American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump

by Tim Alberta

Politico Magazine’s chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insider’s look at the making of the modern Republican Party—how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover from the unlikeliest of insurgents: Donald J. Trump.

The 2016 election was a watershed for the United States. But, as Tim Alberta explains in American Carnage, to understand Trump’s victory is to view him not as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence.

American Carnage is the story of a president’s rise based on a country’s evolution and a party’s collapse. As George W. Bush left office with record-low approval ratings and Barack Obama led a Democratic takeover of Washington, Republicans faced a moment of reckoning: They had no vision, no generation of new leaders, and no energy in the party’s base. Yet Obama’s forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nation’s rapidly changing societal and demographic identity, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the party’s identity in the post-Bush era. The factions that emerged—one led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell—engaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOP’s internal fissures rendering it legislatively impotent, and that impotence fueling a growing resentment toward the political class and its institutions, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to announce his run in the summer of 2015, the candidate had met the moment.

Only by viewing Trump as the culmination of a decade-long civil war inside the GOP—and of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, and technological disruption during that period—can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of America’s current turmoil. How did a party once obsessed with national insolvency come to champion trillion-dollar deficits? How did the party of compassionate conservatism become the party of Muslim bans and family separation? How did the party of family values elect a thrice-married philanderer? And, most important, how long can such a party survive?

Loaded with explosive original reporting and based off hundreds of exclusive interviews—including with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and Reince Priebus, among many others—American Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period as we’ve never seen it before and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of this political era.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, American History, Political Science, American

688 pages, Hardcover

First published July 16, 2019

About the author

Tim Alberta is chief political correspondent for Politico Magazine, and has reported for National Review, National Journal, The Hotline, and the Wall Street Journal.

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was absolutely nothing new in this book that a regular reader of the New York Times and reader of political blogs and twitter would not have already known. I stopped this book near the half way point where Trump was winning the Iowa caucus and ‘lying Ted’ was trying to make a comeback and ‘little Rubio’ the ‘freedom caucus’ favorite was self inflicting. For those who raved about this book, I would challenge them to find me one fact that wasn’t generally already known by most political followers except some of the self serving spin provided by the people the author had obviously interviewed.

The author compounds his familiar story telling by shading it with the narrative from those he interviewed such as Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan. He tells their story by blaming the Democrats such as Obama for not ‘compromising’ with the Republicans and therefore creating a political mess that leads to Trump. What the author tries to unconvincingly show is the Democrats are to blame for creating Trump rather than the Republican noise machine and the Republicans themselves.

Trump is a monster. He did not create the hate that’s in the Republican Party. Their hate enabled him. He channels their hate. The one book that everyone should read today is Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. Hitler, the monster, was only saying out loud what the people believed in whispers just as Trump is doing today. The hate was there, Hitler only channeled it. Trump channels it too. Did you see Trumps KKK/Nuremburg rally last night? (That would be, 7/17/2019). Most Republicans saw nothing wrong when Trump tweeted ‘go back to your own country’, and the fascist KKK members in the audience led the chant ‘send her back’. There’s a reason why the New York Times referred to the KKK as America’s Fascist in 1925 and the KKK/fascist label still resonates within bigots who think it’s okay to tell Americans ‘go back to the country you came from’.

This author doesn’t get it. Ben Carson Trump’s secretary of something or another said ‘vaccines cause autism’, Trump said ‘climate change is a Chinese hoax’. Those are ignorant statements embraceable only by fools who want to be led into chants of ‘send her back’. Fascism needs feelings as justification over logic or reason. The first lady Melania and Trump led the birther movement embraced by Republicans, a movement that is racist to its core, just as the members in Trump’s KKK/Nuremberg rally are as they shout ‘send her back’. This author tries to separate Trump from the Republican Party and the racist or fascist who attend his rallies of hate. Trump and Republicans are entwined and are one with each other’s hate. The author marginalizes Trumps birtherism, and how Republicans continue to lap up that brand of hate; because that is who they are (watch last night’s KKK/Nuremberg rally if you doubt they hate without just cause). They created Trump and the author acts as if it is Trump that created them and pretends that the Tea Party tri-color hat wearers cared about deficits and spending and weren’t really motivated by a ‘black man in the white house’.

I got my credit back on this book. I’ve only done that two other times and I’ve purchased over 1000 books from audible. This author should never have written this book if he had nothing to add to the conversation besides what the average well informed person already knows. The country is led by a racist, makes racist tweets, holds racist rallies and is fully supported by his fellow Republicans. Hate radio emboldens Trump and the Republicans who created him, Fox News supports his alternative facts, and authors like this one add nothing to the conversation that wasn’t already known and minimizes the complicity that the Republicans have in creating a monster who is them because he is one of them.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The latest entry in books looking at Donald Trump and his presidency is "American Carnage", by Politico author Tim Alberta. He takes a slightly different tack than many books about Trump in that he examines Trump's place in the Republican Party. In fact, the book is as much an examination of the party of Trump as it is about Donald Trump, himself. The book is described as "rollicking" but I truly don't think the last two years of the Donald Trump presidency can be described with any humor.

