• The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore

  • A Story of American Rage
  • By: Jared Yates Sexton
  • Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
  • Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (100 ratings)

Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.
The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore  By  cover art

The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore

By: Jared Yates Sexton
Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.79

Buy for $25.79

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

On June 14, 2016, Jared Yates Sexton reported from a Donald Trump rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. One of the first journalists to attend these rallies and give mainstream readers an idea of the raw anger that occurred there, Sexton found himself in the center of a maelstrom. Following a series of tweets that saw his observations viewed well over a million times, his reporting was soon featured in the Washington Post, NPR, Bloomberg, and Mother Jones, and he would go on to write two pieces for the New York Times. Sexton gained over 18,000 followers on Twitter in a matter of days and received online harassment, campaigns to get him fired from his university professorship, and death threats that changed his life forever.

The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 presidential election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into the White House. Featuring in-the-field reports as well as deep analysis, Sexton's book is not just the story of the most unexpected and divisive election in modern political history. It is also a sobering chronicle of our democracy's political polarization - a result of our self-constructed, technologically assisted echo chambers.

©2017 Jared Yates Sexton (P)2017 HighBridge, a Division of Recorded Books
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    71
  • 4 Stars
    24
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    55
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    11
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    63
  • 4 Stars
    19
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Undercover in Trump's America

What makes this book interesting is that the author, Jared Yates Sexton, spent over a year "undercover" in red-state America, following Trump supporters from one rally to the next. He was born in a red state himself, and his parents and all of his family voted for Trump. He very closely understands the mentality of the disaffected poor white rural Americans who have been left behind in modern America.

The author gives firsthand reporting from the barrooms and barn rallies across America from whence the pro-Trump movement arose. Because the author is himself a red-state American, he helps all of those liberal utopian thinkers to see exactly why their anti-Trump messaging was such a massive failure. One great example is the author's critique of the anti-Trump commercials that played all over rural America depicting Trump as a foul-mouthed person who swears and doesn't follow the common levels of decorum and comportment that mainstream America stands for. Of course, anyone who has spent time in rural America knows that these folks aren't necessarily turned off just because a man uses "colorful" language and calls people names. And by implying that bad language and name calling makes you a bad person, these anti-Trump ads actually backfired and made rural America feel like these were anti-rural America ads.

The author points out in the final chapter how simple it would have been to make an effective commercial that actually spoke to the values of rural America by highlighting the facts that would have meant something to them (e.g. Trump inherited most of his money, Trump was bailed out by his rich father several times, Trump doesn't pay his blue-collar workers, Trump has fired thousands and replaced them with foreign workers, Trump has his entire clothing-line made in China, Trump was bailed out by the federal government multiple times, etc.). Instead, the failure of the Democratic party was to allow Trump to pretend to be a "Blue-collar Billionaire" without effectively challenging that proposition.

This book is worth reading for the last chapter alone, but the whole thing is interesting throughout. I would put it up there with "Hillbilly Elegy" as one of the great "undercover" red-state America books. If you are a conservative, this book will make loads of sense to you. If you are a liberal, it will be a big time wakeup call. It's time to get out of the ivory tower and start facing up to the realities that rural America deals with on a daily basis (e.g., opioid addiction, loss of status, loss of power, marginalization, etc.). Instead the left spent all of its time arguing about which bathrooms 1% of the population could use, ignoring the 50% of the population who were seeing the American dream disappear before their eyes.

Every urban Democrat needs to read this book, because any rural Republican could have written it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Trump, Fox, Republican party are racist

The first chapter or two sound promising before the author morphs into a rant about racism and how Trump voters love racism. Familiar stuff anyone can get for free. If you believe this, this is the book for you. I'm returning this book, the author can return to his beer cans.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Don't bother!

A total rant-couldn't finish do not waste your precious Audible credit on this garbage!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Racist Americans love Trump

I despair for American democracy. Trump will destroy it and 2/3rd of the people will not care.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A must read!

This book is written with TONS of insight into the political environment during and after Trump's run for office. It is informative and also a scary horror novel. A must read!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Analysis

Excellent analysis and dissection of the events leading to Trump’s election in 2016. Still relevant 7 years later.

This book has apparently not gotten a lot of attention and I don’t understand it. If you want to know how Trump won, need a recap of recent history it’s all here with very perceptive commentary by the author. Of necessity there’s a breakdown of the Sanders and Clinton campaigns as well.

This was riveting and I listened straight through in one sitting.


Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!