This book has been a great reading experience. Thanks to the author and the publisher for bringing this book to life.

A top and informative study on the dangers of Progressive politics. What started off with good intentions has been allowed to run unchecked and so without self reflection has morphed into a cult of terror. Dangerous and in need of correction before it becomes as dangerous as identity cults of the 20th century that led to 2 world wars.

Bruce Abramson has made a career out of studying and teaching in higher academia and thus has witnessed what he views as the hollowing out of American scholarship and the substitution of credentials for intellect, merit, and argument. In his latest book, published in 2021, post-2020 pandemic, Abramson looks back and sees how the hollowing out of universities has spread like wildfire across American institutions and corruptly compromised those institutions so that now we are locked in a civil war between a corrupt progressive elite and ordinary Americans.

As Abramson explains, studying at our elite universities has often resulted in checking your common sense at the door. Academic excellence stopped mattering and the rules changed depending on where you were in the pecking order. For instance, in law schools, there is nothing more impressive than echoing the enlightened views of one’s own professors rather than questioning them. The rules of this new enlightened credentialed order are thus clear: Those who have been promoted are always right and if you refuse to follow their lead, you will be booted out. The fear of challenging ideas is baked into the academic incentive system.

This problem of following so-called experts who refuse to stay in their own lane, it is explained, has now spread across society. And the progressivism that has emerged is anticapitalist, antisemitic, Marxist, and authoritarian. It is run by experts who define what is good and what is not just like a Communist Central Committee of truth.

This has expanded, Abramson notes, across society where the progressive elites no longer call for a color-blind society as Dr. King did, but for defining everything in terms of so-called structural racism. The tragedy is that so-called progressives now support organizations and candidates whose goals are racist, antisemitic, and anti-family. “In short, progressives have been seduced.” The reality is that progressive goals now are all about entrenching the elite status of the ideological progressives.

Weaponized deconstruction, Abramson, has handed progressives control of language and, as such, they have redefined terms of the debate so that facts have little to do with their arguments. His solution: insist on defining terms so that they do not change with the weather. If what progressives are saying makes no sense, ask them to define their terms. “Once people see how wacky progressive definitions are, they’ll be able to see through the lies.”

The New Civil War is a fairly short treatise that can be read in only a few hours, but it is an invaluable treatise in sorting through today’s exceedingly wacky political discourse and how to address arguments that are being made.

I received this book from the publisher through Netgalley for review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
Whether you're shaking your head, perplexed by current state of the union, or you're appalled and shaken by what you are seeing happen to this country; reading this book will clarify some background for you as a reader. Conservative or progressive personally; it will state common sense truths for a better understanding of what we are going to face in the future. Although it was hard to read at times, as truth always demands a response, I found this book to be one of the best in the topic of progressive politics. Highly recommend.

Definitely an interesting take on what's going on in America. I get nervous when the name Sebastian Gorka are connected with a book because he is such a polarizing figure on our side of politics. I thought the points made were interesting.

You need to start this book with an open mind. You can’t sit yourself down on “your” side of the fence without hearing what he has to say. It’s well done but a bit preachy at spots.

Net Galley has provided me with a string of books that examine the current political situation in America and while most were authored by left-leaning scribes "The New Civil War" is composed from the right. If you want a complete view of the existing battle of ideas you should read this book and any one of those written with a collectivist bias. Together is will paint the full picture.

After completing “The New Civil War,” I found myself doing what I seldom choose to do after completing a book…I immediately returned to read the highlights, which caused me to reread several of the passages. This provided a greater understanding of the principles author Bruce D. Abramson lays out in his book.

I was already aware of WHO (both individuals and organizations) were participants as well as WHAT they wanted to accomplish. What Mr. Abramson also detailed in his book was WHY followers of Progressivism would follow principles radically different than the Constitution and HOW the American Republic is dangerously close to being changed to something we will soon not recognize. In the preface, Dr. Sebastian Gorka notes that the book is not a call for war; rather, it is a passionate outcry for American Patriots to stop this transformation before it is too late.

