The end of white politics How to heal our liberal divide

Maxwell, a political analyst and director of progressive media for the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign, takes on the "business as usual" strategies of the Democratic Party: hew to the middle and reach out to the disaffected white working class while taking people of color, notably African Americans, for granted. There is little new or revolutionary here, but Maxwell does a fine job of coalescing stances articulated by lawyer and writer Michelle Alexander, activist Alicia Garza, and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into a powerful argument for reorienting the party toward the needs and priorities of African Americans. Her argument gets a bit muddled when she conflates "lived experience" with "identity politics"; she makes troubling generalizations about low voter turnout among young people; and her resentment of Bernie Sanders is puzzling, given that his focus is on the same priorities as those of young African Americans. Her dismissal of Joe Biden's antiquated framing of race and stance on mass incarceration are difficult to square with her stout defense of Hillary Clinton. Despite these quibbles, Maxwell has produced a worthwhile blueprint for a party that seems to have lost its way.

An insider's analysis of what the Democratic Party must do to win as white voters become the minority in the U.S. in the next 25 years. "White Americans have had over a three-hundred-year head start in this country, so it's time for everyone else to catch up," writes MSNBC political analyst Maxwell in a clear message to the Democratic establishment. "And the starting line is the ballot box." With white people expected to be a minority of voters by 2045, the author argues that Democrats must engage those constituencies who will have the numbers, and therefore the power, to shape the future. As the Democratic electorate becomes "younger, increasingly female, and incredibly diverse," the future of the party does not "look like a seventy-year-old white man." Maxwell, a 2016 campaign staffer for Hillary Clinton and a field organizer for President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, warns that Democrats cannot gain traction by continuing to prop up candidates who don't understand privilege and the country's historical racial divide. With solid statistics to back her up, she asserts that "the 2020 election is not about the 77,744 white votes that won Donald Trump the electoral college" and whom Democrats are fixated on courting. Rather, the key to victory is the 4.4 million people who voted for Obama in 2012 but didn't vote in 2016; "a third of those people were black voters." How does Maxwell know that directly engaging these disengaged voters and focusing on their needs is a winning strategy? Because Obama did it, twice. With a style that is as infectious as it is cogent and accessible, the author outlines and defends her recommendations and strategies so thoroughly that the only possible dissent is a willful disregard for the future of not just the Democratic Party, but the future of all but the most privileged Americans. The Democratic Party ignores this wake-up call to become more relevant and inclusive at its peril. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.