The Unraveling by Bob Bauer is a deeply thoughtful book that includes reflections on his decades-long career in politics and gives insight into the ways we can work to strengthen our democracy. It couldnt be a more timely read. * President Barack Obama * Bob Bauer brings a unique combination of practical, on-the-ground expertise and deep intellectual rigor to the complex intersection of politics and ethicsa topic never more important, but seemingly never more hopeless, than today. In this sober, and sobering, update to The Unraveling, Bauer charts the dangerous new reality, in Donald Trumps second term, of a politics devoid of ethical as well as legal constraints. He poses the unsettling question of whether private entitiesfrom law firms to media organizations to educational institutionswill summon the fortitude to stand up to relentless, and lawless, bullying. Bauers real-time assessment, including the performance of my own former employer, The Washington Post, is far from comfortingand the stakes are nothing less than 'the vibrancy and durability of American democracy.' -- Ruth Marcus, contributor to The New Yorker A man of the arena, Bob Bauer is remarkably candid about his own role in defining and in deploying the law of politicsor, sometimes, the politics of the lawin recent decades. In these pages he takes honest account of the conflicts and compromises of an inherently complex sphere of life. -- Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bob is one of the few people who has had a front seat to history through two Presidents and a first hand knowledge of the weight and responsibilities that sit on their shoulders. Through engaging storytelling and candor about his own experiences, Bob reminds us of the responsibility every public servant has to weigh ethics and morality in decision making not just in the age of Trump but well beyond. -- Jen Psaki, Former White House press secretary, Host of Inside with Jen Psaki on MSNBC Too many foxholes over too many years with Bob Bauer. His good advice is only rivaled by his good collegiality. Eager to dive into the Unraveling. * David Plouffe * With wit, insight, self-awareness, and humility, Bob Bauer reflects on his life as a leading political lawyer, making an urgent plea for a renewed commitment to political ethics. A must-read warning about how our existential politics has led to norm collapse, and how to bring us back from the brink. -- Richard L. Hasen, author of A Real Right to Vote and Election Meltdown There may be no lawyer in America today who has been more deeply involved than Bob Bauer in the major political controversies over many years. In this important memoir, Bauer takes us behind the scenes and into the rooms where some of the most consequential political battles played out. For that reason alone, his book makes for riveting reading. But more than that, Bauer takes a hard look at his own role in those events, asking whether he helped to strengthen democratic norms or whether he could have done more or better. Bauers introspective analysis is a call to each of us to ask the same hard question about the way we involve ourselves in todays politics. Do we have the moral courage to become the type of person our politics needs at this moment of toxic polarization that threatens our democracy? -- Judge Thomas B. Griffith (ret.), U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit (2005-2020) In this new edition of The Unraveling, Bob Bauer extends his examination of ethics in American politics with a timely and sobering afterword. In the year since the books first publication, his clarion call for a reinvigoration of democratic ethics has become more urgent, as the erosion of norms has extended to the press, law firms, and universities, testing the independence of core institutions. Bauers analysis is clear-eyed, deeply informed, and grounded in long experience. The Unraveling remains one of the most thoughtful accounts we have of how ethical failure and political polarization intersectand what it might take to restore a sense of public responsibility. -- Nate Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law, Stanford Law School; Founding Co-Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Centers Program on Democracy and the Internet In The Unraveling, Bob Bauer drew from his unparalleled experience as a lawyer engaged in the most consequential political battles of our age to warn us all of the risks to our democracy and to the rule of law when politics becomes completely untethered from ethics and mutual respect for our fellow citizens. Now, with a president abusing his power to bend law firms, universities, and other pillars of civil society to his will, it is clear that Bobs warnings were prophetic. This updated edition, particularly Bobs trenchant analysis of the intensifying threats posed by an executive branch seeking to crush all opposition, could not be more timely, and his insights could not be more important to the vital struggle to preserve our constitutional democracy and the rule of law itself. -- Donald Verrilli, former Solicitor General of the United States
