Very informative

It definitely opens up your mind. It also holds a good level of balanced view points since it’s critical of both democrats and republicans and other groups of people. While also give light to the hypocrisy that has happened and continues to happen.

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Good but selective arguments

the issue with the hijacking of sjw is an American born phenomenon. Not until the US began forming safe spaces and trigger warnings did European institutions follow suit. the conclusion of the author that America is a great nation without major flaws is star spangled blindness. the damage the country and its "system" has done to nations in south America and middle east in the name of freedom is well documented. I support the overall conclusion about the hijacking of an initially well intentioned movement but found the patriotism speak disappointing.

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Interesting “neutral” analysis of an anti trump thinker

This book is an interesting listen, about current problematic political movements. There is a myriad of interesting episodes, and they are generally presented neutral and fair. Taking both sides arguments to bear.

The problem I, as a conservative had, was the slight bias. Establishing anti white racism in one chapter only to deny it in the next is strange. Trumps affiliation with alt-right and their supposed connection to nazis, is strongly hinted, as well as Trump affiliation to KKK. This is where the bias shines through, especially when murders commited by BLM or Antifa are not linked to a democratic policy.
Likewise the auther accepts “white suppremacy” labels attached to Trump, without adressing - thruthfully- Trumps policies, which in general are mainstream.

However, this takes little away from what I think overall is well researched book.
And a great reading

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A good case against a growing problem

This is a good exploration of the rise of identitarian extremism in the United States. It's short on prescriptions, but in order to solve a problem, you first have to recognize that it exists. That seems to be the goal of this book. In short, logic and reason matter less and less today. They are being replaced by an assessment of how oppressed someone's identity is considered to be. Equality of opportunity and taking care of the root causes of problems are being thrown out in favor of an insistence on equality of outcome, even if the inputs are not the same (whatever the cause of that is). This leads to injustice: reversing oppression instead of getting rid of it. The book also has some problems. Right-wing and left-wing identitarianism are discussed in one breath, as though they're remotely equivalent, when only one brand dominates corporations and institutions. The author occasionally goes into irrelevant digressions about how much he dislikes the current President of the United States. The most striking of these was when he bemoaned that politicians and elites do not condemn right-wing violence and left-wing violence equally, when he earlier bemoaned Trump doing that exact same thing. Still, unlike for many public figures, his dislike for Trump does not make him more sympathetic to identitarian extremism.

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Balance. Finally.

In today’s polarised world, it’s become too easy to fall off the centrist tight rope and land in a crumpled heap on the right or the left. And in seeking out brave new work that puts the author in the social firing line, if only for a break from the network news narrative, a reader will often that tight rope becomes increasingly shaky. But Rothman avoids taking a side and instead fights the issues themselves, using examples from all walks of society to point out the traps of division.

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