Tim Alberta is a good writer and he gives some new info about Trump and his party. Various administration members give some good "dish", as do non-administration Republicans. I don't buy every book about Donald Trump, but this one has been interesting reading. If you're a Trump afficianado, you probably won't like the book. If you don't like Trump, you'll like this book.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tim Alberta is a strange creature, a political nerd seemingly without a party. Reading him, he at times appears to have sympathies for old-time conservatives, libertarian outrage, and the broader liberal message. He is chief political correspondent for Politico but covered the 2016 election for the National Review and National Journal. He has reported for the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal as well. He came to Washington, D.C. at the end of the 2nd Bush administration, and had a front row seat at the self-described “Republican civil war.”

The most stressful part of the book revisits the horror show of the past four years—those stomach-churning moments when you wonder how any of us will survive this headless, brainless dog-and-pony show. At points in the book we hear John Boehner say “There is no Republican Party” and Alberta himself conclude, “The party itself was contracting.”

Alberta quotes several people important at one time or another to the party, giving a lot of space to the man I once held responsible for the damage of the past twenty years: Paul Ryan. I don’t know the man, I just know the aura that surrounded him…’youngest’ ‘brightest’ ‘budget wonk’ slavishly flipping through a dogeared copy of von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. It is enough to make you detest the folks so eager to pass on all effort (and blame) by declaring the hungriest should figure it all out while they watch. The Fall of Rome comes to mind.

One thing I appreciate is Ryan’s definition of a ‘paleocon’: isolationist, protectionist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant: “kind of what you have now.”

The end of the book has Karl Rove saying the party is forever, unchangeable by Trump. Kellyanne Conway insists the GOP is now a Trumpian party, which is absurd on its face since no one except Trump can pull off that particular sleight of hand—thank god—so it will die with him. Younger members of the diaspora of the destroyed center predict a third party. Of course there will be a third party, but just how and when it will manifest will be the struggle of the future. What I wonder is how many consequential parties there will be.

What struck me about the story of this internecine GOP battle is how the regular GOP was not supportive of the argumentative and politically insane Tea Partiers that preceded Trump, and they actually hated Trump. One had to suspect it—I mean the guy is a destructive loser—but given Republicans general intransigence and lack of coherence over the years, it was difficult for an outsider to discern.

Their unwillingness to deep six Trump’s candidacy—something they could have done with an iota of moral fortitude, makes me unwilling to give them much brain space. They deserve to participate in the funeral for their party in their own way. I am surprised at my disgust at how deep the rot goes. I suspected both parties were bankrupt, but it has been confirmed by those I blamed for the problem: Paul Ryan again.

Alberta tell us a principal reason that Ryan quit is the he found it impossible to set a good example:

”The incentive structures are too warped, the allure of money and fame and self-preservation too powerful, for individuals to change the system from within.”

We also get disturbing glimpses of the Democratic party, another example of the rot in the system. Eric Holder told a group of Georgia crowd that Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high,” wasn’t right. “No,” Holder said. “When they go low, we kick them.” Cripes.

The Republicans were clever with the Red Map strategy in 2010. Too clever by half, perhaps, but they did figure out a way to win a huge proportion of seats legally, if unfairly. You mean to tell me we can’t do better than the team that is so full of their own crap they couldn’t win a race fairly if they tried? It’s not money, folks. Money makes you comfortable, so in a way, that makes it is a little harder. Get ready to be uncomfortable.

Justin Amash, the Michigan congressman elected in 2010 who defected from the Republican party is quoted in 2018 as saying

"The Tea Party is gone. It doesn’t exist anymore. There just aren’t that many Republicans now who are that concerned about spending, about debt, about big government."

If only that were true. They’re dead, they just don’t know it. The Undead.

So in the end I feel worse about both parties and our political future. I know it will all change and there will be the dysfunction of trying to operate a new party with the corruption of the old ones. One just has to be able to stand back and assess from a position of strength, and for that we need to be smarter. When they defund your schools, throw them out. Don’t be ignorant. You’re gonna need every edge you can get.

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alberta has written an amazing book which chronicles the 11 year journey of the Republican Party, going from a party in a civil war while out of power to its return to power with the Trump Presidency. I'm someone who follows politics very closely and remembers all of the events that took place in this book but Alberta effectively gives an unbiased look at where the political right was and is during this last decade. The book ends in the Spring of 2019, alot has happened since. A sequel is definitely needed, I hope he writes one.

[Miracle Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fairly comprehensive yet painfully lifeless and mediocre history of the....present? The only thing here that hasn't been reported better elsewhere by reporters less interested in flattering Republicans for dubious reasons is the primary contest between Trump and Cruz, so if you can find those chapters excerpted elsewhere, you will get all you need from this one.

It is actually a colossal failure that this journalist manages to talk about the current Republican party without seeming to venture once into the seething, torrid, hateful online world that has given rise to the Trump phenomenon in the first place. How can you really understand how the right is thinking without investigating the fucked-up places where they are getting their poisonous marching orders?

