by Tim Alberta
First published 2019
Tim Alberta, Politico Magazine's chief political correspondent, traces the Republican Party's transformation from George W. Bush's exit through Trump's 2016 victory. Alberta argues that Trump didn't create America's polarized political moment but emerged as its logical outcome. The book examines how Obama's progressive agenda and America's shifting demographics ignited conservative backlash, returning Republicans to power but splitting them into warring camps. Absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz battled pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell in brutal internal conflicts that left the party unable to govern effectively. This legislative paralysis bred resentment against political institutions and created an opening for an outsider. When Trump announced his candidacy in summer 2015, he met a moment the GOP had spent a decade creating. Based on hundreds of exclusive interviews with Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and other key figures, Alberta reveals how a party of fiscal responsibility embraced massive deficits, how compassionate conservatives implemented Muslim bans, and how family values Republicans elected a thrice-married philanderer.
Genres: american, political-science, politics, united-states, 21st-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, political-intrigue
Setting: America
Period: 2010s, 2015, 2016
688 pages · Hardcover · Harper