A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice Finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book PrizeIn the
wake of Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election a deeply reported look inside
the conservative movement working to undermine American democracy. Donald Trump is the second
Republican this century to triumph in the Electoral College without winning the popular vote.
As Zachary Roth reveals in The Great Suppression this is no coincidence. Over the last decade
Republicans have been rigging the game in their favor. Twenty-two states have passed
restrictions on voting. Ruthless gerrymandering has given the GOP a long-term grip on Congress.
Meanwhile the Supreme Court has eviscerated campaign finance laws boosting candidates backed
by big money. It would be worrying enough if these were just schemes for partisan advantage.
But the reality is even more disturbing: a growing number of Republicans distrust the very idea
of democracy and they re doing everything they can to limit it. In The Great Suppression Roth
unearths the deep historical roots of this anti-egalitarian worldview and introduces us to its
modern-day proponents: The GOP officials pushing to make it harder to cast a ballot the
lawyers looking to scrap all limits on money in politics the libertarian scholars reclaiming
judicial activism to roll back the New Deal and the corporate lobbyists working to ban local
action on everything from the minimum wage to the environment. And he travels from Rust Belt
cities to southern towns to show us how these efforts are hurting the most vulnerable Americans
and preventing progress on pressing issues. A sharp searing polemic in the tradition of Rachel
Maddow and Matt Taibbi The Great Suppression is an urgent wake-up call about a threat to our
most cherished values and a rousing argument for why we need democracy now more than ever.
