In BROKEN GOVERNMENT John Dean examines one of the most critical questions facing Americans today: How can our democracy function when the key institutions of government no longer operate as contemplated by the Constitution because of politics? This concluding volume of a trilogy that began with the national bestsellers Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience is a revelatory investigation of the effects of three decades of Republican rule–three decades in which honored political processes established by the rules, traditions, laws, and constitutional mandates of the federal system have been broken or simply ignored.
Dean carefully traces the development of fundamental failures of the political system, from Nixon’s imperial presidency through Reagan’s popular disparagement of government to the doctrines that have reached their fullest expression in the administration of George W. Bush, a presidency that growing numbers of scholars have already begun to assess as one of the worst in the nation’s history. The reasons for that harsh judgment, and for the shameful state of our civic order, are methodically analyzed in this audiobook: secrecy where there should be transparency, corruption where there should be accountability, self-interest where there should be public advocacy. All these symptoms can be traced, Dean believes, to a breakdown in the processes of government.
A broken government is not one beyond repair, and former White House counsel Dean concludes this illuminating audiobook on an optimistic note providing a foundation for a responsible future.