Ona Archie

This book is well-written and contains some insightful ideas about all variety of doubling in our society. It also reconciles Klein’s earlier writings about branding with the fact that she and all other authors necessarily have personal brands. However if, like me, you’re tired of hearing people blame liberals for right wing extremism because they failed to capture valid concerns about surveillance and vaccine mandates and because they’ve left behind- you guessed it- white working class men, then you may find parts of this book triggering. These ideas have been rehashed over and over again, but somehow pundits always find a way to frame it as "new” or "forbidden" discourse. This overestimation of the role of progressives in fueling radicalism has a companion flaw. Klein also, in my opinion, understates the role race plays in uniting different factions of the conspiracy-laden right. I’ve seen all of the research indicating that more people of color are voting Republican, but that doesn’t change the fact that a disproportionate number of republicans are white and the party campaigns on racial anxieties. Ultimately, I found this book disappointing. I understand the motivation behind trying to present your progressive audience with a tally of collective missteps. It suggests that somehow we can undo right wing radicalization by changing our behavior, by being nicer to them. But this dangerous. What we should really be focusing on is being more effective at implementing progressive policies. Young, racist white men, working class or otherwise, are never going to vote Democrat, so we should stop lusting over them.