David Sirota | The Uprising

Published: June 30, 2008

An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington

When David Sirota, a former Helena resident and senior campaign strategist to Montana Governor Brian Schwietzer, rattles the branches of the progressive movement in his new book, The Uprising, surprising fruits fall.

Sirota spent a year veering from antiwar rallies to an ExxonMobil stockholder meeting, from the halls of the Montana Senate to the Minutemen’s staging grounds along the Mexican border. The progressive movement – with branches entwined from the political Left and Right – is “the natural reaction from a country that is watching its pocket get picked,” writes Sirota.

It’s a recipe, he adds, for an uprising – albeit a chaotic, disorganized one. His book looks at the disparate elements of discontent, in an effort to discover whether a genuine political movement might emerge.

The second chapter, titled “The Thrilla in Montana,” recaps the state’s contentious 2007 legislative session, concluding that “in this boxing match … the new uprising has taken its share of licks, but it has knocked the aging movement down for the count.”

This is the second book by Sirota, who Matt Taibbi, a national political correspondent for Rolling Stone calls “the most important progressive voice we have in this country.”

– Kristi Niemeyer