American Nero: The History of the Destruction of the Rule of Law, and Why Trump Is the Worst Offender

Description

Donald Trump is eroding the rule of law! We've heard it said many times, and we can feel it in our guts. But what does "rule of law" really mean? And what happens when it breaks down? From Richard Painter, a senate candidate and law professor who served as White House chief ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, and New York Times bestselling author Peter Golenbock, American Nero is an in-depth exploration the rule of law-the legal bedrock on which this country was founded. Painter and Golenbock present a clear description of rule of law-arguably the single most important principle underlying our civilization. They also describe the abuses of power that have occurred throughout our nation's history. Beginning in Puritan New England with the infamous Salem Witch Trials, American Nero makes vivid stops at The Red Scare of the 1920s, Japanese-American internment, the McCarthy Era, and, much more recently, President Trump's attempt to violate the First Amendment by banning Muslims from entering the US. While Trump is not the first offender, he is arguably the most blatant, and this unflinchingly honest and insightful work presents in devastating detail the ways in which our current president has trampled the rule of law with his attacks on the freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, and the autonomy of the justice department. This is not a book about right vs. left -instead, it is about the rule of law, a principle that transcends partisan politics, and how vital it is to the survival of our country. This book serves as a call-to-action, looking ahead to a brighter future for our country, one where citizens and officials alike protect our rights and honor their responsibilities. Timely and revealing, American Nero shares the lessons of history and lays the framework for returning to a society that respects the rule of law-an America that is consistent with our Founding Fathers' vision of a genuinely free nation.

Richard Painter, a Republican, worked in the George W. Bush Administration as associate counsel to the President in the White House Counsel's office from February 2005 to July of 2007. His specialties are government ethics, business ethics, and lawyers' ethics. Since Donald Trump began his run for the presidency in 2016, Painter has been an outspoken critic of candidate Trump and President Trump, appearing frequently on such popular cable news stations as CNN and MSNBC. The author of two books, he has also appeared on NPR's All Things Considered and recently was a guest on The Bill Maher Show. Norman Eisen, President Barack Obama's ethics chief, described Painter as "the Number 1 scholar in the country on government ethics." Painter, like the President, has a dedicated and faithful Twitter following. Peter Golenbock, a graduate of NYU Law School, has written 65 books, ten of which have been New York Times bestsellers. In addition to his best sellers about sports and with sports figures, he has also written Presumed Guilty with Jose Baez, the attorney for Casey Anthony, The Chairman, written with Jim Greer, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, and In The Country of Brooklyn, a book about the liberal strain emanating from there.

"A quintessential book! Usually, political experts do not understand or appreciate enough of the psychological domain, and psychological experts enough of the political domain, for the two areas to meet. This has proven a debilitating deficiency in the era of Donald Trump. Richard Painter and Peter Golenbock take an important step to correcting this . . . Through parallels with this sick presidency, they issue a stark warning before we go the same route as two other empires that collapsed, both more established and longer in duration than we so far, because of a leader's psychological defects." -Bandy X. Lee, professor at Yale School of Medicine and editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump "Whenever Richard Painter appears in public to offer his lacerating opinions on Donald Trump's unethical actions, I stop to listen. In this revealing book, Richard Painter and Peter Golenbock place those sharp opinions in a fascinating historical context." -David Maraniss, author of The Red Scare and My Father