The authors analyze how the United States has recently begun to slide away from respectful democratic politics toward adversarial political combat and dictatorial talk. In well-functioning democracies, loyal opposition parties respect the government's work and look for policies that would enable them to gain popular support in the next election. In contrast, the Republican party has turned more toward obstruction. The authors' main point is that the institutional framework of US politics enables too much of this obstruction to be carried out with little popular support. This leads to decision-making paralysis and understandable frustration among the majority of the governed people.

The book adopts a historical perspective, analyzing in detail how the US political system was set up to prevent majorities from abusing their power. The old counter-majoritarian institutions that were set up with good intentions hundreds of years ago now facilitate "the tyranny of the minority" - political obstruction by parties who haven't obtained a majority of votes. The authors also provide a nice international comparative analysis of how other modern democracies, such as Thailand, have suffered from the same problem, and how more successful contemporary democracies dismantled similar counter-majoritarian institutions long ago. The main message of the book is that America must come to terms with the fallibility of its constitution and undertake a reform project.

I've read some pretty pessimistic analyses of US politics recently. This is one is more optimistic, or at least not overly pessimistic. Institutional reform is difficult, but at the end of the book the authors present several reasons to believe that change is possible.