Americans on the left find themselves in genuine confusion and dismay about the actions of President Obama’s administration, especially when it comes to the financial crisis. True reform seems stalled. In The Mendacity of Hope, Roger D. Hodge makes the provocative case that, actually, true reform never began. Behind the high of Obama’s victory was in fact a business-as-usual corporatist machine, the bloc of coalitions and business interests at the heart of the Democratic party’s new power base: investors counting on a return on their investment. And a return they have received. From his close ties to financial firms Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase to his appointments of prominent members of the Democratic Leadership Council to top cabinet positions, Obama proved almost immediately that he was no reformer.

None of Obama’s most important campaign promises—ending the Iraq war, ending torture, closing Guantánamo—have come to pass. He has escalated the conflict in Afghanistan, bailed out Wall Street, and institutionalized the abuses of the Bush regime. A different kind of president could play the forces of corporate interest differently in the service of genuine progressive reform; but the fantasy, the smoke machine, of American power is that a different kind of president is not possible without a different kind of America, Hodge argues. Failing to understand the game, we blame the player—true as far as it goes, which isn’t very far at all. A brilliantly crafted call to arms, The Mendacity of Hope offers an essential analysis of the American political system and the powerful players who control our government.