Bad Stories
What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country
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Bad Stories
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Narrated by:
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Steve Almond
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By:
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Steve Almond
About this listen
Like a lot of Americans, Steve Almond spent the weeks after the 2016 election lying awake, in a state of dread and bewilderment. The problem wasn't just the election, but the fact that nobody could explain, in any sort of coherent way, why America had elected a cruel, corrupt, and incompetent man to the Presidency. Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country is Almond's effort to make sense of our historical moment, to connect certain dots that go unconnected amid the deluge of hot takes and think pieces. Almond looks to literary voices―from Melville to Orwell, from Bradbury to Baldwin―to help explain the roots of our moral erosion as a people.
The book argues that Trumpism is a bad outcome arising directly from the bad stories we tell ourselves. To understand how we got here, we have to confront our cultural delusions: our obsession with entertainment, sports, and political parody, the degeneration of our free press into a for-profit industry, our enduring pathologies of race, class, immigration, and tribalism. Bad Stories is a lamentation aimed at providing clarity. It's the book you can pass along to an anguished fellow traveler with the promise, This will help you understand what the hell happened to our country.
©2018 Steve Almond (P)2018 Red Hen Press, all rights reserved. Published by Brilliance Publishing, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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-
Disturbingly disappointing
- By Steven on 02-20-10
By: John P. Avlon, and others
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Moyers on Democracy
- By: Bill Moyers
- Narrated by: Bill Moyers
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story5 out of 5 stars 30
People know Bill Moyers mostly from his many years of path-breaking journalism on television. But he is also one of America's most sought-after public speakers. His appearances draw sell-out crowds across the country and are among the most reproduced on the Web. Richly insightful, and alive with a fierce, abiding love for our country, Moyers on Democracy is essential listening.
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5 out of 5 stars
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You can't help but think critically
- By Ida F. on 09-29-09
By: Bill Moyers
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Insane Clown President
- By: Matt Taibbi
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,178
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,051
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,040
Dispatches from the 2016 election that provide an eerily prescient take on our democracy's uncertain future, by the country's most perceptive and fearless political journalist.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Slow Motion Horror
- By Rick on 01-20-17
By: Matt Taibbi
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Good and Mad
- How Women's Anger Is Reshaping America
- By: Rebecca Traister
- Narrated by: Rebecca Traister
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,333
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,187
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,177
In the year 2018, it seems as if women’s anger has suddenly erupted into the public conversation. But long before this, women’s anger was not only politically catalytic - but politically problematic. With eloquence and fervor, Rebecca tracks the history of female anger as political fuel - from suffragettes chaining themselves to the White House to office workers vacating their buildings after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. She deconstructs society’s (and the media’s) condemnation of female emotion (notably, rage) and the impact of resulting repercussions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The perfect book for October 2018.
- By Kate Willette on 10-03-18
By: Rebecca Traister
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Bullies
- How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans
- By: Ben Shapiro
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,653
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,456
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,446
Ben Shapiro uncovers the simple strategy used by liberals and their friends in the media: bully the living hell out of conservatives. Play the race card, the class card, the sexism card. Use any and every means at your disposal to demonize your opposition - to shut them up. Then pretend that such bullying is justified because, after all, conservatives are the true bullies and need to be taught a lesson for their intolerance.
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3 out of 5 stars
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i wish shapiro narrated it
- By michelle on 03-25-17
By: Ben Shapiro
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Bad News
- How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy
- By: Batya Ungar-Sargon
- Narrated by: Batya Ungar-Sargon
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 167
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Story5 out of 5 stars 165
Today’s newsrooms are propagating radical ideas that were fringe as recently as a decade ago, including “antiracism,” intersectionality, open borders, and critical race theory. How did this come to be? It all has to do with who our news media is written by—and who it is written for. In Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, Batya Ungar-Sargon reveals how American journalism underwent a status revolution over the twentieth century—from a blue-collar trade to an elite profession.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Balanced, informative, and insightful
- By J. B. Eibel on 06-06-22
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Bannon
- Always the Rebel
- By: Keith Koffler
- Narrated by: William LeRoy
- Length: 5 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 96
To understand the Trump White House, you need to understand Steve Bannon: what's driving him, what his true role is, and what he's trying to accomplish on behalf of the American middle class. White House reporter Keith Koffler penetrates the fog surrounding the mysterious senior White House advisor, tracing Bannon's wild and distinctly American path to the White House in this first-ever honest biography of the controversial figure.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The "real" Steve Bannon! Great read!
