Review: The Squad (2023)
I feel about this book the same way I feel about the endless tsunami of insidery books about Trump’s presidency: Mostly just confused about why it exists and who the audience is supposed to be?
I’m not saying the Squad isn’t worth writing about, and Ryan Grim, who is Washington bureau chief of The Intercept, is not a bad writer. But even my genuine interest in the subjects of his book — primarily AOC and Bernie Sanders — doesn’t make this play-by-play recounting of progressive infighting since 2015 interesting to read.
It’s just exhausting to wade through a relitigation of the 2016 Democratic primary, then the 2020 Democratic primary, plus the endless Twitter controversies members of the Squad were sucked into over the past five years. Moreover, Grim doesn’t really offer much of an answer to the big question in the room: Are politicians like AOC and Bernie outsiders fighting a terrible political system, or was their radicalism blunted and tamed by that system?
To be fair, the book offers some analysis of why progressives and democratic socialists have fallen short of a “political revolution." It provides useful insight into AOC’s mindset, characterizing her as someone who believed (wrongly) that she could please everyone, even her political opponents. When recounting her decision to occupy Nancy Pelosi’s office, Grim observes:
“While somebody like Obama wants to be seen as being all things to all people, Ocasio-Cortez actually thinks she can be all things to all people, even while leading a political revolution."
Moments of clear insight like this are outliers, though.
I also had little gripes that are petty but still undermined my respect for the book. Multiple passages in the book are just straight up copy/pasted from stories Grim wrote for the Intercept (something he candidly admits in an author’s note, fortunately). That’s fine I guess, but I’d already read plenty of these stories! And sure, that may not be the case for most readers, but still.
Ultimately I can't see this appealing to avid news junkies (who already know most of the events the book covers) or people uninterested in DC politics. So to restate my initial question: Who is this book for?