The Dead Center

Luke Savage is a writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Statesman, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Born in St John's, Newfoundland, he studied political science, history, and philosophy at the University of Toronto, where he edited Canada's largest student newspaper The Varsity. Having worked for several years as an investigative reporter covering Canadian politics and the far right, Luke has been a staff writer at Jacobin since 2018 ? where he is a frequent commentator on American, British, and Canadian politics. He is co-host of the popular Michael and Us podcast, a twice-weekly show about politics, cinema, and our crumbling world.

Introduction: The Dead Center
A Note to the Reader
Part I: Salvos Liberalism in Theory and Practice Why Liberals Pretend They Have No Power David Brooks' Capitalist Fatalism What Canada Can Teach Us About Liberals Everywhere
Part II: Bipartisan Bromides The Curse of Bipartisanship Liberalism's Veil of Ignorance 2004 Redux How Liberals Fell in Love with The West Wing The Never Trump Delusion
Part III: Dramatis Personae The Fraudulent Universalism of Barack Obama?co-authored with Nathan J. Robinson Justin Trudeau and the Politics of Spectacle Fear and LARPing on the Campaign Trail Farewell to Betomania Why The Pundit Class Loves Amy Klobuchar| Variations in B-Flat Minor Keir Starmer and the Genealogy of Centrist Non-Belief Joe Biden Is Not a Radical
Part IV: On the Media Manufacturing Consent, One Chyron at a Time The Agony and the Ecstasy of Chris Matthews All the President's Tweets Erasing the Working Class James Carville Will Never Stop Being Wrong The Progressive Era That Wasn't
Part V: All That's Solid... Savory Snacks for Social Justice The British Monarchy Will Not Survive Late Capitalism Barons of the Valley From New Deal to Nudge Neoliberalism? Never Heard of It.
Acknowledgements
Endnotes
About the Author