The author outlines the issues and then takes us on a journey of understanding, beginning with his own experiences in academia. As both a student and former teacher in some of our major colleges, Mr. Abramson is well-positioned to be able to describe what is going on in our schools of higher learning, the progression to today’s situation, and the impact those who graduate from these schools have on society. He then moves on to government and the deep state, outlining the incremental steps that have slowly led us to today’s cataclysmic events. Perhaps to lessen the pain and sadness of the topics discussed, the author injects a dry sense of humor throughout the book. Entrenched academics become the Credentialed Elite and the continuous small steps away from reality become Incremental Outrageousness.

The book does not neglect what one can do when confronted with progressive arguments. Armed with facts and the knowledge of the verbal and written weapons used by the Far Left, it is possible to shred their arguments. While you may not convince them, there are others listening who may also be questioning the same dogma you are battling.

Is this a book that will infuriate the Far Left? Absolutely, although that is not the author’s intention. This book is a call to action for all American Patriots and serves as an instruction manual so they will not approach this struggle blindly. Highly recommended. Five stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and RealClear Publishing for a complimentary electronic copy of this book.

Disingenuous bumf. By page 9, there were already over 10 unverified claims (i.e. that the storming of the Capitol was a 'leftist false flag operation'; this has been disproven through the identification of many of those involved in the mob itself) and seems to think that Biden is an oligarch but Trump isn't, even though Trump is the billionaire who gave top government jobs to all his friends, family and business associates. On page 11, he boldly asserts that 'progressives believe that America's true birth was in 1619, with the importation of its first slave'. Sorry, sir; where are you getting your information? That's not a claim I've ever seen anywhere before. Were Mr Abramson able to use even one citation to bolster his claims then I would perhaps have more sympathy for his viewpoint, but there's nothing here. Not a single, solitary footnote. For a book which presents itself as academic and well researched, it's quite clearly just the unverified opinion of a conspiracy theorist.

The cognitive dissonance in this book is frankly astounding. Progressives 'dominate the elites', apparently, even though the President of the United States from 2016-2020 was about as far from progressive as you could possibly imagine, and was quite decidedly an elite (self-described billionaire, remember?). There quite genuinely is not a single argument in this book which stands up to any scrutiny at all. Mr Abramson's head is so deeply buried in the sand that I'm afraid his hair might be singed off by the magma at the very core of the Earth.

Unfortunately, this book will do absolutely nothing to change minds. I read it because I actively believe in challenging my own perspective and try to read books which will genuinely give me food for thought, but there is not a single rigorous idea to hold onto here. Every single claim he makes, none of which he provides a single source for, can be disproven in about three seconds with just an ounce of critical thought.

He claims that progressives are destroying the rule of America, evidenced by the fact that 'laws change overnight at the whim of executive [progressive] decision makers', apparently ignorant of the fact that Trump signed 220 executive orders during his tenure as President.

He falsely claims that BLM launched a protection racket alongside 'Antifa shock troops' to extort government money, which is such a disingenuous reading of the facts that it truly isn't even worth digging into (hint: neither BLM nor Antifa are centralised movements which distribute money to its members, rather just a descriptor of a loose set of ideals.)

On page 117, he finally admits that he has a severe case of sour grapes after 'progressive Credentialed Elites' tanked his promising science career because he couldn't get funding for the projects he wanted, and ends the paragraph by slyly hinting that the Credentialed Elites are idiots because they didn't believe that hydroxychloroquine would work as a Covid treatment. Which, y'know, it didn't.

He claims that Trump was impeached twice because he tried to 'expose progressive corruption', rather than because Trump himself was shown to be complicit in corruption. Which, y'know, he was. Twice.

He claims that George Floyd died because of drugs and not because of the knee pressed to his throat for nine minutes, even though two autopsy reports disagree with him.

He even states that 'our black community' is suffering due to a 'loss of its historic faith', and not, say, because of systemic poverty and inequality. It's nothing but an echo chamber, a hollow polemic with no substance whatsoever.

Abramson is admittedly a capable writer, but it's a shame that his subject matter is completely fallacious, empty untruths about an election that didn't go the way he wanted it to. I really can't recommend that anyone read this book unless they want to use its pages to wipe their tears over the results of the 2020 election. It truly is about all it's good for.