Publishers Weekly
04/26/2021
Los Angeles Times editor Calmes debuts with a scrupulous history of the Republican Party’s efforts to put a conservative “lock” on the Supreme Court. Calmes tracks how the party’s rightward shift over the past 40 years—from the Reagan revolution to the Tea Party and Trumpism—played out in an increasingly aggressive approach toward stacking the federal judiciary with conservative judges. Calmes sketches the hearings of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, and others, but spends the most time on Brett Kavanaugh’s rise through the ranks of Republican legal circles. She delves into the creation and growing influence of the Federalist Society, which Kavanaugh joined in 1988, and details his work assisting independent counsel Kenneth Starr in his investigation of the Clintons, as well as serving as White House staff secretary to George W. Bush. Calmes also offers insight into Stanford University research psychologist Christine Blasey Ford’s decision to come forward with sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, and makes a convincing argument that Kavanaugh misled Congress about his knowledge of the Bush administration’s “illegal surveillance and torture policies” and a Republican aide’s theft of thousands of emails and memos sent by Democratic senators and their aides in the early 2000s. Though Calmes covers familiar ground, she lucidly and comprehensively explains the mechanics of the “ascendant conservative legal movement.” Liberals will be outraged by this richly detailed rundown of Republican provocations. (June)
From the Publisher
"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 bestselling 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 bestselling 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
"Jackie Calmes, a savvy veteran Washington reporter who recognized the growing radicalization of the Republican Party decades before most everyone else, has written a sophisticated analysis of contemporary American politics through the lens of Brett Kavanaugh’s history, leading to his nomination and confirmation as a justice of the Supreme Court. DISSENT presents a riveting narrative with fresh insights to the most hotly contested judicial confirmation battle in American history and importantly links it to profound developments that define the troubled state of our democracy." —Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, New York Times bestselling authors of THE BROKEN BRANCH and IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN IT LOOKS
"Brett Kavanaugh’s journey is not merely the story of one the most tumultuous Supreme Court nominating battles in history. As Jackie Calmes' brilliant book reveals, Kavanaugh’s rise also tracks the evolution of Republican politics and the right-wing takeover of our highest court."—David Axelrod, former chief strategist to President Obama, director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, CNN senior commentator and host of "The Axe Files" podcast
"Jackie Calmes persuasively describes how, with a little luck and more than a little duplicity, Republicans have virtually assured a conservative-dominated Supreme Court for the foreseeable future. The focus is on the nomination battle over Brett Kavanaugh, a very smart and very partisan jurist with, as she details, 'a troubling pattern of shading the truth.' But the backdrop is the radicalization of the Republican Party over recent decades. DISSENT should be read by anyone who cares about the Supreme Court and, more broadly, a fair and honest political process."
—Albert R. Hunt, Washington columnist, podcast host, and former bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News
“A scrupulous history of the Republican Party’s efforts to put a conservative 'lock' on the Supreme Court. [Calmes] lucidly and comprehensively explains the mechanics of the ‘ascendant conservative legal movement.’"
—Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating look not only into the life and career of Kavanaugh, but also into the American conservative movement's successful long-term plan to move the Supreme Court rightward. Calmes is a first-rate reporter, and her skills are on full display here. Riveting...DISSENT is a remarkable work of reportage."—NPR
"Ambitious...Calmes’s book stands out for how well she details the ways judicial confirmations have devolved into 'a gang war' endlessly provoking 'retaliatory hits.'"—Washington Post
Library Journal
04/09/2021
Investigative journalist Calmes uses archival materials and firsthand interviews to methodically present the controversy surrounding the confirmation of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Calmes sets this story amid the Republican Party's rightward movement and conservative populism, under the influences of Reagan, Gingrich, the Tea Party, and Trump. She diagnoses increasing political polarization on all sides and the dominance of politicians who are more interested in campaigning than governing. The book offers an evaluative exposition of Kavanaugh's social and academic activities at Georgetown Prep and Yale (and his initial involvement with the Federalist Society); Robert Bork's and Clarence Thomas's similarly contested Supreme Court nominations; and the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh that were raised by Debbie Ramirez, Julie Swetnick, and Christine Blasey Ford. For other delineations and interpretations of these events by journalists, readers might consider Justice on Trial, by Mollie Hemingway, or Search and Destroy, by Ryan Lovelace, both published in 2019, as well as Ronan Farrow's articles in the New Yorker. VERDICT This exhaustively detailed book will engage general readers interested in civic duty and privacy. Contemporary journalistic treatments of the confirmation will have to suffice until historical perspective produces what scholars may consider a definitive account.—Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC
Kirkus Reviews
2021-03-30
An investigation of the stumbling path by which Brett Kavanaugh was installed on the Supreme Court.
The conservative movement has been playing a very long game when it comes to the judiciary, writes Calmes, who spent four decades reporting on the White House and Congress for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Since the Reagan era, the GOP has taken every opportunity to pack the courts with judges who are reliably anti-abortion, anti-regulation, and pro-gun. Since the 1990s, writes the author, the Republican Party has “moved so far to the right that it was on the wrong side of history on many issues”—and yet it has stubbornly stuck to that wrongness. George Bush’s putatively compassionate conservatism became a quest for privatizing Social Security while Donald Trump’s ideology seemed driven by a desire to be America’s first king. As Calmes reminds us, Trump was able to place three justices on the Supreme Court bench, “the first justices in history to be first, chosen by a president who’d failed to win the popular vote and, second, confirmed by a majority of senators with fewer votes—many millions fewer—than the senators who voted ‘no.’ ” In the case of Kavanaugh, that vote count amounted to nearly 25 million. That hardly mattered to GOP leadership, who only cared that he was a conservative Christian who, in his work as a federal judge, “predictably favored corporations, police, and executive power”—as long as the executive power was wielded by a Republican. In Trump’s eyes, of course, this made Kavanaugh the perfect man for the job even though, Calmes notes, advisers (including daughter Ivanka) urged him to find someone of higher moral character. Trump didn’t, and five Republican senators lost their seats because of their support for Kavanaugh.
A well-written, deeply informed account of the long battle to steer the Supreme Court rightward.
