A review by lokroma
This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for American Democracy by Jonathan Martin

4.0

This account of the 2020 election and its aftermath is both familiar and new. We know the story, but the NYT journalists provide lots of details that were not public at the time and that make this book read almost like fiction. For me in particular, Kamala Harris' frustration with her often limited role in the administration and the way she viewed her treatment by the White House was a revelation. There is also a clear view of the evolution of many Republicans in their unwilling capitulation to far right factions of both their party and their constituents that is not always clear from watching scattershot news broadcasts.

The book drags a bit towards the end as it describes the tedious negotiations over the infrastructure and reconciliation bills and Biden's consequent slippage in the polls, but the crisp journalistic writing makes reading even that a small price to pay for the reward of seeing all of this coherently from hindsight.