Many Americans believe Barak Obama represents a hopeful future for America. But does he also reflect the American politics of the past? This book offers the broadest and best-informed understanding on the meaning of the "Obama phenomenon" to date. Paul Street was on the ground throughout the Iowa campaign, and his stories of the rising Obama phenomenon are poignant. Yet the author's background in American political history allows him to explore the deeper meanings of Obama's remarkable political career. He looks at Obama in relation to contemporary issues of class, race, war, and empire. He...

As Obama nears the middle of his first-term as president Paul Street assesses his performance against the expectations of his supporters. While mainstream journalists have noted discrepancies between Obama's original vision and reality, Paul Street uniquely measures Obama's record against the expectations of the truly progressive agenda many of his supporters expected him to follow. Taken together, the list of Obama's weakened policies is startling: his business-friendly measures with the economy, the lack of support for the growing mass of unemployed and poor, the dilution of his health...

The Tea Party has been the most high profile and controversial social movement in the US of recent times. But real analysis of the Tea Party remains slim - is it a genuine social movement or a topdown interest group created by the Republican Party and corporate funding? Crashing the Tea Party is based on first-hand observation of local Tea Party chapters, and undertakes a critical journalistic and scholarly examination from the national and local level. Paul Street and Anthony DiMaggio provide a carefully documented account which challenges conventional wisdoms. Crashing the Tea Party fills...

This book reflects on key questions raised by recent movements and statements about the status of American politics and polity-from the Tea Party to Occupy, from the 1% to the 47% to the 99% that is the rest of us. These questions have also been raised by previous generations of labor, farmer, socialist, anarchist, and populist protestors and critics: Who owns and rules America beyond the pretense of democratic popular governance? Why does it matter that the nation's economy, society, culture, and politics are torn by stark class disparities and a concentration of wealth in the hands of a...

This book reflects on key questions raised by recent movements and statements about the status of American politics and polity-from the Tea Party to Occupy, from the 1% to the 47% to the 99% that is the rest of us. These questions have also been raised by previous generations of labor, farmer, socialist, anarchist, and populist protestors and critics: Who owns and rules America beyond the pretense of democratic popular governance? Why does it matter that the nation's economy, society, culture, and politics are torn by stark class disparities and a concentration of wealth in the hands of a...