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why read a book recounting major things that happened in the Republican party over the last 12 years? Especially when you're someone like me, who spent that time editing coverage of the Republican party? What I didn't realize when I embarked on Tim Alberta's well-reported book, American Carnage, was that he is slowly, carefully constructing an argument about the state of the Republican party. Alberta points out astutely that Republicans, through a series of decisions — some intentional and some accidental — were so desperate to regain power in the wake of President Obama's election in 2008, made a deal with some of the more unsavory elements of the party. It's a "Faustian bargain," as he refers to a few times throughout the book.

First, John Boehner, desperate to become House Speaker again, looked to this new wave of Tea Party activists, only to have them challenge his leadership over and over again. He assumed the freshmen congressmen would fall in line because "freshmen always fall in line" — but not this time. This was a class of politicians sick of the way Washington works, and they weren't going to take "no" for an answer. This is a well-trod story, but what Alberta carefully constructs over telling the story of the next few years, is that each of these types of people, even the Tea Party, touches power they get thirsty for more, sells out to its more evil influences. He talks about how a supposedly principled g,broup like the House Freedom Caucus simply became a mouthpiece for Trump to an absurd degree. (I might quibble a bit with the premise — the Freedom Caucus was never that principled and instead engaged in good branding to garner media coverage.)

Despite it's hefty 687-page length (actually about 600 pages of text), it's written in the same engaging style as other "news novels." (Though I hate to compare a book like this to something like Game Change.) Alberta is clearly well sourced with Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Ted Cruz, figures he finds sympathetic in trying to strike a balance between power and principle, though you could argue with it. He uses other reporting, cited clearly, to flesh out his narrative and build his argument. The arrival of Trump, in particular, is presented as the ultimate tradeoff between power and the more unsavory aspects of populism. Over and over, the sympathetic figures he presents are caught trying to condemn white nationalism, only to be subsumed by the Trumpian aspects of the party.

The story he tells isn't yet complete — after all, we don't yet know what all these Faustian bargains will bring us.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though the title is taken from Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural address, this book is about more than just the 45th president of the United States and his impact on the Republican Party. Instead what Tim Alberta provides is a Washington-eye view of the evolution of the national GOP from the 2008 election to the midway point of Trump’s presidency. A longtime political reporter, Alberta draws upon a wealth of interviews with many of the key Republicans in Congress, featuring them as they key figures in their party’s evolution from the pro-immigration supporters of free trade and fiscal restraint into the more nativist, protectionist, and xenophobic party they have become since 2016.

As Alberta demonstrates, the factors that led to this transformation were present well before Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency. By the end of George W. Bush’s presidency Congressional Republicans faced a lot of internal discontent with their deficit spending habits and the costs of two interminable wars in the Middle East, to which was added the onset of a severe recession. With Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain in 2008, Republican leaders feared they might be politically marginalized for the next generation. Even in the afterglow of Obama’s victory, though, his team recognized that they would likely face a backlash because of the dismal economic conditions and the hard choices before them.

That backlash was the Tea Party movement. Its energy translated into Republican victories up and down the ballot in the midterm election. Yet even as Republicans benefited electorally from public dissatisfaction with Obama’s administration, Alberta notes the emerging tension between the party leadership and the new members of the caucus, many of whom rode to victory on the basis of this dissatisfaction. The new House Speaker, John Boehner, bore the brunt of this conflict, as the more radicalized members of his majority often pressed for actions that Boehner (who at one time was considered on the extreme wing of the House Republican caucus) resisted as pointless. Such extremism proved counter-productive in the Senate races that year, as Alberta notes how the selection of the more radical candidates cost the Republicans winnable races that would have given them unified control of Congress.

This tension only grew over the next six years, inspiring ambitious Republicans and frustrating legislative achievements. With Obama’s reelection victory in 2012, many within the party worried that they were on an electorally unsustainable course that would prove disastrous. Three years later the Republicans had a primary field notable for its considerable diversity, yet in the end what the base desired most was not ideological extremism or detailed conservative proposals, but someone who tapped into their cultural anxieties. Enter Donald Trump, whose often outrageous rhetoric and media savvy combined to win the nomination over a number of prominent party figures. Though many Republican officeholders blanched at his statements, his unexpected victory cuffed them to a mercurial figure who demanded total loyalty and who was even willing to sacrifice political power to get it.

Drawing as he does from conversations with many of the key individuals involved, Alberta offers an insider’s account of a decade’s worth of American politics. As perceptive of much of his analysis is, though, Alberta’s book suffers from some unfortunate limitations. These are a consequence of his “inside the Beltway” focus, with little consideration of developments at the state and the local level. With only a marginal effort made to unpack the dynamics that often drove many of the events he describes, the Congressional maneuvering and political infighting he describes can assume a greater importance than it might otherwise possess. A more expansive coverage might have made for a stronger book, albeit perhaps a less readable one. For with its mixture of reporting and retrospective commentary, Alberta’s book serves as a compulsively readable record of an important moment in the history of the Republican Party, one the consequences of which continue to ripple outward.

[Stewart Sternberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is surprisingly long. But it is worth a read, especially for people twenty years from now as they wonder how they got where they are.

How did the right wing grow so strong in the US? Why do we have such tribalism? How did Trump exploit it?

