In this groundbreaking battery of dispatches from the heartland of America, Matt Taibbi tells the full story of the Trump phenomenon, from its tragi-comic beginnings to the apocalyptic election.

Full of sharp, on-the-ground reporting and gallows humour, his incisive analysis goes beyond the bizarre and disturbing election to tell a wider story of the apparent collapse of American democracy. Taibbi saw the essential themes right from the start: the power of spectacle over truth; the end of a shared reality on the left and right; the nihilistic rebellion of the white working class; the death of the political establishment; and the emergence of a new, explicit form of white nationalism.

From the thwarted Bernie Sanders insurgency to the aimless Hillary Clinton campaign, across the flailing media coverage and the trampled legacy of Obama, this is the story of ordinary voters forced to bear witness to the whole charade. At the centre of it all, "a bumbling train wreck of a candidate who belched and preened his way past a historically weak field" who, improbably, has taken control of the world's most powerful nation.

This is essential and hilarious reading that explores how the new America understands itself, and about the future of the world just beyond the horizon.

The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing tells the story of a hyper-observant, politically-minded, but humorously pragmatic weed dealer who has spent a working life compiling rules for how to a) make money and b) avoid prison. Each rule shapes a chapter of this fast-paced outlaw tale, all delivered in Huey Carmichael's deliciously trenchant argot. Here are a few of them: No guns but keep shooters. Stay behind the white guy. Don't snitch. Always have a job. Be multi-sourced. Get your money and get out. Part edge-of-the-seat suspense story, part how-to manual in the tradition of The Anarchist Cookbook, The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing is as scintillating as it is subversive. Just reading it feels illegal.

In this characteristically turbocharged book, now in a new post-election edition, celebrated Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi provides an insider's guide to the variety of ways today's mainstream media tells us lies. Part tirade, part confessional, Hate Inc reveals that what most people think of as "the news" is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business. In the Internet age, the press have mastered the art of monetizing anger, paranoia, and distrust. Taibbi, who has spent much of his career covering elections in which this kind of manipulative activity is most egregious, provides a rich taxonomic survey of American political journalism's dirty tricks. After a 2020 election season that proved to be a Great Giza Pyramid Complex of invective and digital ugliness, Hate Inc. is an invaluable antidote to the hidden poisons dished up by those we rely on to tell us what is happening in the world.

In real life, there is a person like "Anonymous", who, for the sake of this story, I'll call Huey Carmichael. I was friends with this person for a while before I learned about his other life. The real Huey knows more than a thing or two about the weed business. He keeps rules. The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing tells the story of a hyper-observant, politically-minded, but humorously pragmatic weed dealer who has spent a working life compiling rules for how to a) make money and b) avoid prison. Each rule shapes a chapter of this fast-paced outlaw tale, all delivered in Huey's deliciously trenchant argot. Here are a few of them: * No guns but keep shooters. * Stay behind the white guy. * Don't snitch. * Always have a job. * Be multi-sourced. * Get your money and get out. Part edge-of-the-seat suspense story, part how-to manual in the tradition of The Anarchist Cookbook, The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing is as scintillating as it is subversive. Just reading it feels illegal.

A brilliantly illuminating and darkly comic tale of the ongoing financial and political crisis in America
The financial crisis that exploded in 2008 isn't past but prologue. The grifter class--made up of the largest players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding--has been growing in power, and the crisis was only one terrifying manifestation of how they've hijacked America's political and economic life.
Matt Taibbi has combined deep sources, trailblazing reportage, and provocative analysis to create the most lucid, emotionally galvanizing account yet written of this ongoing American crisis. He offers fresh reporting on the backroom deals of the bailout; tells the story of Goldman Sachs, the "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity"; and uncovers the hidden commodities bubble that transferred billions of dollars to Wall Street while creating food shortages around the world.
This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the labyrinthine inner workings of this country, and the profound consequences for us all.

"NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER
A scathing portrait of an urgent new American crisis
Over the last two decades, America has been falling deeper and deeper into a statistical mystery:
"Poverty goes up. Crime goes down. The prison population doubles."
"Fraud by the rich wipes out 40 percent of the world's wealth. The rich get massively richer. No one goes to jail."
In search of a solution, journalist Matt Taibbi discovered the Divide, the seam in American life where our two most troubling trends--growing wealth inequality and mass incarceration--come together, driven by a dramatic shift in American citizenship: Our basic rights are now determined by our wealth or poverty. The Divide is what allows massively destructive fraud by the hyperwealthy to go unpunished, while turning poverty itself into a crime--but it's impossible to see until you look at these two alarming trends side by side.
In "The Divide, "Matt Taibbi takes readers on a galvanizing journey through both sides of our new system of justice--the fun-house-mirror worlds of the untouchably wealthy and the criminalized poor. He uncovers the startling looting that preceded the financial collapse; a wild conspiracy of billionaire hedge fund managers to destroy a company through dirty tricks; and the story of a whistleblower who gets in the way of the largest banks in America, only to find herself in the crosshairs. On the other side of the Divide, Taibbi takes us to the front lines of the immigrant dragnet; into the newly punitive welfare system which treats its beneficiaries as thieves; and deep inside the stop-and-frisk world, where standing in front of your own home has become an arrestable offense. As he narrates these incredible stories, he draws out and analyzes their common source: a perverse new standard of justice, based on a radical, disturbing new vision of civil rights.
Through astonishing--and enraging--accounts of the high-stakes capers of the wealthy and nightmare stories of regular people caught in the Divide's punishing logic, Taibbi lays bare one of the greatest challenges we face in contemporary American life: surviving a system that devours the lives of the poor, turns a blind eye to the destructive crimes of the wealthy, and implicates us all.
Praise for "The Divide"
" "
"Ambitious . . . deeply reported, highly compelling . . . impossible to put down.""--The New York Times Book Review"
"These are the stories that will keep you up at night. . . . "The Divide" is not just a report from the new America; it is advocacy journalism at its finest.""--Los Angeles Times"
" Matt] Taibbi is a relentless investigative reporter. He takes readers inside not only investment banks, hedge funds and the blood sport of short-sellers, but into the lives of the needy, minorities, street drifters and illegal immigrants, to juxtapose justice for the poor and the powerful. . . . "The Divide" is an important book. Its documentation is powerful and shocking.""--The Washington Post"
" Taibbi's] warning is all about moral hazard. . . . When swindlers know that their risks will be subsidized . . . they will surely commit more crimes. And when most of the population either does not know or does not care that the lowest socioeconomic classes live in something akin to a police state, we should be greatly concerned for the moral health of our society.""--The Wall Street Journal"
"Taibbi is] perhaps the greatest reporter on Wall Street's crimes in the modern era."--"Salon"

"From the Hardcover edition."

The incredible story of the death of Eric Garner, the birth of the BLACK LIVES MATTER movement and the new fault lines of race, protest, policing and the power of the people.

On July 17, 2014, a forty-three-year-old black man named Eric Garner died in New York after a police officer put him in a "chokehold" during an arrest for selling bootleg cigarettes. The final moments of his life were captured on video and seen by millions – his agonised last words, “I can’t breathe,” becoming a rallying cry for the nascent Black Lives Matter protest movement.

Matt Taibbi, bestselling author and “the best polemic journalist in America”, tells the full story of the man who inspired a movement – neither villain nor victim, but a fiercely proud individual determined to do the best he could for his family. Featuring vivid vignettes of life on the street, this powerful narrative of urban America is a riveting work of literary journalism and a scathing indictment of law enforcement in the twenty-first century. I Can’t Breathe tells the story of one man to tell the story of countless others, and the power of people to rise up against injustice.

One of the most important voices in contemporary American journalism - Independent Matt Taibbi is one of the few journalists in America who speaks truth to power - Bernie Sanders Matt Taibbi is the best polemic journalist in America - Felix Salmon NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "The thing is, when you actually think about it, it's not funny. Given what's at stake, it's more like the opposite, like the first sign of the collapse of the United States as a global superpower. Twenty years from now, when we're all living like prehistory hominids and hunting rats with sticks, we'll probably look back at this moment as the beginning of the end." In this groundbreaking battery of dispatches from the heartland of America, Matt Taibbi tells the full story of the Trump phenomenon, from its tragi-comic beginnings to the apocalyptic election. Full of sharp, on-the-ground reporting and gallows humour, his incisive analysis goes beyond the bizarre and disturbing election to tell a wider story of the apparent collapse of American democracy. Taibbi saw the essential themes right from the start: the power of spectacle over truth; the end of a shared reality on the left and right; the nihilistic rebellion of the white working class; the death of the political establishment; and the emergence of a new, explicit form of white nationalism. From the thwarted Bernie Sanders insurgency to the aimless Hillary Clinton campaign, across the flailing media coverage and the trampled legacy of Obama, this is the story of ordinary voters forced to bear witness to the whole charade. At the centre of it all, "a bumbling train wreck of a candidate who belched and preened his way past a historically weak field" who, improbably, has taken control of the world's most powerful nation. This is essential and hilarious reading that explores how the new America understands itself, and about the future of the world just beyond the horizon.