... something ugly and alarming was infecting the presidential election. The Republican primary was turning into a race to the bottom—a race to anger, a race to blame, a race to fan the flames of xenophobic nativism. And the man who prevailed crossed every boundary of decency and integrity—bragging about sexually assaulting women; mocking people with disabilities; race baiting; demonizing immigrants; attacking war heroes and Gold Star families; and fomenting hostility, even hatred, toward the press. [loc. 2164]
I started reading this just before the US election, confident that it would give me an insight into the next President. ... It's taken me a while to finish it: a glimpse of a lost future. Harris is passionate about equality, about unity, about justice. I was shocked by some of the statistics she quoted ('Black babies are twice as likely as white babies to die in infancy, a stunning disparity that is wider than in 1850, when slavery was still legal') and inspired by some of the work she's done, as Attorney General of California, on reforming criminal justice. She comes across, in this 2019 book, as driven, energetic and determined: as somebody I'd enjoy knowing personally. The quotation at the top of this review is from her account of the 2016 election -- and her discussion of Russian interference in that election was chilling.
I wish she had won in 2024.
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