Wingnuts: A Field Guide to Everyday Extremism in America

Do NOT read this book if you want your passionate convictions admired or your enemy's stupidity mocked. Do NOT read this book if you have emotionally charged reactions to hot-button topics like trigger warnings, cancel culture, patriotism, fake news, internet thought police, and gun control. But if you ARE ready to think rationally and calmly about the opinions you hold as well as those held by your antagonists, it's time to read Wingnuts. Pithy, humorous, and chock-full of shockingly commonsense wisdom, David Michael Slater strikes blow after devastating blow against the unreasonable thinking that now dominates our most critical political & cultural conversations. Conservatives and liberals, righties and lefties, Democrats and Republicans, all come in for an equal-opportunity flogging in this book on political freedom. In it, Slater identifies forty vitally important social ideas and compellingly articulates how and why they've been hijacked by three types of extremists. If his clarion call for a return to compromise in "the radical center" inspires enough people, it might just save democracy itself.

About the Author :
David Michael Slater is a celebrated teacher and author of over 20 works of fiction and non-fiction. David's We're Doing It Wrong: 25 Ideas in Education That Just Don't Work-And How to Fix Them, a thought-provoking dissection of the issues plaguing American public schools, was lauded by dozens of experts in the field as "a must read," and "the most important common sense approach to fixing our public schools." David was named Educator of the Year when he taught in the Beaverton, Oregon, schools and now teaches in Reno. A number of David's works of fiction are in development for film and TV. You can learn more about David and his work at www.davidmichaelslater.com.

Review :
"This is a delightful book, and I encourage the very few Americans who still have half a brain left to buy it immediately." - Morris Berman, Author of Why America Failed, Are We There Yet? and other works "Bad thinking and unreasonable opinions are awarded more credibility now than at any time in recent history. Slater's book is a vital corrective to all manner of extreme and ill-conceived views of the political right and left. It should be required reading on every college campus and in the editorial offices of Fox News and MSNBC." - Steven Schier, Congdon Professor of Political Science, Carleton College, Coauthor of Polarized: The Rise of Ideology in American Politics "It is hard to read this book without smiling in recognition of the commonsense wisdom packed into every short chapter (and the nuggets of humor sprinkled throughout). As an open liberal, I had no trouble identifying with Slater's perspective. And while it was more difficult to hear my "own" side critiqued for cultivating extreme versions of what used to be good ideas, it felt ultimately like welcome medicine. Just as important, it is a book that I could see my conservative counterpart appreciating just as much. In Wingnuts, Slater offers a timely framework for better understanding both our own biases in articulating ideas and helpful ways to understand those of our ideological "enemies." Perhaps just as important, he gives us hope that these important social ideas need not be ruined - we can still rescue them - and pathways to do so." - Elaine Weiss, education policy expert, JD, Harvard Law School, PhD, George Washington University Trachtenberg School "In brave fashion David Michael Slater shines a spotlight of wisdom on the tyranny of the extremists, opportunists, and revengers, those people who too often overrule our nation's centrist majority. The logic offered here is a needed corrective for our highly polarized society. " - Roger Chapman, Professor of History, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Editor of Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices "Aristotle once proclaimed that, 'Any virtue, carried to extremes, becomes a vice.' Well, carry that idea forward a few thousand years, fail to heed its simple warning, and what you have is our modern, hyper-polarized cultural rot. Need relief? Wingnuts breaks it all down for you in a way that allows you to screw your head back on straight." - Dr. Bonnie Kerrigan Snyder, Author of The New College Reality and The Unemployed College Graduate's Survival Guide "David Michael Slater's Wingnuts is a desperately needed dose of rational thinking in a world slowly losing its mind. The adults responsible for the mess we're in will probably hate it, which is why it should be assigned reading for every high school and college student who can read-and for anyone else who can be inoculated before it's too late." - Philip Carl Salzman, Professor, McGill University, Author of Classic Comparative Anthropology "David Michael Slater's provocative new book Wingnuts aims to disrupt the echo chambers on both the left and the right-helping both sides to re-examine their beliefs. In this age when liberals and conservatives can't even seem to speak to each other, hopefully Wingnuts will be just disruptive enough to provoke constructive conversations on these important issues." - Kevin M. Esterling, Author of The Political Economy of Expertise