A review by redbecca
The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage by Jared Yates Sexton

4.0

an impressionistic representation of the 2016 presidential campaign that includes a chapter on "Bernie or Bust" ppl at the Dem convention as well as a description of the Green Party convention. Some of his impressions really capture a mood or feeling well. As an overall portrait of the zeitgeist, it's good, and I'd recommend it for what it says about the general mood of the electorate. I was at the Disrupt J20 protests and had a very different experience from what he describes - and that is the flaw in reporting based so much on one person's perspective. I don't doubt his experience, but he chased reports of vandalism with other packs of reporters. It was also possible to spend an entire day on the streets of DC among protesters on the day of the inauguration without encountering any vandalism or violence, only to hear about it on the news later. The one thing he does get right about that day is how few Trump supporters were anywhere - they were very much outnumbered by protesters on the streets around the entrances to the mall, where vendors had such a hard time selling MAGA hats that one enterprising dude tried to get people to buy the hats so that they could burn them! The fact that Sexton often describes himself drinking makes me wonder whether he was trying to do a sort of Hunter Thompson treatment, but this book doesn't rise to that level of "gonzo."