New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘I WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE’
Author’s latest work examines societal divide, steps to repair it
By Saul Flores
MILFORD — Frustration proved a driving force for David Ellison’s latest literary creation.
The Milford resident said anger at the current state of society and the actions of both sides of the political spectrum were the inspiration for his second book, “Repairing Our Divided Nation,” what he calls an examination into how to repair America’s broken government, racial inequity and troubled schools.
“I believe that we have a big divide in this country today, racially, politically, sexuality,” he said. “What really bothers me is the racial and political divide we have in this country. Those two I focused on in this book.”
“Anger and frustration made me write the book, but I also want to make a difference,” he said. “I’m just a little guy from Milford trying to do something and trying to get the word out there to make this a better society for all where everybody has not only an opportunity but a chance at attaining economic self-reliance and living a life of dignity.”
Ellison said his latest work — now available on Amazon — is different than his first book, “Politics Beyond Left and Right: A guide for Creating a More Unified Nation,” because this book offers a more historical perspective.
“I get into how to get the right people in Washington, and I write a chapter on it, where I go into campaign finance reform, addressing gerrymandering and term limits,” he said. “It cost too much money to run, so a lot of good people who could be so productive down won’t run. Linda McMahon spent $50 million twice in losing campaigns for the U.S. Senate. I go through that in the book as well.”
While researching and reading for this latest book, Ellison came across “The Politics Industry” and one of the topics it touched was voting.
“They came up with the final five votings, which is basically a combination of what they call top five primaries, having them open, no more Republican or Democratic primaries ... opening it up, so the top five candidates go on to a statewide election, and after that, you have rank choice voting,” he said.
“I had already had my part of my book written regarding rank choice voting, and one of my buddies suggested this book to me. I read that, and I was like what a beautiful combination. It makes all the sense in the world,” Ellison added.
Ellison said the book also focuses on the Constitution.
“After much research, I’m really convinced that the leaders of our country during and shortly after reconstruction, if they had adhered to our Constitution, our nation wouldn’t have the racial divide it has today,” he said. “I call that America’s biggest mistake. Some people say slavery was, and I address that by saying slavery was around for thousands and thousands of years and proved that it couldn’t be stopped right away. But after the Civil War, we could have done so much, but it didn’t happen.”
The book goes into detail how non-adherence to the Constitution set a bad precedent and pushed the country in the wrong direction.
“I go into great detail like how it did that, and I use Supreme Court cases to back up my premise,” Ellison said. “I go through Black Codes, Jim Crow and I go on from there into the other things like racism.”
One of the subjects he talks about in the book is critical race theory.
“I believe there should be a course in school that is called the history of racism, and I think if it were labeled that instead of critical race theory, it would go a long way into having the subject introduced without an ideological bend to it,” he said. “Critical race theory, there is a lot of ideological things and political things involved. What we need is to revise our history classes, so they are just about the facts. And I go into great and disturbing detail that I think people should know because if people have the knowledge, I think that can bring out passion and empathy in people.”
During his research, Ellison said he delved into various books to better educate himself about all sides of these controversial issues.
“I read 17 books from well-known scholars, numerous articles from great magazines and periodicals,” he said. “If you look at the bibliography, I go from the left to the right and everywhere in between. Everything doesn’t have to have a political bend.”
One of the articles he came across was from The Jewish News from Northern California.
“The lady who wrote the article said she does not want the word anti-semitism to be used anymore,” he said. “What she wants it to be called, and she says it truly is, is racism. If we call it what it is, She feels that there will be more sympathy when Jewish organizations are being attacked by White supremacists.”
Another topic he came across was the Hastert Rule.
“It talks about it in the ‘getting good people to Washington’ chapter,” he said.
The Hastert Rule is an unwritten rule stating the Speaker of the House will not schedule a floor vote on any bill that does not have majority support within their party, even if the majority of members of the House would vote to pass it.
“How lame is that,” he said. ‘And you wonder why nothing gets done. But I was not aware of that Hastert Rule until I read about it.”
Ellison said he’s a centrist when it comes to politics.
The book is nonpartisan, but he has experienced people telling him the book is either left-leaning or right-leaning.
“I don’t feel that either of the main political parties represent me,” he said. “I don’t think they represent 60 to 80 percent of the people. I believe that 60 to 80 percent of the people believe in my centrist approach to this.”
“There is no political bend here,” he added.
Ellison ran into two situations both over Facebook where one person from the left thought his book had a right slant and another person thought it was left-leaning.
“I commented on a Facebook post regarding critical race theory and how I believe I have a better approach to solving our racial divide than critical race theory. Some people thought I had a right bend,” said Ellison.
Ellison said his publicist made a post on Facebook promoting his book, and a person commented saying, “racial and equity tells me all I need to know about the author's agenda.”
“Just because of the title, this person, who I’m assuming is far rightwing, won’t read the book,” he said. “He’s a person who should be reading the book as well as the people on the far left.
“It’s not leaning either left or right,” he added. “It’s about trying to be a good citizen, trying to improve our schools and trying to get good people to Washington and trying to get those people.”