The Right of the People

A bold case for reimagining the American project and making American democracy real—from a formidable new voice in political journalism

“The first thing I’ve read that provides a rigorous vision of how to refound this nation if we manage to survive the current threats to this core values.”—Chris Hayes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sirens’ Call

Frustrated with our political dysfunction, wearied by the thinness of contemporary political discourse, and troubled by the rise of anti-democratic attitudes across the political spectrum, journalist Osita Nwanevu has spent the Trump era examining the very meaning of democracy in search of answers to questions many have asked in the wake of the 2024 election: Are our institutions fundamentally broken? How can a country so divided govern itself? Does democracy even work as well as we believe?

The Right of the People offers us challenging answers: while democracy remains vital, American democracy is an illusion we must make real by transforming not only our political institutions but the American economy. In a text that spans democratic theory, the American Founding, our aging political system, and the dizzying inequalities of our new Gilded Age, Nwanevu makes a visionary case for a political and economic agenda to fulfill the promise of American democracy and revive faith in the American project.

“Nearly two hundred fifty years ago, the men who founded America made a fundamental break not just from their old country but from the past—casting off an order that had subjugated them with worn and weak ideas for the promise of true self-governance and greater prosperity in a new republic,” Nwanevu writes. “With exactly their sense of purpose and even higher, more righteous ambitions for America than they themselves had, we should do the same now⁠—work as hard as we can in the decades ahead to ‘institute new Government’ for the benefit of all and not just the few.”