Andrew Yang & Stephen Marche — The Last Election - in conversation with Jon Ward

Watch authors Andrew Yang & Stephen Marche's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose book store in Washington, D.C.

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Andrew Yang is the cofounder of the Forward Party, a new, independent political movement dedicated to restoring the promise of American democracy. He was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 whose campaign outlasted over a dozen mainstream political officeholders and raised $40 million from hundreds of thousands of everyday Americans, dubbed "the Yang Gang." His New York Times best-selling book The War on Normal People helped introduce the idea of universal basic income into the political mainstream, and his most recent book, Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy became a national bestseller. Named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship, he is the founder of Humanity Forward and Venture for America. He lives with his family in New York.

Stephen Marche is a novelist and essayist. He is the author of half a dozen books, including The Next Civil War, The Unmade Bed: The Messy Truth about Men and Women in the Twenty-First Century, and The Hunger of the Wolf. He has written opinion pieces and essays for the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Esquire, and many others.

The Last Election is a unique political thriller about an outlandish yet frighteningly possible--even probable--scenario in America's near future, during the crucial 2024 presidential election. Though it is fiction, it is a wake-up call to a country tearing itself apart.

The story focuses on two characters: Mikey Ricci, a political operative who has lost faith in traditional structures following the bitter races of 2016 and 2020; and Martha Kass, the anonymous tip supervisor of the New York Times. In 2023, Ricci becomes the campaign manager of a third-party candidate who runs on a popular, centrist platform and whose frank and honest manner stands in stark contrast to the candidates of the two major parties. Ricci faces off against the massive machinery of both political parties, as well as their invested media and dark money supporters--the source of true power in America. Even so, the candidate's message begins to gain ground.

In the meantime, Kass stumbles upon a plot by the current Joint Chiefs of Staff to seize power in the anticipated chaos of the coming election. She hopes it is too improbable to be taken seriously. But as the idea that Ricci's candidate might win enough electors to upset the delicate balance of America's two-party system takes hold, the threat becomes frighteningly real.

Events unfold at the frenetic pace of the campaign trail, and Kass and Ricci become unlikely allies as they bear witness to what might be the end of America as a democratic republic. If no candidate can accrue the coveted majority of 270 electors, who wins? The electoral system collapses in uncertainty as Congress's role in certification becomes unfathomably complex. When no one is certain who the winner is, the stage is set for a corrupt seizure of power. Will the American experiment end?

Yang and Marche will be joined in conversation with Jon Ward, senior political correspondent for Yahoo News, author of Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Failed a Generation and Camelot's End: Kennedy v Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party, and host of “The Long Game” podcast. Jon has covered American politics and culture for two decades, as a city desk reporter in Washington D.C., as a White House correspondent who traveled aboard Air Force One to Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and as a national affairs correspondent who has traveled the country to write about two presidential campaigns and the ideas and people animating our times. He has been published in The Washington Post, The New Republic, Politico Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, and The Washington Times

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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.