Publishers Weekly
06/14/2021
Atlantic staff writer Dovere debuts with an incisive and deeply reported portrait of the Democratic Party in exile during the Trump presidency, and the confluence of events that brought Joe Biden to victory in 2020. Opening with election night 2016, Dovere discusses various factors contributing to Hillary Clinton’s defeat, including her flaws as a campaigner and Obama’s “negligence” of Democratic Party infrastructure during his presidency, and describes initial discussions about how best to organize the resistance to Trump. Turning to the 2020 primaries, Dovere offers sharp assessments of each candidate (“At his best, could appear to be working his way through the primaries as if he were solving a Rubik’s Cube”); sheds light on how Bernie Sanders’s push to get others to commit to Medicare for All set a ceiling on how far a progressive could go in the race; and documents how the Biden campaign navigated Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation and the “October surprise” of Hunter Biden’s laptop. But in Dovere’s estimation, none of that would have mattered if the Covid-19 pandemic hadn’t masked Biden’s weaknesses and made him the best “fit” for the moment. Though somewhat baggy, Dovere’s narrative is littered with rich characterizations, wry humor, and impressive insider access. Political junkies will savor this satisfying deep dive. (May)
From the Publisher
"In the tradition of Theodore White’s The Making of the President . . . . A riveting account . . . filled with turning point moments. . . . Scenes jump off the page."
—The Washington Post
"Essential reading. . . . Dovere’s first book is informed and granular, filled with up-close quotes and lacerating observations, a must-read for newsrooms and political junkies. . . . Battle for the Soul provides ample warning and plenty of food for thought."
—Lloyd Green, The Guardian
"A wide-ranging history of a tangled campaign."
—Kirkus Reviews
"An incisive and deeply reported portrait of the Democratic party in exile during the Trump presidency . . . . Littered with rich characterizations, wry humor, and impressive insider access."
—Publishers Weekly
"There’s so much in it. It’s so dishy. It’s so fantastic. You’ll learn a lot."
—Julie Mason, SiriusXM
"Candy. . . . Even if you think you know the dynamics, you read a great book like this by a great reporter, and you learn these new things."
—John King, CNN
"One juicy book."
—Alex Witt, MSNBC
"It is outstanding. Strongly recommend. I think it is probably the best read of the 2020 campaign. The success of the book is that it doesn’t get bogged down in the horse race, electoral math type thing, but it talks about the personalities, how the personalities drove what happened in an extraordinarily unpredictable campaign."
—Charlie Sykes, The Bulwark
"Highly recommend - it is a dynamite book."
—John Fugelsang, SiriusXM
"An extraordinary new book."
—Thom Hartmann
"The inside campaign details I was craving. . . . Buy the book."
—Dave Weigel, The Washington Post
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2021-05-18
A carefully structured account of the many moving parts that turned the Democratic Party into a resistance movement against Trump.
Barack Obama, writes Atlantic lead political correspondent Dovere, “never understood why people disliked [Hillary] Clinton so much. He could also never get over how bad a campaigner she was.” He didn’t do much to help in her campaign until it was too late. Somehow Trump managed to squeak by her even as Obama finally told aides, “do you really want a psychopath sitting at that desk?” and ordered them to do something to get that message through to voters. Yet, Dovere writes, there was a certain continuity to a vote for Obama in 2008 and a vote for Trump in 2016: Both were outsiders running a populist campaign, if of very different dispositions. Obama tried to guide Trump to effectiveness after the election, suggesting that he “make a few patches to Obamacare and call it Trumpcare” and warning him not to hire Michael Flynn, whose Russian connections were already well known. Trump ignored the advice. His intransigence emerged early, moving Nancy Pelosi to challenge his claim that he had won the popular vote. Trump was great for Obama, Dovere notes, retrospectively erasing the errors he made in office, while resistance to Trump soon became marching orders for party stalwarts. Some of the newsworthy items in this book: Clinton contemplated running again in 2020 only to conclude that if she did, Bernie Sanders would be the guaranteed candidate. She hoped instead for a deadlocked convention by which the Democrats would call her back by acclaim. It was to the Democrats’ good fortune, Dovere suggests, that Trump was so inept, especially with respect to the pandemic, and that the Republican Party “was defining itself as the check against America’s changing.” That America was changing seems to have eluded them all, leaving Trump a loser “on the biggest stage of his life.”
A wide-ranging history of a tangled campaign—catnip for politics junkies.
