Robert Shrum

Director of @USCPolFuture. Warschaw Chair in Politics at USC. D strategist. RT don’t always = endorsement.

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Book Recommendations:

RS

Recommended by Robert Shrum

@ZacharyRWood @RMWritersFest Thabns, great to meet you! After meeting you, my advice to others:Buy your book! (from X)

Drawing upon his own powerful personal story, Zachary Wood shares his perspective on free speech, race, and dissenting opinions--in a world that sorely needs to learn to listen. As the former president of the student group Uncomfortable Learning at his alma mater, Williams College, Zachary Wood knows from experience about intellectual controversy. At school and beyond, there's no one Zach refuses to engage with simply because he disagrees with their beliefs--sometimes vehemently so--and this view has given him a unique platform in the media. But Zach has never shared the details of his own personal story. In Uncensored, he reveals for the first time how he grew up poor and black in Washington, DC, where the only way to survive was resisting the urge to write people off because of their backgrounds and perspectives. By sharing his troubled upbringing--from a difficult early childhood to the struggles of code-switching between his home and his elite private school--Zach makes a compelling argument for a new way of interacting with others and presents a new outlook on society's most difficult conversations.

RS

Recommended by Robert Shrum

Amazing book- deeply researched and persuasively argued. @StanGreenberg has dared a prophetic look toward 2020, and even Democrats who by nature are worry warts should be heartened. https://t.co/QQ25vJEAuw (from X)

A leading pollster and adviser to America’s most important political figures explains why the Republicans will crash in 2020. For decades the GOP has seen itself in an uncompromising struggle against a New America that is increasingly secular, racially diverse, and fueled by immigration. It has fought non-traditional family structures, ripped huge holes in the social safety net, tried to stop women from being independent, and pitted aging rural Evangelicals against the younger, more dynamic cities. Since the 2010 election put the Tea Party in control of the GOP, the party has condemned America to years of fury, polarization and broken government. The election of Donald Trump enabled the Republicans to make things even worse. All seemed lost. But the Republicans have set themselves up for a shattering defeat. In RIP GOP, Stanley Greenberg argues that the 2016 election hurried the party’s imminent demise. Using amazing insights from his focus groups with real people and surprising revelations from his own polls, Greenberg shows why the GOP is losing its defining battle. He explores why the 2018 election, when the New America fought back, was no fluke. And he predicts that in 2020 the party of Lincoln will be left to the survivors, opening America up to a new era of renewal and progress.