[Trey Grayson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s long. But worth it.

I forgive him for calling me MM’s hand-picked candidate instead of my actual name. :)

[CoachJim · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Carnage
by Tim Alberta

Finished Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Tim Alberta, a reporter with Politico, brings a journalist’s skill to this history of the Republican Party from the 2008 election of Barack Obama through the 2018 midterm elections. This is a chronological history of the period with all the characters of the GOP from the Tea Party to Sarah Palin to the Freedom Caucus until Trump takes over the party.

As the story begins we are faced with an economic crisis. The Republicans, in a weak position, are handed a gift when the Democratic stimulus package to address the crisis is loaded down with liberal pet projects instead of more instant help to energize the flat economy. This is blamed on Obama’s lack of experience in partisan politics. (Page 47)

There is a description of the culture wars that came to dominate the traditional fiscal conservatives in Congress. The overthrow of John Boehner as the House Majority leader after the 2010 midterm elections is described resembling a Greek Tragedy with conspiracies, secret meetings, spies and backstabbing. Also described is the ugly racial politics practiced by some Republicans, who simultaneously embraced the Christian values preached by their supporters.

The campaign for the Republican nomination is described fully. There is an observation by John Boehner that:

“The only Republican who Hillary Clinton possibly could have beaten was Donald Trump, and the only Democrat that Trump possibly could have beaten was Clinton.”
…
(“Three hundred and thirty million Americans,” Boehner says of Trump and Clinton, sighing. “and we got those two.”)

(Page 398)

This is similar to the quote by Joseph Ellis in his 2018 book American Dialogue that I have mentioned in other reviews.

The Republican party becomes the party of Trump as the previous divisions of libertarians and neocons, evangelicals and cultural moderates, big-spending pragmatists and small government purists are replaced with an either with Trump or against him agenda. This was in part because of the fear of alienating the base which Trump had so energized.

As I said the book is a chronological history, but the last 2 or 3 chapters ramble a little as the author tries to come to grips with what has happened. However, the Epilogue is an excellent essay on the current political state in this country. He describes the current condition of each of the 2 major parties, the circumstances faced in the 2020 election, and an analysis of what the future of our politics might look like. An interesting observation here was that the current Progressive wing of the Democrats could create the same problems for that party as the tea-party did for the Republicans.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off--there's nothing wrong with this book, if you want to read a competently written, single-perspective take on what's gone wrong in the Republican party, since the great disaster of 2008 (Obama's election). Tim Alberta writes in endless, numbing, day-by-day detail, about strategic errors the Republicans made, in trying to salvage their noble party. In Alberta's POV, calling them errors is probably too harsh. His overarching point is that Republicans still are (or could be) the kind of party that represents true conservative (meaning conserving tradition) values. It's not too late to reel in the more rambunctious and doctrinaire right-wingers, and rebuild the party.

If you don't agree with that point--if you think that Republicans are champion excuse makers, and fully responsible for not calling their boy (Trump) in, leading to the genuinely dangerous point we're at now, globally and domestically, this book will feel endless. It's 688 pages long. I dutifully read the first 450 pages and skimmed the rest. And then I tried to imagine who would enjoy reading this book, who could joyfully dig into Alberta's defensive analysis of someone like John Boehner or Mitt Romney or (and this is unreal) Mitch McConnell. I am thinking the target reader is someone with a wide nostalgic streak, longing for good old Ike or--better yet--Reagan.

There isn't much that's new in the book. It's a thorough review of all the crappy political machinations of the past decade, from a loyal Republican soldier. Who writes well. Unfortunately, 'American Carnage' is not the book we need now. We're a decade past Mitch McConnell's emerging greed and power-mongering. We've seen what happens to would be moderates (Flake, Corker, Mattis) who try to straddle conservatism and common sense.

Enough with the turning a blind eye.

[Cath · Rating 2 out of 5]

The implied promise of giving us analysis of what went on within the party that resulted in an intra-party civil war, wasn't kept. This is mostly a recitation of events and actions, much of which was already covered in other media sources. If one hasn't been closely following the news, I suppose there is new information, though even then there are important events that are missing or given short shrift. There is some interesting behind-the-scenes information about the personalities and thoughts of various members of GOP, but again, no in-depth analysis, which would have been interesting. At times, the author's opinions seem to breakthrough in unexpected areas which can be a bit startling, as for the most part the books seems to strive for objective narrative. An entertaining and easy read, but again mostly a recitation of events already well-covered elsewhere.

[Adam Schrecengost · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an odd book. There's nothing really new, and I'm struck that Alberta decided to structure it similar to how events played out in the public eye instead of what was really going on behind the scenes. Because of this, it feels Iike a Wikipedia summary of the past 10 years, and none of the interviews have bite. I expected a lot more.

[Bryan Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Politico's Tim Alberta has written a great "second draft" of recent history. He sketches out the last 11 years of Republican Party history to figure out how it became Trump's party. Well worth your time.

[Preacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative book on the GOP civil war and how it did NOT start with Trump but long before that. He gets a bit negative with his rhetoric towards the end instead of letting the facts speak for themselves but all together pretty interesting book.

