Two recent books are great reads providing insight and understanding into the 2024 election year. DEMOCRACY AWAKENING by Heather Cox Richardson is an insightful narrative into the political rise of Donald Trump dating back to the beginning of Republican conservatism following FDR’s New Deal.Her concise narrative makes abundantly clear as to how and why Trump has taken over the Republican Party. A history that looks back to a mythologized past as the country’s perfect time is a key tool of authoritarians.

THE REBELS- Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the Struggle for a New American Politics by Joshua Green is a another must for the political observer. Green’s historical perspective does not miss one major player in this political drama.

Warren, Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez, as detailed by Green, pulled the Democratic Party back to its working class roots. He speculates, We don’t know yet whether history will remember them as harbingers of a new Democratic age or as insurgents who ultimately didn’t change the party as they’d hoped.

Two books, perfect companion reads.