Democratic Vistas.

• Date: 01 August 2022
• Author: Leanza, Emilio
• Published date: 01 August 2022
• Author: Leanza, Emilio

Two Cheers for Politics: Why Democracy Is Flawed, Frightening-and Our Best Hope By Jedediah Purdy Basic Books, 304 pages Publication date: August 30,2022

It's difficult these days to fight the urge to tune out. Amid a slew of unpopular U.S. Supreme Court rulings on guns, abortion rights, the environment, and prayer in public schools, it seems like the majority of people in this country don't really have much of a say in what goes on here. If our collective futures are going to be determined by a conservative supermajority of judges interpreting centuries-old laws, why bother paying attention to politics at all?

For Jedediah Purdy, a Constitutional, environmental, and property law professor at Columbia University and a prolific writer for outlets like The New Yorker and The New Republic, our undemocratic democracy is at the root of the problem.

In Two Cheers for Politics, Purdy begins by outlining four different...