Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches

ohn Dean was, for much of his life, a Republican. But he decries the role of movement conservatives who are authoritarian, and goes through all three branches of the US government to show the damage that has been done to each.

So serious does he find the damage to US Constitutional government that he thinks the Republicans, as they are now, cannot be trusted with power. "Antigovernment conservatives are bad at governing, [Alan] Wolfe explains, for "the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe what you are called to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well".

The litany of abuses is long. In the Congress, the GOP, whien in control, have created a highly partisan body that has show more sought to cut the Democrats' powers to have a say in the laws passed. In the Executive branch, the Republican presidents have tried to justify the President having near-monarchial powers, especially over defense and foreign affairs. In the judiciary, the court has reached a tipping point where it can gut protections for people, protect businesses, gut environmental protections, end Constitutional preotections in matters of religion and morality, and more.

An eye-opening and well-argued book that completes what Dean calls an "informatl trilogy". The first two books are _Worse than Watergate_ and _Conservatives Without Conscience". show less

building on his case that the W terms were "worse than Nixon", the former Nixon Whitehouse lawyer exams the ways and means of the Cheney-Bush reign and finds it criminal. Further he finds the right shifting Republican base succeeding on tilting the supreme court right while recasting the president as a dictatorial force, especially for unchecked military action.