I received a book called American Schism this past week as part of a Christmas gift.

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I know i just got done saying i didn't have anything to say, but i had earlier thought about critiquing the book because i think it is a phony.  So that is my excuse this time.

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You must realize the attitude of the critic, however.  I was pissed off right from the beginning, not because of anything i read, but simply because the book was "hard bound", cost an arm and a leg, essentially self-published thru the Greenleaf Book Group, with about fifteen "oh, wow, you have to read this book" statements in the front few pages."   

Then i read that the guy who wrote it had graduated from the Kennedy School at Harvard and spent his life in the "business marketing arena".  When covid hit and he had free time to spend, he went back to his Kennedy School education and came up with American Schism.

Now, you must also realize that just about every educational poll that you read about regarding public administration educations, puts Indiana's M.P.A. program #1 and above that of the Kennedy School, and it has been doing so for quite a long time.

So, keep all of that in mind, while you read my critique of American Schism.

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Well, to start off the writer of American Schism spends about the first two hundred pages taking us back to the early years of our country as we were building our democratic principles.  The writer tells us how Adams felt, how Jefferson felt, how Ben Franklin felt, how Thomas Paine felt, etc.  I found this interesting to a degree as a refresher from my grade school years back in my small town of Culver, Indiana.

Anyway, the writer says there were two schools of thought back then:

1.  Democracy should include everyone, thus giving everyone the write to vote; or

2.  A semi-democracy where not everyone would get the right to vote--in other words, a democracy in which the elites can manage things without the "lower life scumbags" messing things up.  They would do this by putting restrictions on those who could vote:  (e.g., a high school education, being white, being male, not being queer, etc.)

Both sides have an argument to be made, especially in countries where the education level of the population is quite poor.  For example, India is currently living in a situation where the elite population is in control, and maybe rightfully so, because a very, large population of India doesn't really know much about big public management concerns.  But when you look at places like the U.S., most European countries, etc. where education levels are generally quite high on a percentage basis, then the first option seems best.

BTW, Jefferson was part of the first school and Adams was part of the second--and most people think Jefferson won out in the end.

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Okay, so that becomes the writer's premise--essentially saying the American schism can be explained by these two different schools of thought.

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Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.  

The people that are supporting the second option at the moment (the republicans) are exactly the same group of people that Jefferson wanted to make sure got a chance to vote--and many of those same people would lose their vote as soon as they voted in their elite democracy.

The schism in America today is not because of the schism between Adams and Jefferson.  It's because the "less educated voters" seem to want to get rid of our current form of democracy and turn over all the power to an elite management team--lead by who else, but "el Trumpo".

The reason for American schism today cannot be tracked back to the early days of our democracy, but to the time Fox news came onboard and gave the uneducated, non-elitist, American voter a place to go to learn to be stupid--believing things that hardly even border on the truth.

What we need to do is educate our public more on the benefits of a free, diverse, and democratic form of government.

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ps.  I checked Amazon and American Schism had 400 plus reviews with an overall 4.4 rating, so you can see that i don't think like most everyone else, which also explains why i have sold only about 15 copies of Globanomics without getting a single review.

ps2  What is funny, however, is that you read my shit--if you got this far, that is.

ps3.  Is America's current form of government "elitist".  Well consider these recent presidents:  Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Biden.  And then look and as yourself whether presidents like Roosevelt, Kennedy, the Bushes, were elitists and i again i think you would say no.  There is no schism in America over elitists vs. full democrats--unless something has changed that i have not seen.  This current republican clan simply want to turn everything upside down and backwards with no justifiable, truthful reason.