I Vote My Conscience

"The stigma of that defeat has often overshadowed McGovern's otherwise influential and respectable career in politics. Richard Michael Marano shows that despite his infamous defeat, McGovern very much a man of high principles stood tall and spoke his conscience when he decided in 1983 that he would again run for the presidency.

The 2016 presidential election provides voters with the two least popular nominees in polling history. Both come with a record of ethical scandals, flip-flops, and outright lies. Yet, many pastors and Christian leaders willingly risk their credibility and witness by publicly endorsing one of these flawed candidates simply because of party affiliation. Donald Trump's vulgar, bigoted, violent, authoritarian, and racist rhetoric and policies stand in stark opposition to biblical teachings. We must be politically engaged, but we must do so without ignoring our consciences and throwing away our principles. In this book, award-winning author Brian Kaylor addresses the moral issues at stake in the 2016 election, explores how the Christian faith became too closely tied to partisan politics, and considers the alternative political engagement called for in scripture. This book also includes practical steps to help Christians offer much-needed prophetic politics during this and future campaigns.

To understand what drives the rift that divides our populace between liberal and conservative, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has spent twenty-five years examining the moral foundations that undergird and inform two differing world views: the political left and right place different values of importance on order, care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and liberty. From one of our keenest dissectors of moral systems, Why Do They Vote That Way? explains how deeply ingrained moral systems have estranged conservatives and liberals from one another while crossing the political divide in a search for understanding the miracle of human cooperation. A Vintage Shorts Selection. An ebook short.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A thoughtful defense of traditional conservatism and a thorough assault on the way Donald Trump is betraying it.”—David Brooks, in his New York Times column In a bold act of conscience, Republican Senator Jeff Flake takes his party to task for embracing nationalism, populism, xenophobia, and the anomalous Trump presidency. The book is an urgent call for a return to bedrock conservative principle and a cry to once again put country before party. Dear Reader, I am a conservative. I believe that there are limits to what government can and should do, that there are some problems that government cannot solve, and that human initiative is best when left unfettered, free from government interference or coercion. I believe that these ideas, tested by time, offer the most freedom and best outcomes in the lives of the most people. But today, the American conservative movement has lost its way. Given the state of our politics, it is no exaggeration to say that this is an urgent matter. The Republican party used to play to a broader audience, one that demanded that we accomplish something. But in this era of dysfunction, our primary accomplishment has been constructing the argument that we’re not to blame. We have decided that it is better to build and maintain a majority by using the levers of power rather than the art of persuasion and the battle of ideas. We’ve decided that putting party over country is okay. There are many on both sides of the aisle who think this a good model on which to build a political career—destroying, not building. And all the while, our country burns, our institutions are undermined, and our values are compromised. We have become so estranged from our principles that we no longer know what principle is. America is not just a collection of transactions. America is also a collection of ideas and values. And these are our values. These are our principles. They are not subject to change, owing to political fashion or cult of personality. I believe that we desperately need to get back to the rigorous, fact-based arguments that made us conservatives in the first place. We need to realize that the stakes are simply too high to remain silent and fall in line. That is why I have written this book and am taking this stand. —Jeff Flake

Thirty years ago there were nine African Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Today there are four times that number. In Going Home, the dean of congressional studies, Richard F. Fenno, explores what representation has meant—and means today—to black voters and to the politicians they have elected to office. Fenno follows the careers of four black representatives—Louis Stokes, Barbara Jordan, Chaka Fattah, and Stephanie Tubbs Jones—from their home districts to the halls of the Capitol. He finds that while these politicians had different visions of how they should represent their districts (in part based on their individual preferences, and in part based on the history of black politics in America), they shared crucial organizational and symbolic connections to their constituents. These connections, which draw on a sense of "linked fates," are ones that only black representatives can provide to black constituents. His detailed portraits and incisive analyses will be important for anyone interested in the workings of Congress or in black politics.

An unforgettable chronicle from a groundbreaking journalist who covered Emmett Till's murder, the Little Rock Nine, and ten US presidents