Polemical Judo: Memes for Our Political Knife-Fight

A brazen guide for sane Americans to bypass trench warfare and win our life or death struggle for civilization. Are we in phase 8 of America’s 250 year civil war? This book explores the possibility of using agility — winning political battles with the shifting dexterity of jiu jitsu — that never occurs to many politicians or strategists. Sure, talk show hosts milk each day’s outrage for humor, indignation and ratings. But does anyone consider ways to get off the hoary, insipid "left-right political axis" and maneuver in three dimensions? Amid the latest tweet-storm and news-grabbing stunt, what pundit ever steps back to ask "Hey, what actually just happened?" Across today’s fast-changing political landscape, Brin explores how to confront our neighbors not with familiar chasms, but commonalities - things both you and they know to be true. How to counter the all-out war against facts and all fact-using professions, including science and the "fake news" media. Using actual outcomes to demolish comfy oft-told narratives — by seeking better strategies against deficits, at engendering a healthy economy and even at fostering open-creative-competitive enterprise. Polemical Judo ranges from electoral cheating to the economy; from saving the planet to troubles with Russia and China; from conspiracies to racism, to forging a Big Tent Coalition. It also explores more extreme "exit strategies" — impeachment, indictment, the 25th Amendment and all that, as well as incorporating bold ideas from Lincoln, FDR, MLK and the Greatest Generation. Because those brave geniuses fought earlier battles for us. And they won.... plus tactics, tactics, tactics that you’ve never seen before. They might — or might not work. But shouldn’t someone at least try some of them?

David Brin's best-selling novels include The Postman (filmed in 1997) plus explorations of our near-future in Earth and Existence. His award-winning novels and short stories explore vividly speculative ideas through a hard-science lens. His nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, won the American Library Association's Freedom of Speech Award for exploring 21st Century concerns about security, secrecy, accountability and privacy.