[BookTrib.com]

POLITICO’s Tim Alberta, author of American Carnage (Harper), asked a “blissfully retired” John Boehner over lunch whether he believed that the Republican Party “could survive Trumpism.”

Boehner’s response? “There is no Rep—” Here he stops, hesitates, and when pressed, offers “There is [a Republican Party]. But what does that even mean? Donald Trump’s not a Republican. He’s not a Democrat. He’s a populist.”

After nearly three years of finger-wagging “I told you sos” bandied about by pundits and commentators who blame Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 win on everything from millennial ambivalence to an immensely unpopular DNC pick to a couple thousand idiots who actually wrote in the name of a dead gorilla on their ballots, it’s nice to see a book that explains the rise of Trumpism as a consequence of the fractured Republican Party.

I mean, that’s only part of it, and all the aforementioned reasons are still legitimate, and it’s at least a little bit Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s fault, but the “Republican Civil War,” as Alberta calls it, definitely helps to explain how things got so bananas.

Trump is barely mentioned for the first third of American Carnage, but his schlubby shadow looms large over the chapters on John McCain and Paul Ryan’s failed presidential runs in addition to the chapters in between that describe Obama’s bipartisan relationship with the Republican Party and their attempts to reclaim power. While Trump is the inevitable conclusion to a party mismanaged for decades, he’s hardly one of the lead characters of this book, which manages to humanize polarizing figures from John Boehner to George W. Bush.

The rest of the review: https://booktrib.com/2019/07/carnage-...

[Robert P. Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding book. The author does an extraordinary job of telling what happened in the Republican party over the last ten years and what happened to our political world during that time period. It reads like a novel where the author laments the state of the world we find ourselves in. There are no evil people, just people who compromised themselves, abandoned principles, justified what they did, and failed to take account of the results of their lack of principles.

He is a first rate storyteller and he tells stories of importance. He makes appropriate editorial comments along the way and he paints full portraits of all the people he writes about.

I was surprised by how central a role Pence played in selecting Cabinet officials and other top administration appointees.


The end of the book contains an emotional and powerful cry for us to recover the values that made us great and can make us great again.

I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job of describing the rise of Trump. I look forward to a future book by Alberta in which he can chronicle the fall of Trump.

