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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing portrait and damning takedown of America's proudest citizens—who are also the least likely to defend its core principles“This is an important book that ought to be read by anyone who wants to understand politics in the perilous Age of Trump.”—David Corn, New York Times bestselling author of American PsychosisWhite rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they're right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions. Their rage—stoked daily by Republican politicians and the conservative media—now poses an existential threat to the United States.Schaller and Waldman show how vulnerable U.S. democracy has become to rural Whites who, despite legitimate grievances, are increasingly inclined to hold racist and xenophobic beliefs, to believe in conspiracy theories, to accept violence as a legitimate course of political action, and to exhibit antidemocratic tendencies. Rural White Americans'attitude might best be described as “I love my country, but not our country,” Schaller and Waldman argue. This phenomenon is the patriot paradox of rural America: The citizens who take such pride in their patriotism are also the least likely to defend core American principles. And by stoking rural Whites'anger rather than addressing the hard problems they face, conservative politicians and talking heads create a feedback loop of resentments that are undermining American democracy.Schaller and Waldman provocatively critique both the structures that permit rural Whites'disproportionate influence over American governance and the prospects for creating a pluralist, inclusive democracy that delivers policy solutions that benefit rural communities. They conclude with a political reimagining that offers a better future for both rural people and the rest of America.

Questions of minority representation have long plagued the U.S. voting systems. The standard election often leaves political, racial, or ethnic minorities with little chance of being represented. Race-conscious districting remains the primary policy tool used for providing representation of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States—and it continues to generate tremendous conflict. Can alternatives to race-conscious, single-member districts offer benefits that extend beyond simply providing descriptive representations of minorities? This study examines one such “semi-proportional” representation election system: Cumulative Voting (CV). For over a decade, scores of local U.S. governments have been elected by Cumulative Voting. This provides us with the ability to examine the effects of CV elections over time. Moreover, the use of CV in the United States allows us to compare politics in places that adopted CV to highly similar places that did not. Electoral Reform and Minority Representation shares evidence that CV elections can produce minority representation that matches levels generated with the drawing of race-conscious “majority-minority” districting. It also offers evidence that the quality of democratic processes in CV communities is in several ways higher that those under districts. Given America's growing racial and ethnic diversity, and given successful legal challenges that limit the use of race-conscious districting Electoral Reform and Minority Representation suggests that Cumulative Voting may be a better way to achieve minority representation in U.S. politics.

Are the views of Latinos and African Americans underrepresented in our federal government? For that matter, what does it mean to be represented equitably? Rather than taking for granted a single answer to these complex questions, John Griffin and Brian Newman use different measures of political equality to reveal which groups get what they want from government and what factors lead to their successes. One of the first books to compare the representation of both African Americans and Latinos to that of whites, Minority Report shows that congressional decisions and federal policy tend to mirror the preferences of whites as a group and as individuals better than the preferences of either minority group, even after accounting for income disparities. This is far from the whole story, though, and the authors'multifaceted approach illustrates the surprising degree to which group population size, an issue's level of importance, the race or ethnicity of an office holder, and electoral turnout can affect how well government action reflects the views of each person or group. Sure to be controversial, Minority Report ultimately goes beyond statistical analyses to address the root question of what equal representation really means.

Focusing on four medium-sized northeastern cities with strong political traditions, Electoral Politics Is Not Enough analyzes conditions under which white leaders respond to and understand minority interests. Peter F. Burns argues that conventional explanations, including the size of the minority electorate, the socioeconomic status of the citizenry, and the percentage of minority elected officials do not account for variations in white leaders'understanding of and receptiveness toward African American and Latino interests. Drawing upon interviews with more than 200 white and minority local leaders, and through analysis of local education and public safety policies, he finds that unconventional channels, namely neighborhood groups and community-based organizations, strongly influence the representation of minority interests.

Democracy takes place when the silent find their voice, and when we begin to listen to what they have to say. --Lani Guinier, from the ForewordIn Whose Vote Counts?, Robert Richie and Steven Hill listen to what the silent are saying. They argue that we need a new way of electing our representatives to combat voter apathy and the leveling of political views. Such a system already exists in many parts of the world, including places in the United States: proportional representation. Leading activists respond in essays that illustrate what our country could look like if all qualified citizens became voters, and if they all felt their vote contributed to more than just the winning or losing tally.The New Democracy Forum is a series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns.

Is it ever legitimate to redraw electoral districts on the basis of race? In its long struggle with this question, the U.S. Supreme Court has treated race-conscious redistricting either as a requirement of political fairness or as an exercise in corrosive racial quotas. Cutting through these contradictory positions, Keith Bybee examines the theoretical foundations of the Court's decisions and the ideological controversy those decisions have engendered. He uncovers erroneous assumptions about political identity on both sides of the debate and formulates new terms on which minority representation can be pursued. As Bybee shows, the Court has for the last twenty years encouraged a division between individualist and group concepts of political identity. He demonstrates convincingly that both individualist and group proponents share the misguided notion that political identity is formed prior to and apart from politics itself. According to Bybee, this'mistaken identity'should be abandoned for a more flexible, politically informed understanding of who the'people'really are. Thus, a misdirected debate will be replaced by a more considered discussion in which the people can speak for themselves, even as the Court speaks on their behalf. Engaged in the politics of minority representation, the Court will be able to help citizens articulate and achieve more fruitful forms of political community.

Details how the Supreme Court has impoverished the constitutional standing of political parties, thereby contributing to a crisis of representation.Confronting a fundamentally important but often neglected reality in American politics, this book shows the powerful influence of the courts in determining the shape and operation of our politics. The author exhaustively details how the Supreme Court has impoverished the constitutional standing of political parties in areas of redistricting, campaign finance, ballot access, patronage, and party primaries, opting instead for superficially appealing notions of group-based representation.Ryden demonstrates how the Supreme Court, by checking virtually everything undertaken by the more'political'branches, of government, has exerted powerful influence on how the political system operates and how politics plays out at the most practical level. The book details the Court's attraction to group-based approaches to representation currently in vogue and offers persuasive evidence that while well-intended,such approaches only feed the crisis of representation afflicting this country. These approaches, Ryden aruges, compartmentalize and separate out those being represented rather than cultivate a more unified, inclusive, and ultimately healthier scheme of representation. This compelling indictment of the Supreme Court's constitutional theory of representation offers a much-needed prescription for how the Court might better perform its role as ultimate guardian of representative government.David K. Ryden is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Hope College.