Eat any good books lately?

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I quite recommend this, if only to anyone who thinks things have never been more dangerous in this country than now. My only real complaint is that he falls back too often on his comforting false narrative, that all this state terror was part of a conspiracy by "business" (that singular unified class with perfectly aligned interests at all times of course) to thwart democracy and the Progressive Era reforms. (At one point even saying that only "left-of-center" Americans have anything to fear about the military, or any part of the government, spying on civilians as if only they should/would oppose this.) The problem with this is that big business was the instigator of most of these state actions and the Progressives (Wilson especially) disdained the masses and believed the ultimate purpose of these reforms was to push the unwashed lower classes (the uneducated, Black, immigrants, most women, etc.) into their proper permanent caste so society could transition into an expert-led utopia free from "messy" competition and people who did not know their place. Rather than a distraction from their Progressive goals, the war was cheered because it was an opportunity to completely enact their vision, a singular national "body" organized by the elite to focus on a singular goal for all without any dissent or challenge. The Progressives would spend most of the post-war period lamenting the end of the totalitarian wartime state, masturbating fondly at the "great experiments" of fascism and communism for bringing back that "unity of purpose" while hoping for another crisis to bring it back so as to hopefully establish it permanently. Because he needs to instead continue his fantasy narrative about the people against the powerful or whatever he spends much of the book inventing an unnamed shadowy conspiracy to try and explain why the Progressives and labor unions and so on were so enthusiastic for war, openly racist/xenophobic and willing to immediately use organized violence (legal, illegal and semi-legal) against leftist/anarchist groups, anti-war protestors, anti-slavery protestors and anyone else (mostly minorities) who either refused the state's dictates or just got in the way of the central plan. Even as he spends nearly 300 pages on how Wilson personally oversaw and enjoyed becoming a tyrant and oppressing the country he struggles to not make excuses for him rather than accept this "Progressive paragon voice of the people's will" really was a totalitarian monster who despised liberal democracy and constitutional constraints on power. (You know, the things he wrote whole books about how much he hated and wanted to abolish so he could force everyone to adhere to his parochial utopian vision.) Some of the Goodreads reviews were quite angry at him for being politically biased, in the modern sense, but it was only really a couple pages in the conclusion when he mentions Trump and it was in the context of saying not to pretend these issues are lost to history. Best review accused him of "hating America" which is perfect for a book about how the state unleashed violence on people it accused of the same.

I love you but please use carriage returns now and then.