[Ben Deutsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was going to put down the modern political books for a while until a good friend recommended American Carnage and it restored my faith in Trump-era non-fiction. That was probably in large part due to this being much more than a “how did we get here” Trump book. It is a comprehensive history of the Republican Party’s civil war which began to simmer in the Bush administration, boiled hot throughout the Obama years, and completely exploded out of the pot in the Trump era. Alberta’s access is phenomenal and interviews with principals like Boehner, Trump, Cantor, and Ryan are sprinkled throughout the text. In the day of the Twitter news cycle, the book does a wonderful job of connecting why events matter and how they informed the larger trends of a dramatically divided and changing party. Alberta for the most part avoids coloring the text with bias and shoots straight on the Republican Party’s growing disdain for facts, while also highlighting the Democratic Party’s failure to connect with huge and meaningful demographics as they try to micro-target their way back into power.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Since November 2016 I’ve been reading lots of books about politics, trying to understand how Trump happened. This is the best book I’ve read so far. The most interesting parts for me were the end of the Bush years and the shifts during Obama’s presidency. It also chronicles the rise of Trump but exposes the forces that made that rise possible. Highly recommend.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a few years, this book will offer an invaluable historical perspective on the insane and terrifying Trump moment. I blasted through this 600-page tome in about two weeks because it's compelling and hard to put down. It's as hard to look away from Alberta's writing as it is to look away from Trump himself, as much as I deeply loathe the president. Notably, Alberta now writes for Politico, but spent most of his career with deeply conservative publications. I was reading this while trying to understand GOP senators' reluctance to cross Trump during the impeachment turmoil of October 2019. It helped offer some valuable perspective. For my own historical record (and yours, I suppose), I wrote up this little summary of the book. Spoiler alert, I suppose, but if you read the news, the big picture "plot" should not be a surprise.
How to let Trump take over your Republican Party in 26 steps (chapters), according to Tim Alberta:
1. Become annoyed by the centrism and “compassionate conservatism” of George W. Bush, then get even more miffed that John McCain, even less of a conservative ideologue, is his successor candidate. Get a little excited about Sarah Palin. At least she will stand up to Obama, not the good patriots who call him a Kenyan Muslim.
Stunning tidbit: Six days before he left office, the president convened a goup of conservative talk radio hosts in the Oval Office. The firebreathers, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, were not invited; they were hopeless causes. Bush wanted to speak to the “reasonable right-wingers,” … “Look, I asked you here for one reason,” Bush said in a solemn tone. “I want you to go easy on the new guy.”
2. Blame Obama for being too inexperienced to compromise and reach across the aisle, while putting up a solid obstructionist wall from day one of his administration. The Stimulus Bill, in Obama’s first month, got zero Republican votes. Let Joe Wilson set the blueprint for the Republican future by yelling “You Lie” at Obama’s SOTU address.
3. Let a TEA Party rise up, nominally as fiscal conservatives, and primary any reasonable moderate conservative. Deliver Obama his “shellacking” with a large Republican wave in local, state and national elections in 2010, but keep yourself from taking over the Senate by finding kooky candidates that can’t win even in a very anti-Democratic environment.
4. Use your new TEA Party-led majority to sideline John Boehner, Eric Cantor and their like, and push the party rightward into the party of “no,” and gradually make it clear that you aren’t all that interested in deficit reduction or fiscal conservatism. It was a culture war all along.
Stunning tidbit: “The demands were fine in theory, but put into practice it just didn’t work,” Eric Cantor said. “Conservatism was always about trying to effect some progress toward limiting the reach of government. It wasn’t being a revolutionary to light it on fire and burn it down to rebuild it. But somehow that’s what the definition of conservative became.”
5. Rally behind Newt Gingrich’s nasty attacks on Romney and Obama, then watch him realize that your base really relishes attacks on the press. After Juan Williams asks Gingrich about his racist attacks on Obama, “Gingrich scolded him with a lecture on political correctness that elicited a standing ovation.”
“You could get a stronger response by taking the media head-on than you could with any other single topic,” said Gingrich.
Watch Mitt Romney respectfully run against Obama without race or negative attacks, and lose. Watch your party, and even Sean Hannity start to embrace comprehensive Immigration reform.
6. Rally your new Tea Party members to block tax increases for the wealthy and immigration reform, while your party leadership attempts to pass both.
7. Shut down the government to block Obama are funding because the most important principle in GOP politics is fighting. Your voters don’t care because you represent deeply red gerrymandered districts. P. 176 Watch Paul Ryan get less hard-line and form a reasonable budget deal that ignores the TEA party rage.
8. Watch Fox News and talk radio get more conservative and angry. Watch your Republican leadership throw a lot of money at primaries to make sure TEA Party nominees don’t win. Fume over your dissatisfaction with every presidential nominee since Reagan. Start working on uniting behind a single conservative candidate to beat Jeb Bush, the moderate standard-bearer.
9. Watch Trump slide toward his campaign with bombast and bravado and bullshit, and watch your base eat it all up. Watch Freedom Caucus and other GOP House members go ever further to the right.
10. Watch Trump take over your party and be completely helpless. See Rubio refuse to step down from the race, which might have allowed Cruz one final chance to take the nomination for the relatively sane wing of the party.
11. MORE OF THE SAME
12. MORE OF THE SAME
13. Watch Fox News go all in on Trump, and convince the faithful.
14. Start trying to work with Trump as he sews up the nomination, and realize he is completely clueless about the functions of government. Worse, he doesn’t care how clueless he is, and is bored by discussions that should inform him.
Watch Trump choose Pence as his running mate to appease the right wing.
At the same time, realize just how much hatred there is for Clinton.
“I had no idea how important Supreme Court judges were to a voter,” Trump admits. “When I got involved, deep into it, I realized that there was a tremendous amount of distrust of me because they didn’t know — was I a conservative? Was I a liberal? They didn’t know anything about me.”
He pauses, sensing how this might sound demeaning to his celebrity. “They knew me very well. The Apprentice was one of the most successful shows on television by far.”
15. Get ready for Trump to lose the election, and face a reckoning for your party. Let Ted Cruz and Jeff Flake stand up for traditional Republican principles, and watch them get pilloried by Trump.
16. Watch Access Hollywood tape almost torpedo Trump’s presidential bid, and call on him to step down, only to watch him recover and come back in the base’s good graces.
17. Watch Trump win. Shut up and rally behind him in the interest of passing tax cuts, reforming entitlements and appointing conservative judges.
“His friends called it ‘Paul’s deal with the devil.’ And Ryan, like most Republicans, did not think twice about making it.”
18. Watch Trump start to divide the country further, and try to get him to work on your conservative agenda — to little effect.
Tidbit: In 1992, Clinton won 61 percent of Whole Foods counties and 40 percent of Cracker Barrel counties — a 21 point “culture gap.” In 2016, Trump won 76 percent of Cracker Barrel counties and 22 percent of Whole Foods counties — a 54 point “culture gap.”
19. Witness a dark and gloomy inauguration speech followed by a constant whirlwind of scandals.
20. Watch Trump blow up your Obamacare repeal by calling it “mean.” Realize the Republican brand is now meaningless. Trump runs your party according to his own rules, whims, wishes and grievances.
21. Watch Trump cause more controversies and further enrage and divide the nation with Charlottesville rhetoric, etc. But pass your stupid tax bill.
22. Realize that your long-splintered party has come together. Under the mantle of Trump. “If the first year of Donald Trump’s term witnessed a president adapting to the philosophies of his party, the second year saw a party bending to the will, and the whims, of its president.”
23. Watch your party faithful give up all principles, other than Trumpism. And watch him continue his jaw-dropping cult of personality.
“I think President Trump is one of a kind — you can’t replicate what he’s doing,” said right-wing rep Justin Amash. “It requires you to not feel shame. Most people feel shame when they do or say something wrong, especially when it’s so public.”
24. See your party to shift from the party of limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility and free trade to a nationalist, nativist, anti-immigrant party. Adapt or leave (like Jeff Flake).
25. Watch the Democrats have a landslide victory in 2018, which your president denies and diminishes.
26. Go to the brink of a shutdown and strike a deal, only to have it fall apart because Trump saw some Fox News talking heads call him weak. Let the government shut down over the wall, with Trump pre-emptively taking all the blame.
EPILOGUE: Trump will drag all other politicians down into the mud with him, but he has been effective for Republicans. He got all your judges confirmed, which will shape the nation for at least a generation. And meanwhile he has either destroyed the Republican party or saved it, finally creating a unified party that acts on its promises. It’s hard to know what shape the post-Trump GOP will take.
“Rarely has a president so thoroughly altered the identity of his party. Never has a president so ruthlessly exploited the insecurity of his people.”

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 4 out of 5]

A worthwhile book that I fought deeply frustrating in one sense. Alberta, a Politico reporter who interviewed tons of the top people in this story, argues that Trump was made possible by 2 things. 1. A fissure in the Republican Party between the old Bush-Reagan establishment (represented in this book mainly by Boehner) and the more extreme Tea Party movement. This battle not only crippled the government for most of the early 2000s but severely weakened the party leadership. The rise of the Tea Party also mobilized parts of the GOP base that had been dormant and/or felt betrayed by the big-governmentism of both Bush and Obama and were angry and conspiracy-hungry enough to embrace someone like Trump. 2. The broader rise of hyper-partisanship and the weakening of institutions like the political parties. The GOP's lurch rightward clearly has a lot to do with Fox News and the right-wing Internet driving the agenda and creating a way for extreme candidates to spread their messages without having to work through the party hierarchy for money and attention. The increasing geographical, ideological, informational, and experiential gap between red and blue America meant that basically anyone who won the GOP primaries would get most GOP voters. It is almost certain that if the party elite could have chosen someone to be their nominee, they would not have chosen Trump, but they seemed helpless to stop his momentum nonetheless.

Alberta is clearly anti-Trump, and he duly shows how so many Republicans caved to him over time and how the base has embraced him in spite of his, you know, general awfulness and unfitness to be President (of a 3rd grade classroom, much less the US). Here's the thing: I didn't really buy that there was a Republican Civil War. That, or it wasn't totally clear to me if the civil war was the Tea Party v the Establishment or the Establishment v Trump. If ALberta is saying it was the former, then I think he is on to something. If he is saying it was the latter, than "civil war" is absolutely way too strong. Did the GOP establishment really do anything meaningful to stop Trump? Sure, there was minor boosting or more moderate candidates, there were anti-Trump intellectuals and Bush admin officials who wrote some nice op-eds (while largely absolving themselves of making many of the mistakes for which Trumpism is in part a reaction), and there were your McCains and Flakes and others who spoke out. But what I largely saw, and what Alberta documents, is that the vast majority, including the Tea Party and its ostensible concerns with small gov't, utterly caved to Trump in part for political reasons (tax cuts, judges), in part just to win, and in part because they are closer to Trump's way of thinking then they would actually believe.

Take the Access Hollywood debacle, for instance. Even though by this point Trump had shown 100x over that he was unfit for office, this truly disgusting show appeared to be the breaking point for many Republicans. They denounced him, said they couldn't support him, yada yada yada. But they did not tell people "Don't vote for Trump." They did not tell them "Vote for Hilary," because ultimately their fear of the Democrats and their lust for power outweighed their distaste for Trump (i'm looking at you, Paul Ryan). Merely offering Flake-ian statements about civility and decency simply wasn't enough; the realistic path to beating Trump, if they really wanted to do that, is to say don't vote or vote for his opponent. Within Congress and the party leadership, NONE of them did that, so let's not have this whole self-exculpatory "civil war" fantasy. There was no civil war with Trump, there was him winning the base, squashing his opponents, and then dominating the party. The GOP's craven and persistent support for him during the impeachment hearings at the moment is just further support for this criticism.

Again, I couldn't tell if this is what Alberta meant by civil war, but it could be clearer. The book is excellent and thorough, and if you can take the litany of meanness, cowardice, and dereliction of duty, it is worth reading in order to better understand how certain intra-party dynamics set the scene for Trump.

[Lindsay Montgomery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meanders through the political weeds at times but overall a really interesting look at the downfall of conservatism in relation to the Republican Party/Trump’s rise and right wing populism. It’ll probably need a sequel in a few years.

[Steve Solnick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alberta offers a book that is at once too detailed and not deep enough - chronicling the transformation of the Republican party from 2008 to 2019. I found the first half of the book more illuminating than the second, and better structured. The dance between McCain and Romney, the rise and fall of the Tea Party, the emergence of the Freedom Caucus, the trials and tribulations of Speaker Boehner - all make for compelling, if familiar, reading. Into this narrative of rightward drift, Trump lands like a meteor. The second half of the book - Trump's rise through the primaries and tumultuous first two years in power - seems too much for Alberta to take in, and the book loses some of its focus on the GOP. Also the book takes a long time to end - with Alberta's veil of objectivity ultimately shredded by his sheer distaste for Trump and what he is doing to the country.

In many ways, this book offers a view of Trump from the perspective of the old GOP - Boehner and Ryan are obvious sources, as is Cruz and probably Romney. There's limited reporting from within the White House, and Alberta can't seem to decide whether Mueller and impeachment are really part of the story or not. The book ends with a long epilogue offering Ryan and Boehner (and Romney, I believe) opportunities for some parting spin on what went wrong - analyses Alberta presents sympathetically. Yet their common themes - a collapse of civic discourse in the country, increasing silo-ization of political camps - aren't really given much play in the body of the narrative. Instead we get mostly hubris and ambition, with a large dose of transactional hypocrisy from the evangelical lobby. In the end, I put the book down deeply depressed, and reminded of accounts like Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August, or Ullrich's recent account of Hitler's ascent - tales of smug cloistered elites sleepwalking into disaster.

A small nugget tacked into the rambling epilogue did leave me wishing Alberta had taken the time to structure his conclusions more effectively. Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, speculates that Trump may have *saved* the GOP by forcing it out of its insularity. It was an intriguing thought, and a comforting reminder that this epoch may just be part of a cycle. I wished Alberta had given that a bit more oxygen, rather than taking the time to peer in on the growing chasm in the Democratic Party. The Democrats belongs in another book, and if Alberta writes it, I'll be happy to read it.

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Audiobook) A modern history of the modern Republican Party, this work analyzes the inner politics and external forces that played such a critical part in defining and creating the Republican Party as it functions today. Relying on interviews and insights from various power players, from John Boehner to Donald Trump, this work offers an account that isn’t just rehashing the political headlines from the Washington Post or other national news sources. I learned a great deal about the inside baseball that so dominated the party. The struggle between pragmatism and idealism always strikes in politics and the Republican Party is no exception. Leaders such as Boehner, Ryan, McConnell did all they could to balance those forces, all while dealing with opposition Democratic Party. The infighting was both petty and of national significance. Yet, while the party seemed at war with itself, it was also gaining in strength and influence.

Yet, what really came to define the party was none other than Donald Trump. The vulgar political novice, who so repulsed and scared many in the party came to control the entity and all but ended the infighting. However, at what cost? The author is not sure what the future holds, but he is not all that enthused about its future. While a writer for Politico, he does manage to get extensive insights from individuals who might publicly view him as a threat. He acknowledged the successes, but does not suffer any semblance of hypocrisy, especially from Paul Ryan, who condemned, but then allied himself with Trump, only to then slam him after retiring.

Like so many other books in the era of Trump, it is mainly driven by the man, but it does well to analyze the Party in the days before Trump. It is interesting to see how personalities evolved and what they did or didn’t do in certain situations. Of interest, what could a Cruz/Rubio ticket have done if they had joined together in 2016? Would it have blunted Trump? Perhaps. But I did not know about that option until this work. The positions of Pence were already reported, but the status of the relations between Ryan and Trump were also enlightening. Overall, a work for the political junkie, but probably not more than worth one read, either via audio or hard/e-copy.

[Alex Mulligan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

It’s hard to believe this book is real, and not fiction. Loaded with interviews from major players (Trump, Ryan, Bohner, Cruz etc etc) this book is an authoritative text on the rise of Donald Trump and the tectonic shifts in the the Republican Party.

Alberta’s hypothesis is simple: The Bush administration left republicans tired and defeated. There were me young leaders to take the reins, no infusion of conservative thought, and a dwindling difference between Republicans and Democrats. Between 2008 and 2015 Republicans engaged in a civil war between ideological side of the party. All along the way warning signs popped up that someone like Trump would come along and take control of the party. Early players like the Tea Party and Sarah Palin showed a massive shift in the patty and an increasingly out of touch establishment.

Alberta meticulously documents this Republican Civil war and the rise of Trump. Relying on first hand accounts from major Republican Players, including Trump himself, Alberta weaves together a coherent narrative to describe the status and recent history of the Republicans.

The untold stories, and first hand accounts from Republicans is sure to make you laugh, scratch your head, and leave you with a new appreciation or how Trump took over the GOP.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The guy in the White House didn't change the Republican Party. He just exposed them for what they've always been and made them own it. If they had ever believed in any of the principles they pretended to care about for decades, they wouldn't be openly and proudly disregarding the Constitution and promoting authoritarian rule the way they currently are.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

ExHAUSTively reported and exhausting to read. No new information, no really new insights into the Trump Administration. Mostly an almost minute-by-minute recounting of Trump’s rise to power... Thoroughly depressing and disheartening.

[Misfit]

Meh. Not what I expected. Returning to library and moving on.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say I enjoyed reading this book, it was to personal for me, but saying I did not enjoy reading a book doesn't mean the book is not good and doesn't hold value. I am glad I read it. The reason I can't say I enjoyed the book is because I have been an elected Republican from the first Chapter of the book (Tea Party Class of 2010) until present. It has been difficult to see the evolution of the Republican party over that course of time. I've seen men that I respect, like Paul Ryan, be chewed up and spit out more by our own party than by Democrats.

The objective of politics is supposed to be to change policy. That has changed. