Chris Hayes' ominous account of what's ailing America

In his new book, the MSNBC host frankly describes how a great many American citizens — disproportionately black and brown — live in a sort of internal colony

Amarion Allen, 11-years-old, stands in front of a police line during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2015.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Rick Wilking)

What is happening to America? Donald Trump has not even been president for two months yet and already the crises are hard to keep track of, from the fight over his Muslim ban to nearly constant diplomatic incidents created by his big flapping mouth, to his Cabinet stuffed with Wall Street goons.

How should we describe this? Enter A Colony in a Nation, a new book by MSNBC host Chris Hayes coming out later this month. He argues that for a fairly large segment of American society, the United States is not a democracy. Instead, a great many American citizens — disproportionately black and brown — live in a sort of internal colony. Their democratic rights are not respected: They have little or no access to due process, they are nearly helpless before predatory business, and they are alternately brutally repressed and mined for profit by a tyrannical state.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.