If we can experience the same things that other countries experience, if we could also have the corrupt autocrat with the son-in-law working down the hall and the mob that storms the parliament, if we can fight through that and come out on the other end, I think that that will have a much more powerful ripple effect around the world than just America issuing edicts and making statements about democracy from a mountaintop. has a become nation that increasingly plays little role at all, ceding the field to authoritarian powers like China and Russia.

After the Fall sees an America whose influence and example had been hollowed out years before Donald Trump rose to the presidency, by the war on terror and the 2008 financial crisis. When he was in government, Rhodes famously coined the term “the blob” to refer to Washington’s hawkish bipartisan foreign policy establishment-the caucus of politicians, think tankers, and media figures who have never met a problem that can’t be solved by a more assertive American role. His second book since leaving government is a dark, often angry, and surprisingly personal tour of a world where authoritarianism is on the rise and American influence on the wane. In his new book, Ben Rhodes-former speechwriter and deputy national security adviser for Barack Obama-writes about his decision to move to Los Angeles in 2018 as a “message of sorts to the world of high politics I’d marinated in for more than a decade: ‘I’m out.’ ” And to his credit, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made does not read like the work of someone overly concerned about a future confirmation hearing. Slate has relationships with various online retailers.īut note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.Īll prices were up to date at the time of publication.

Rhodes after the fall