- By Amazon Customer on 12-20-17
By: Keith Koffler
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The Death of Truth
- Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
- By: Michiko Kakutani
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 242
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 217
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 212
We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Prescient Account of the Mechanics of Tyranny
- By Brian Price on 07-27-18
By: Michiko Kakutani
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The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore
- A Story of American Rage
- By: Jared Yates Sexton
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 presidential election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into the White House. Featuring in-the-field reports as well as deep analysis, Sexton's book is not just the story of the most unexpected and divisive election in modern political history. It is also a sobering chronicle of our democracy's political polarization - a result of our self-constructed, technologically assisted echo chambers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Undercover in Trump's America
- By David Larson on 09-06-17
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Gaslighting America
- Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us
- By: Amanda Carpenter
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4 out of 5 stars 89
"Can you believe what Donald Trump said?" In Gaslighting America, Amanda Carpenter breaks down Trump's formula, showing why it's practically foolproof, playing his victims, the media, the Democrats, and the Republican fence-sitters perfectly. She traces how this tactic started with Nixon, gained traction with Bill Clinton, and exploded under Trump. Where some people see lies, Trump's fierce followers see something different. A commitment to winning at all costs: There is nothing he could say that would erode their support at long as it's in the name of taking down his political enemies.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Right Winger Whines False Equivalency
- By B. D on 05-03-18
By: Amanda Carpenter
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Beautiful Country Burn Again
- Democracy, Rebellion, and Revolution
- By: Ben Fountain
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 14 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 78
Beautiful Country Burn Again narrates a shocking year in American politics, moving from the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following election night. Along the way, Fountain probes deeply into history, illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror and precipitated the present, from the hollowed-out notion of the American Dream, to Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, to the cult of celebrity that gave rise to Donald Trump.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Must read
- By Gerald Moore on 11-01-18
By: Ben Fountain
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Death of the Liberal Class
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 387
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 312
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 314
Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Integrity-Can You Tell Me Where It's Gone?
- By Mel on 06-14-12
By: Chris Hedges
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Every Man a King
- A Short, Colorful History of American Populists
- By: Chris Stirewalt
- Narrated by: Chris Stirewalt
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 114
American populism has always been home to a fascinating assortment of charismatic leaders, characters, kooks, cranks, and sometimes charlatans who have led the charge of ordinary folks who have gotten wise to the ways of the swamp. Every Man a King tells the stories of America's populist leaders, from Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt to Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Donald Trump. It is a rollicking history of an American attitude that has shaped not only our current moment, but also the long struggle over who gets to define the truths we hold to be self evident.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Education delivered in a most entertaining way.
- By Snaps And Snippets on 09-17-18
By: Chris Stirewalt
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In Trump We Trust
- E Pluribus Awesome! (That Was the Easy Part) and Is Fighting for US
- By: Ann Coulter
- Narrated by: Ann Coulter
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,158
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,045
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,037
Donald Trump isn't a politician - he's a one-man wrecking ball against our dysfunctional and corrupt establishment. We're about to see the deluxe version of the left's favorite theme: Vote for us, or we'll call you stupid. It's the working class against the smirking class. Now Ann Coulter, with her unique insight, candor, and sense of humor, makes the definitive case for why we should all join his revolution.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Doesn't deliver on it's promises.
- By Greg Hill on 08-24-16
By: Ann Coulter
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What Were We Thinking
- A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era
- By: Carlos Lozada
- Narrated by: Christian Barillas
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 154
It is an irony of our age that a man who rarely reads has unleashed an onslaught of books about his tenure and his time. Dissections of the white working class. Manifestos of political resistance. Works on identity, gender, and migration. Memoirs on race and protest. Revelations of White House mayhem. Warnings over the future of conservatism, progressivism, and of American democracy itself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Useful book
- By Kindle Customer on 11-22-20
By: Carlos Lozada
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Cowards
- What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 305
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 269
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 269
As we approach the most important presidential election in America’s history, something has been lost among all of the debates, attack ads, and super- PACs - something that Americans used to hold in very high regard: THE TRUTH. The truth can no longer be something we hope for; it must be something we live. When courage prevails, cowards do not - and this book was written to ensure that’s exactly what happens.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Guess what... Its by Glenn Beck!!
- By Joseph on 07-17-12
By: Glenn Beck
What listeners say about Bad Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Taylor Garcia
- 11-18-18
Whatever you do, read this book
Steve Almond gets its. For our nation and our democracy to mature, we must acknowledge our vulnerabilities and minimize our grievances. Let Steve tell you the bad stories that brought us to this fractured state. Let Steve remind you that it’s all within our reach to fix, if we only apply some mercy to ourselves and to our fellow citizens.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lisa E. Wallace-Keith
- 12-11-22
Absolutely everyone should read this
Enlightning and tactful. A must read!
I want to share this with soooo many people.
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