Cliff Branch Has One Request for America, and It Is to Pay Attention
Author and Entrepreneur Cliff Branch (Courtesy photo)
Image Credit: Cliff Branch
Cliff Branch was already looking backward when he published American Made: A Boomer’s Reflection in 2015. Part memoir and part cultural record, the book followed a life that had taken him through California counterculture, early entrepreneurship and a business career making him a millionaire while he was still in his 20s.
Then another decade happened. Smartphones became harder to separate from daily life. Social media changed how people encountered news and one another. Artificial intelligence moved from a technical subject into ordinary conversation. American politics grew more combative, and the sheer amount of information competing for attention became difficult to ignore.
Branch decided the story needed another volume. He began writing American Made: 2016-2026, A Nation in Turmoil in January 2026 and completed it quickly enough to send the 208-page book to press in May. The result is less a conventional political book than one citizen’s running account of the period he just lived through, supported by hundreds of photographs and illustrations that pull old headlines back into view.
“The sequel is a personal narrative written during the first 120 days of this year,” Branch said. “Each chapter reflects my thoughts about our culture and world events as they have unfolded. It was good therapy writing the books.”
This personal quality is important because Branch is not presenting himself as a political scientist or campaign operative. He built his career as an entrepreneur and real estate developer on California’s Central Coast, and his earlier book spent as much time on his own mistakes and experiences as it did on public affairs.
New Times San Luis Obispo writer Glen Starkey described Branch as an “astute observer of American politics and culture” in a July review of the new book. Starkey also noted Branch does not fit neatly into a partisan category, writing that he has supported candidates from both major parties and approaches the current political climate from his own set of concerns rather than a party line.
For Branch, that independence is tied closely to why he wanted the second book finished in an election year.
He has said repeatedly he is less interested in telling readers whom to support than in convincing them to pay attention, look beyond familiar sources and participate. Starkey summarized his position this way: Branch “doesn’t care who people vote for,” but wants people making those decisions with greater attention to evidence rather than misinformation.
Leaving A Nation in Turmoil with an unusual purpose. Branch certainly has opinions, and the book does not hide them. It discusses the political divisions of the past decade and devotes substantial attention to President Trump, whom Branch has criticized in interviews. He has also criticized positions associated with Democrats, and told New Times friends from both sides have reacted differently to what he wrote.
Image Credit: Gene Francis for American Made 2016 – 2026 A Nation in Turmoil
The common thread is his discomfort with people retreating into political camps and hearing only the information most likely to reinforce what they already believe.
“There’s enough divisiveness out there already,” Branch told New Times while discussing why he tried to avoid turning the book into a collection of insults.
The format reflects his approach. Rather than asking someone to move straight through a dense political argument, A Nation in Turmoil is written more like a collection of magazine pieces. Readers can move through a chapter at a time, with photographs providing reminders of events that once dominated the news before disappearing into the next cycle.
This visual record also connects the sequel to A Boomer’s Reflection. Branch’s first book followed his own life alongside the country changing around him, giving the second volume a personal starting point a standalone book about the last decade would not have.
Radio host Richard Dugan described the larger project as “heartfelt, humorous, and candid,” with its images helping Branch explore his own ethical development alongside enduring American questions.
Branch is now selling the two books together through the American Made website for $15. They are not currently being distributed through Amazon, making the project unusually direct for an author whose main goal is simply to get the books into more hands.
At 76, Branch does not appear to expect one book to settle any of the arguments that prompted him to write it. His ambition is smaller and, in some ways, harder: get readers to reconsider what they have absorbed over the last decade, seek out information beyond their usual political circle and make their own decision when it is time to vote.
