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Nichols, John and Robert W. McChesney. Dollarocracy: How the Money-and-Media Election Complex Is Destroying America. New York: Nation Books, 2013. Pp. xviii, 339. ISBN: 978-56858-707-3 (cloth) $26.99.
Part of the problem with this otherwise valuable book on the role of elections in democracy, reform, and the role of media dollars is a rhetorical one. From the outset and almost to the end of the book the authors make bold and compelling arguments that American elections are becoming so hyper money-driven and journalism so craven that they are undermining democracy. In the last chapter, they make a sudden rhetorical u-tum and argue that things can be improved, voter rights protected, and democracy saved. It makes it difficult for the reader to be convinced since the work of the first eight chapters is serious and detailed about the nature of the problem. The last chapter by necessity is argued on general terms and thus makes for a less perLandau suasive conclusion. The problem is common for often good critique that cannot provide as convincing an answer to the thrust of the critique.
That said, this is an important and detailed study of what consequences result from the Citizens United Supreme Court decision in the summer of 2010. The authors argue that this was not a sudden and unforeseen turn of the Court. Nor did it directly create the money bloated election cycle that has used media, especially television, for its purposes of winning elections and enriching media and diminishing journalism in the process over decades. The authors provide a historical context for what is a compelling analysis of how the 2012 election spent almost double the amount as its predecessor in 2008 which in turn had spent almost 10 times what was spent on elections a generation...