Dissent

The Radicalization of the Republican Party and Its Capture of the Court

By: Jackie Calmes

Narrated by: Cassandra Medcalf

Featuring new interviews with his accusers and overlooked evidence of his deceptions, a deeply reported account of the life and confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, set against the conservative movement's capture of the courts.

In Dissent, award-winning investigative journalist Jackie Calmes brings listeners closer to the truth of who Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is, where he came from, and how he and the Republican party at large managed to secure one of the highest seats of power in the land.

Kavanaugh's rise to the justice who solidified conservative control of the supreme court is a story of personal achievement, but also a larger political tale: of the Republican Party's movement over four decades toward the far right, and its parallel campaign to dominate the government's judicial branch as well as the other two.

And Kavanaugh uniquely personifies this history. Fourteen years before reaching the Supreme Court, during a three-year fight for a seat on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin would say to Kavanaugh, "It seems that you are the Zelig or Forrest Gump of Republican politics. You show up at every scene of the crime."

Featuring revelatory new reporting and exclusive interviews, Dissent is a harrowing look into the highest echelons of political power in the United States and a captivating survey of the people who will do anything to have it.

©2021 Jackie Calmes (P)2021 Twelve

Critic reviews

"With a depth of research and a palpable love of politics, Jackie Calmes tells the story of the GOP's journey to power and the reckoning the party now faces as it struggles to contain the forces it unleashed. DISSENT is a brilliant look at the players who drive the system, unspooling through a Supreme Court confirmation fight that will resonate for decades." (Helene Cooper, New York Times best-selling author of The House at Sugar Beach and Madame President)

"The steady rise and tumultuous confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh — and with that, conservative command of the Supreme Court — reflects the transformation of the GOP, decades in the making and still underway. Clear-eyed and tough-minded, drawing on 40 years as a journalist and more than 200 interviews, Jackie Calmes takes us behind the scenes to see how it happened, and to understand the repercussions that will reverberate for years ahead. Dissent is engaging, insightful and, at times, alarming." (Susan Page, New York Times best-selling author of The Matriarch)

"Jackie Calmes - one of the most insightful journalists in Washington, or anywhere else - brings fresh behind-the-scenes reporting and crackling narrative to the story of how the decades-long conservative project to remake the judiciary collided with the #MeToo movement. The bruising battle over Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination exposed the fragility of our institutions and our political system, and neither has yet to recover." (Karen Tumulty, Washington Post political columnist)

A masterful book

This is a deep, thorough and thoughtful explanation of the disastrous transformation of the courts. It dives into the hearing on Kavanaugh with interviews and details the devious twerp’s sketchy behavior. I watched every moment of those hearings and was disgusted watching the republicans sell their souls. She brings it all the way up to fall of 2021 and concludes with truly grim predictions for our democratic system of self governing. Amazing work.

Incredible

I’m still reeling from the details in this book and the fact that few, if any were addressed in news media - at least not that I saw/read. My question is this, can Kavanaugh still be convicted of perjury? If so, is that a Justice Dept. effort? If convicted, is he automatically ineligible for the seat he holds, therefore avoiding impeachment? I hope the author pursues this issue. He should be removed for perjuring himself.

Stunning How America Has Fallen For a Fraudulent Party

My father was a Reagan Democrat-Catholic Republican. We did not agree on most if not all of the hotter issues. I must say I am “thankful” he was gone, at 83, and didn’t disappoint me in not voting for Obama, and voting for Trump. Ever since he started listening to Russian Limpdog back in the late 1980s, he was lost in the rabid hole. And I mean rabid not rabbit. His zealotry against abortion and gay marriage undergirded by his Catholicism trapped him in that downward spiral. Such a vengeful aspect of the faith.

Dissent summed up in graphic and scary detail how far gone he might have been by now, so to speak. Being “conservative” is a whole lot different than it was back in the summer of 2008 when dad died. Having changed after 1994, and 1981 as well. There is little hope the party can find its way back to 2008 let alone back to its best radical days during and shortly after Lincoln’s time in office.

Our friend died last night from COVID, 11/8/21, at the age of 59. His wife who already had the vaccine, brought the virus home, infecting her unvaccinated husband. He had just become a grandfather recently. He had no health problems at all, ever, and he was intubated in a couple weeks and never came out of it.

That is Trump’s and the Republican’s epitaph: Killing Yourselves Coughly, and killing others as well, or as unwell.