talking about. The writing is excellent, with great examples and historical detail. I admire the ambition and willingness to experiment, a rare thing in economics these days. It just might help launch a new branch of political economy."--<b>Kenneth S. Rogoff, author of <i>The Curse of Cash</i></b><br><br>"<i>Radical Markets</i> thinks big and builds daring proposals, all on a unified theme: the need for maintaining competition and eliciting decentralized information, whose neglect led to the demise of planned economies. Whether you are convinced by the specific proposals or not, your confidence in your worldview may well be shattered by the depth and originality of the analysis."--<b>Jean Tirole, Toulouse School of Economics, Nobel Laureate in Economics, and author of <i>Economics for the Common Good</i></b></p>

Worth Listening

This is a succinct and well-researched history of the demagogue in America, though it does only go up to around 2019 , and thus misses the perils Trump truly poses as demonstrated by his actions in 2020 and beyond.

History Everyone Should Be Aware Of

This is a needed book, in that it conveys entertained and successfully the history of people who rise up and take power to suit themselves in our country. A demagogue is not necessarily bad, but the ones we have had have been. There was something to the Founders’ view on actual democracy. Some might think that they have found the way to hack the republic through democracy to better gain their wants. And here are some examples.

Nice statement of the obvious

Anyone who observes honestly already knows that Trump is a demagogue, and anyone who still supports him doesn't care, so this book is just a nice stroll through familiar history.