Book Talk – Make America Meme Again: The Rhetoric of the Alt-Right, by Heather Woods and Leslie Hahner. Crisis of Civility?: Political Discourse and Its Discontents, edited by Robert Boatright, Timothy Shaffer, Sarah Sobieraj, and Dannagal Goldthwaite Young.

Excerpts from book cover: “Make America Meme Again reveals the rhetorical principles used to design Alt-right memes, illustrating the myriad ways memes lure mainstream audiences to a number of extremist claims. In particular, this book argues that Alt-right memes impact the culture of digital boards and broader public culture by stultifying discourse, thereby shaping how publics congeal. The authors demonstrate that memes are a mechanism that proliferate white nationalism and exclusionary politics by spreading algorithmically through network cultures in ways that are often difficult to discern. Alt-right memes thus present a significant threat to democratic praxis, one that can begin to be combatted through a rigorous rhetorical analysis of their power and influence.” Excerpt from preface by Carolyn Lukensmeyer: “This book [Crisis of Civility] is developed from scholarship in the fields of communication, philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, public engagement, public policy, and political science. It is intended to a useful as a guide to further research , and as a curriculum resource for engagement in the classroom. The three sections in this book – “How Americans think about Civility in Politics,” “Instances of Civility and Incivility in Contemporary American Political Discourse,” and “Learning from the Past”- point to an essential fork in the road of American democracy. We have in front of us two paths: one where intolerance, incivility, and political and media interests divide Americans in our politics and civil life, and the other where civil and healthy discourse transforms the polarization that has come to define American politics today.