The writer Stephen Marche designs five shrill scenarios for the demise of democracy in the USA – using the same methods as Donald Trump. It has little to do with political analysis, it’s more of a lesson on the book market.
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Viola Schenz
In America, exaggerations are a stylistic device, it’s the land of triple burgers, XXL coke bottles and monster trucks, you can always find the “best” restaurant, the “most beautiful” national park, the “most wanted” criminal. Publishers also like to turn up the heat in order to survive the tough book competition. In the present case, even the German edition writes nothing less than “The Next Civil War”, and that in rapidly steep script, above which a black gap zigzags menacingly through an American flag. According to the text on the back cover, the United States is on the brink, and author Stephen Marche paints “a picture of a country torn apart on the brink of state failure.” Realists, dress warmly!