Sanford Levinson

This originally was published in 2017, updated in 2019, and made into a graphic novel in 2020. I’ll just leave this very relevant section from Chapter 19, written before the COVID-19 pandemic:

“In 2017, the CDC adopted rules that followed the federal government to impose national quarantines and prohibit travel from one state to another. In 2018, the Trump administration disbanded the Global Health Security Team, which was in charge of our country’s response in case of a pandemic.

Authorities are likely to get into a free-for-all at the first uncertain sign of an epidemic.”

Everyone needs to read this book.

ETA: My one quibble (Goodreads, you really need half stars) is that New Jersey is constantly referred to as a "small" state. Yes, it is the 47th smallest state...in physical size. It's the 11th most populous state in the country (also number ONE in population density). Population-wise, we're not small, by any means. It's no California, but then NJ is TWENTY-ONE times physically smaller than it. There are only so many people we can fit here while also producing a fair percentage of the US's fruits & vegetables, chemical manufacturing, industrial manufacturing, and more. Included in the NY metropolitan area, we produce 10% of the country's GDP. Just saying.

Mad props for Ally Shwed, who's from Linden, NEW JERSEY! Her illustrations were hilarious and well thought out. Her visuals make you pay attention to what the authors are saying… (more)

A good primer on how the Constitution can interfere with modern governance.

Each section starts with a real world example of a problem caused or exasperated by the Constitution, a flashback to what problems our founding fathers intended to address when writing that part, and then ways we have dealt with those problems throughout the history of our country.

I don't think the graphic novel format really helps with the facts presented here, it's still pretty dense and wordy, but worth reading, especially for _target audience.… (more)

Even in graphic novel form, it took me a few days to get through this long and packed history and analysis of the U.S. Constitution. The format kept it from bogging down by taking a look at a modern day problem and following that with a flashback to the debates around the originating issue the Founding Fathers had during the Constitutional Convention in the 1780s. It's full of interesting historical tidbits and offers a decent overview.

Drawbacks:
* It's pretty light on diversity, making only passing mention of the issues of Black, Native, and LGBTQ+ Americans.
* It focuses heavily on the Executive Branch, becoming another of those books that is mostly about what the U.S. President is up to in any given decade.

The authors do court controversy in the final chapter by actually assigning letter grades to how successful the U.S. has been in following through on the promises laid out in the Preamble to the Constitution. I'm sure it's going to earn them quite a lot of hate mail.… (more)