Shameless: Republicans' Deliberate Dysfunction and the Battle to Preserve Democracy
by Brian Tyler Cohen
View on GoodreadsCohen's argument is that the gap between the Republican brand and Republican behavior isn't an accident. The brand is the permission structure, if you will, for doing the opposite. He puts a good share of the blame on a press that keeps covering it as normal politics.
Core ideas
- The long con: The distance between the brand and the behavior is the strategy.
- The press: An appetite for spectacle makes the dysfunction read like ordinary political coverage.
- For Democrats: See the landscape clearly, because the other side has already dropped the norms you're still defending.
Published2024
Pages224
ISBN9780063392885
ReadAug 2026





