Publishers Weekly
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In this invigorating debut guide to protecting American democracy, political strategist Wikler mines election history and his own experience as a Democratic organizer for inspiration for the upcoming midterm election and beyond. Having spent six years as the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Wikler suggests that the state “offers a template for the national road map out of billionaire-backed antidemocratic GOP takeover.” Describing Wisconsin’s recent successes in blocking Republican-driven gerrymandering and voter suppression, Wikler uses the state as a lens to analyze current challenges facing the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, federal courts, and Democratic Party. He argues that state and local organizing is the strongest path toward fighting federal corruption, and that rather than creating a robust nationwide platform, Democrats “don’t need a fifty-state strategy—we need fifty state strategies, one for each state, based on the different laws and obstacles in that particular place.” While he does promote specific policies like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and eliminating the filibuster, Wikler heavily prioritizes strategic, community-centric, person-to-person organizing, suggesting the way to “beat the politics of fear is by helping people realize they are powerful.” His savvy political commentary is peppered with corny dad jokes and The Princess Bride references that lighten the mood and provide a Midwestern sense of friendly optimism. It’s a pragmatic resource for seasoned organizers and budding activists alike. (July)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A liberal activist offers a playbook to reclaim America from the right wing. The former chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Wikler writes that his state “circa 2011–2017 was the United States of America in the Trump era,” with battles for power played out before Donald Trump entered office. One was an attempt to create legislative supermajorities and to lock out any liberals from the state judiciary—and from school boards, municipal offices, and so on, from top to bottom. That wasn’t a bad plan, Wikler holds, and, indeed, the first plank in his platform of political resistance is for Democrats to focus on winning state and local offices as well as national ones, so that “we can dictator-proof state and local government to ensure that the 2028 election is free and fair.” Realistically, he adds, given the pendulum of electoral politics, “you should expect a backlash in 2030,” one that it will be especially important to ride out in a census year by which legislative districts are apportioned, with all the gerrymandering this invites. Winning office isn’t the end of the work, he adds, for what remains is to convince the electorate that their votes count, especially in a time when margins are “agonizingly small,” with George W. Bush winning Florida, for instance, by only 537 votes. Wikler counsels talking to the “people with whom you have the closest connection” and concentrating on bread-and-butter issues, especially at the local level, which he boils down to a maxim: “If you care about democracy, talk about roads”—and, for that matter, “affordability.” Loftier issues count, too, such as reforming or doing away with the Senate filibuster, but, for the most part, his book focuses closely on Main Street and all that can be done there. A book of immediate interest to progressive and centrist activists in this election year. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.