by Matt Taibbi
First published 2017
Matt Taibbi witnessed the 2016 election unfold as Rolling Stone's political correspondent. This collection gathers twenty-five of his dispatches plus two new essays that capture democracy's breakdown in real time. Taibbi documented the spectacle overtaking substance, the collapse of shared reality, and the white working class rebellion that powered Trump's rise. He tracked the failures across the political spectrum: Bernie Sanders' thwarted insurgency, Hillary Clinton's directionless campaign, and the alt-right's emergence with its racial politics. At the center stands Donald Trump, leading a revolt against his own Republican establishment while the media fed a news cycle driven by propaganda rather than ideology. Taibbi argues that Trump represents the peak of a postfactual movement that has fundamentally altered American institutions and democratic processes.
Genres: american, political-science, non-fiction, 21st-century, journalism, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: United States
Period: 2016
352 pages · Hardcover · Random House