It's Time to Fight Dirty

March 15, 2018
The title of this book by Roosevelt University political scientist Faris belies the thoughtfulness of the contents within. By dirty, Faris doesn't mean, say, enlisting the aid of a foreign adversary, casting aspersions on ethnic or gender groups for political favor, or drawing disproportionately represented legislative districts. Rather, he advocates a number of astringent, constitutionally legal challenges to a system that has hardly served the American public, let alone Democrats, well. Among them, automatic voter registration (though one could opt out), a national election holiday, justices added to the Supreme Court, an increase in the number of U.S. representatives and a lengthening of their terms to four years (to account for time spent fundraising), turning Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia into states, and, taking a page from the Republicans' playbook, ruthless obstruction of any legislation the current administration and Congress try to enact, with the exception of negotiations to save vulnerable Americans from Trumpcare, or the Dreamers from deportation. A worthy contribution to the ongoing American experiment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)