Alex Wagner at The Brattle Theatre

Harvard Book Store welcomes Alex Wagner—host of MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner—for a discussion of her new book, The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts.

There are two ticket options for this event.

1. Book-Included Tickets: Includes admission for one and one hardcover copy of The Steal pre-signed by the author.
2. Admission-Only Tickets: Includes admission for one.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

Alex Wagner—cable news anchor, acclaimed journalist, TV personality—tells the wild origin story of the conservative takeover of the American judiciary, and how it all started with the Reagan Revolution of 1980.

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was a sharp right turn for American governance. After decades on the fringes, the conservative right had their eyes set on tax cuts, an aggressive foreign policy, and law and order. But there was one area of the federal government that was less talked about at the time, but no less crucial: the courts. In her first narrative book of political history, Alex Wagner shows how a few devoted Reaganites kept their focus when no one else would, and how we’re all still living with the effects.
Ed Meese, a native Californian, former DA, and aide to Reagan from his days as governor, saw that goal very clearly. Get as many judges on the bench as possible and make sure they’re as conservative as he was: on abortion rights, on taxes, on criminal justice. To help him achieve this goal, he enlisted a few fellow true-believers: Paul Weyrich, the firebrand organizer; Joe Coors, the beer magnate whose fortune funded many of Weyrich’s efforts; and Robert Bork, the towering legal intellect of the right, and an important mentor to a few young law students starting a new organization called The Federalist Society.
Told with Alex Wagner’s trademark sardonic wit and deadpan delivery, The Steal is a wild romp through a slice of American history that proves that the long game pays off when championed by the right group of people, no matter how unlikely.

Alex Wagner is the host of MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner. She had been an MSNBC analyst and a frequent MSNBC guest since 2010. She was also a reporter with Huffington Post. Prior to this, Wagner served as the White House correspondent for Politics Daily, where she chronicled a number of international and domestic affairs ranging from the BP oil spill to the Egyptian revolution. Photo Credit: Alex Wagner