Book Review by Alison Hoover
Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party
by Lynn Vincent and Robert Stacy McCain
Nelson Current
ISBN 1595550240
Welcome to a world of mafia control, power-hungry murderers, drunks, pimps and hookers who threaten national security. While these items might seem appropriate for the next James Bond movie, they are instead the subjects of the book Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party by Lynn Vincent and Robert Stacy McCain. The authors explain early in the book that they are not attempting to chronicle every scandal in the history of politics, but rather to reverse the effects of “the Democrats’ efforts to suppress inconvenient and impolitic historical facts.” Anyone interested in politics can learn a lot from Donkey Cons, especially young activists who may never have heard the original details from scandals that have since suffered the effects of what they call “voter amnesia.”
In Donkey Cons, Vincent and McCain talk about Democratic scandals not because they believe Republicans are free from blame or above the law, but because these scandals are more central in and more prevalent in the Democratic Party’s history. As the authors said in the opening pages of the book, “The main difference between the Democrats and the Gambino mob is that Democrats qualify for federal matching funds—and at least the Gambinos have never pretended to advance the cause of ’social justice.’” However, the point of Donkey Cons is not to compare Democrats to the mob. In Chapter Two, “Rap Sheet,” the authors used the website Political Graveyard to compile a list of Republicans and Democrats “born in the twentieth century who were convicted, pleaded guilty or no contest, or were censured or expelled by a government body.” This list had a breakdown of 49 Republicans and 88 Democrats. They also gathered information from various other sources to find “every member of Congress … who pleaded guilty, was convicted, expelled, censured, reprimanded, admonished, significantly fined, or received a disciplinary letter for serious misconduct.” This list had 61 members, more than three quarters of whom were Democrats. Only one of these Republicans still serves in Congress, while many more Democrats do. After presenting these numbers, the authors provide more details about individual scandals. Readers should pay close attention to these examples and reconsider whether they really want to be represented by a Congressman who once operated a brothel in his home or who accepted sizable bribes as a judge.
When voters go to the polls this November, they should examine what it means when Democrats say they are the party that “stands for something.” Vincent and McCain describe repeated incidences of voter fraud, ties between the Democratic Party and various crime families, unions that have taken money from their members to donate it to the Democratic Party, treasonous Democrats, the danger of pro-criminal policies, sex scandals, and lies about wealth in politics. These issues are all very important and relevant in American politics today, and this book addresses each of them through separate, well-organized and well-documented chapters. For example, the chapter “The Union Label” begins with the story of Ron Fino, an informant on Mafia control over the Laborer’s International Union of North America. The authors then explained “Big Labor’s … death grip on Democrats at all levels of government” by listing several instances of union-Democrat shady dealings. These shady dealings often involved illegal practices of extracting extra money from workers’ paychecks for the union leaders, which the leaders then used partially as campaign contributions. Some of the unions included were the National Education Association; American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employee Unions; and the Teamsters. “The Union Label” chapter finishes with more information about specific unions that are part of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and their history. It is especially important for readers to learn about how organizations like the AFL-CIO and part of the AFL-CIO fraud their members out of large sums of money so they may do their best to monitor their own paychecks.
While the goal of Donkey Cons is to educate readers about the mistakes in the Democratic Party as a whole, it is not to revel in the transgressions of its individual members. The problem with all the scandals listed here and in the book is that on a larger scale, they present a much larger problem to the ideals of democracy. If unions or criminals can buy elections and pardons, there is no longer a point to the entire judicial system or even holding elections in the first place. Donkey Cons provides information for its readers to become more informed on the current state of government corruption, which can help them make better decisions on election day and watch their elected representatives more closely in the future.
Miss Hoover is a junior majoring in Political Science.
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