Crashing the Gate

Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics

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“With Crashing the Gate now in affordable paperback, there is no excuse for not reading it. It should be a staple of politically-oriented book clubs, and will keep you discussing its contents long after completion.”

—BeyondChron

"Dead On."

—Adam Cohen, The New York Times

"Markos is Moses leading Democrats to the Promised Land"

—Eleanor Clift, Newsweek

"Two of the hottest Democratic bloggers—DailyKos’ Markos Moulitsas and MyDD’s Jerome Armstrong—prove with this book that they are also two of the sharpest and most insightful voices in the progressive movement. Crashing the Gate is an urgent and powerfully written look both at what ails our democracy and what can heal it. Ultimately, they show that the fuel to reform our politics will not come from party insiders but from "the netroots, grassroots, and the rise of people-powered politics."

—Arianna Huffington, Editor of The Huffington Post

Photo by Chris Buck. Markos in The Tank in New York City during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Crashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington, DC and a call to re-democratize politics in America.

This book lays bare, with passion and precision, how ineffective, incompetent, and antiquated the Democratic Party establishment has become, and how it has failed to adapt and respond to new realities and challenges. The authors save their sharpest knives to go for the jugular in their critique of Republican ideologues who are now running—and ruining—our country.

Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America, the book hails the new movement—of the netroots, the grassroots, the unorthodox labor unions, the maverick big donors—that is the antidote to old-school politics as usual. Fueled by advances in technology and a hunger for a more authentic and populist democracy, this broad-based movement is changing the way political campaigns are waged and managed.

A must-read book for anyone with an interest in the future of American democracy.

About the Authors

Jerome Armstrong, a pioneer of the political blogosphere, founded one of the first political blogs, MyDD.com, in 2001. An architect of the netroots strategy that used blogs and meetups for Howard Dean's campaign, Jerome works as an internet strategist for advocacy organizations and political campaigns with his company, Netroots.com. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Markos Moulitsas served in the U.S. Army for three years and later earned two bachelors degrees from Northern Illinois University and a law degree from Boston University. After moving to California to work in the tech industry, Markos started DailyKos.com in May 2002. His blog has had a meteoric rise and now gets more than a million unique visitors each day, making it one of the most popular blogs in the nation. Markos lives in Berkeley, California.

Simon Rosenberg is president and founder of NDN, a 21st century progressive advocacy organization working to modernize progressive politics. Before founding NDN, Rosenberg worked in a dozen states as a key member of two presidential campaigns, including Bill Clinton‚s 1992 victory. He and his family live in Washington DC.