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Gerald W. McEntee, International President: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees: "Markos and Jerome have it right in "Crashing the Gate." Progressives need to change the way we do business if we want to confront and destroy the daily right wing assault on our values. And that's exactly what we're doing: empowering local activists, unabashedly articulating our values and recognizing that our movement is bigger than any one person or group. The future of people-powered politics looks bright."
Los Angeles Times: Power to the people with a political takeover plan
Blue Oregon & PERRspectives: Markos and Jerome see a party beset by a three-headed beast that keeps the Democrats out of the majority.
The Stranger: What Crashing the Gate advocates is essentially a bloodless coup inside the Democratic party: a sidelining of the high-paid consultants who have advised Democrats straight into minority status; an eviction from the party's inner circle of the shrill single-issue advocacy groups (like NARAL Pro-Choice America) that demand absolute fealty to their positions, even if it means losing an election; and an influx of new ideas (and cash) into the party via the
Charlie Cook, NationalJournal.com: It is one of the two best books I've read in years about the Democratic Party, its myriad problems and challenges...
The Falls Church News: Blogosphere Pioneers Outline New Prospects for Politics in Cyberspace
Daou Report: Kos (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga) and co-author Jerome Armstrong are receiving much-deserved accolades for their new book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics. True to form, the pair takes direct aim at the structural flaws, strategic failings, and ideological timidity of the Democratic establishment. It isn’t a blanket condemnation - several courageous Dems are praised - but it is an unflinching look at the Party through the eyes of two netroots visionaries. While Republicans are by no means spared, it’s the brutally honest look at the Democratic establishment and progressive infrastructure (if such a thing exists) that makes Crashing the Gate an essential read.
AlterNet: It's hard for Democratic candidates to sound like real people when Washington's consultant class holds the purse strings and the power (excerpt).
SF Bay Guardian: Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics isn't primarily a book about blogs, and it doesn't fall into the self-indulgent trap of arguing that the
The Oregonian: It's an indictment of how the Democratic Party does business, and a vision of a new politics rising out of keyboards all across the country.
Beyond Chron: Crashing the Gate could have degenerated into a rambling, insular, self-congratulatory testimonial about how liberal blogs have changed politics. Instead, Moulitsas and Armstrong have written a lucid, concise, and deeply insightful book that exposes the Democratic Party as a moribund Beltway-centered apparatus stuck in neutral with greedy consultants, old campaigning tactics that no longer work, and party elites who grasp their ever-shrinking fiefdom and resist anyone who dares to challenge their authority.
In These Times: In fact, there’s something remarkably bracing about the authors’ approach. The Unified Theory of Progressive Revival may remain the Holy Grail, but while pursuing it, why not start attacking the small systemic dysfunctions that cripple the movement’s effectiveness?
NYTimes Book Review: Armstrong and Moulitsas may well be right that the next great partisan transformation will be theirs. In
NYTimes Book Review: We have a Republican Party that can't govern, a Democratic Party that can't get elected, and little doubt that a great nation is suffering as a result...
MediaChannel.org: Many will disagree with one or another of the prescriptions in
MyDD's Matt Stoller: How the Democratic Party Can Change Its Pronouns
ePluribus Media: Netrooting in the Grass(Roots)
The Nation: Bloggers at the Gate
MSNBC: Blog pioneer maps political strategy for 2008
Buzzflash: If you are high on the possibilities for the Internet transforming progressive politics, then this is the book of the moment to read.
Slashdot: Netroots Politics
NW Progressive Institute: Review: Crashing the Gate is a breath of fresh air for the progressive movement
Crooks and Liars: National Democrats v. the Blogosphere
New York Times: Bloggers at the Gates: What Was Good for EBay Should Be Good for Politics
About CTG
Crashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington, DC and a call to re-democratize politics in America. This book lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges. The authors save their sharpest knives to go for the jugular in their critique of Republican ideologues who are now running—and ruining—our country.
Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America, the book hails the new movement—of the netroots, the grassroots, the unorthodox labor unions, the maverick big donors—that is the antidote to old-school politics as usual. Fueled by advances in technology and a hunger for a more authentic and populist democracy, this broad-based movement is changing the way political campaigns are waged and managed.
Here's what the reviews say:
The Nation, February 24, 2006
"...provocative new book that offers a perceptive analysis of progressive politics and proposes to revolutionize the Democratic Party..."
BuzzFlash, March 3, 2006
"If you are high on the possibilities for the Internet transforming progressive politics, then this is the book...to read."
Adam Cohen, New York Times, March 12, 2006
"Dead on."
Joe Trippi, author of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga are pioneers of a new politics that empowers people—the Democratic establishment ignores Crashing the Gate and its insights at its peril. For everyone who believes that the Party must reform itself and return power to the grassroots, this book is a must read.
Arianna Huffington, editor, The Huffington Post
Two of the hottest Democratic bloggers--Daily Kos’ Markos Zuniga and MyDD’s Jerome Armstrong--prove with this book that they are also two of the sharpest and most insightful voices in the progressive movement. Crashing the Gate is an urgent and powerfully-written look both at what ails our democracy and what can heal it. Ultimately, they show that the fuel to reform our politics will not come from party insiders but from 'the netroots, grassroots, and the rise of people powered politics.'
Dr. Larry J. Sabato, author of Divided States of America
No one is spared in this lively, pointed book—and that makes it a lot of fun. Democrats should read Crashing the Gate to find their way out of the political wilderness. Republicans should read it to understand what their opponents might do if they get smart. Independents should read it to see what vigorous, two-party competition will really look like.
Joan Blades, co-author of The Motherhood Manifesto
There is a reason why Markos and Jerome's writing dominates the progressive blogosphere: they believe that politics is a battle of ideas and they wield the keyboard like a sword. And this is what we want from our leaders—passion and positions that come from the heart, not from the pollsters. The power and wisdom of the grassroots will elect leaders with these qualities and our democracy will once again be vibrant.
Sam Seder, host of Majority Report, Air America Radio Money
is fucking up the Democratic Party and money can save it. Finally, a plan to make the party more responsive to its roots and its beginnings.
Joe Conason, journalist and author of Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth
In a political culture dominated by corporate money and conservative ideology, the revival of progressive citizen politics is American democracy’s best hope. From the beginning, Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga have been in the vanguard of the "netroots" movement—and now, in their tough, insightful and forthright book, these pioneering activists explain how progressive patriots can win.