American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump
by Tim Alberta
View on GoodreadsA Politico reporter's blow-by-blow account of how the Republican Party transformed from the post-2008 Tea Party insurgency into the Trump movement, told largely through the people who fought (and lost) the internal battles.
Core ideas
- The GOP's identity collapse wasn't a single event but a decade of structural and emotional fractures — Boehner vs. Freedom Caucus, the death of the Bush-style party, the Cantor primary loss, the Ryan retreat.
- Trump didn't hijack the party so much as fill a vacuum the party's establishment created by failing to deliver on its base's grievances.
- The fusion of cultural anxiety with Fox-style media is the connective tissue.
Published2019
Pages688
ISBN9780062896445
ReadOct 2022
