Shilling Books While Rome Burns: Why Politicians Need to Focus on Their Day Jobs

To some of his constituents, it may seem as though Chuck Schumer, the Minority Leader of the US Senate, has spent a bunch of time pontificating on Bluesky lately and not enough time taking decisive action against increasing fascism in America. But this coming Tuesday he will publish a new book called Antisemitism in America: A Warning, so he’ll surely have to get off Bluesky to do some book promotion.

The book purports to be a platform for the “highest-elected Jewish official in American history” to speak out in an age when Jewish hate is “surging,” at least according to the Anti Defamation League, the organization that recently defended Elon Musk’s very blatant Nazi salute, about which Schumer himself was silent. The announced first printing is 250,000.

Schumer isn’t the only New York-based politician with a new book to shill. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently published an illustrated book called The ABCs of Democracy, and his book events have been disrupted by protestors calling for action. “We don’t need a book tour,” chanted a crowd in Chicago. I can’t blame them: it feels surreal to watch politicians shilling books while Rome burns.

No book deal in recent history was more egregiously ill-timed than that of another New York politician. In 2020 then governor Andrew Cuomo was paid $5.1 million for his victory lap of his handling of Covid, a book called American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic. A year after the book’s release it was revealed that the Cuomo administration had obscured 4,100 Covid deaths that had occurred in New York nursing homes. Even more damning, it was revealed that two of his aides began researching and drafting the book while on the clock in late March of 2020.

If you recall how the world felt exactly five years ago, it’s safe to say it was more than a little presumptuous to even begin thinking about how the crisis would resolve. The events undermined the trust he’d built (and the Emmy he’d won!) by doing nightly television addresses during lockdown. And this was before he stepped down as governor when he was accused of sexually harassing 13 women who worked for the state. He is currently the frontrunner to be New York City’s Democratic candidate for mayor.

Here’s an idea: perhaps no politician who actively holds a role in government should be publishing books. It’s that simple. I’ll be accused of being unreasonable, of not understanding what the book market demands. But I will double down: while in office, politicians should focus on their jobs, not using their political platforms to sell books when there is so much other work to be done.

Thus far I’ve only mentioned Democrats, but the book market is an equal opportunity endeavor for bipartisan fleecing. In a 2023 New York Times story in the wake of revelations about the enormous and undisclosed gifts taken by Clarence Thomas (which is on an entire other level of corruption), it was reported that sitting Supreme Court justices from Sonia Sotomayor to Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barnett had  been cashing in while on the bench: “The deals have become highly lucrative for the justices, including for those who have used court staff members to help research and promote their books.” Such deals were publicly disclosed and not at all illegal, but still, they feel a little indecent.

Politicians should absolutely write books; they are inherently newsworthy no matter how well or how poorly they served their constituents. However, in an ideal world they and the publishers who throw money at them would wait until they’re no longer in office, when they and their staffs are no longer beholden to the public they’re supposed to be working for.

So yes, fine, I can’t begrudge Bill Clinton for getting a $10 million deal to write his presidential memoir in 2004, and sure, he and his ghostwriters should keep on collaborating with James Patterson to write executive branch mysteries. I even welcome former FBI director James Comey to write his bad legal thrillers. Let the Obamas become movie moguls, and let George W. Bush be an artiste. Keep the romance novels coming, Stacey Abrams. But wow, I can’t say California governor Gavin Newsom’s forthcoming memoir is a book that needs to be in the world.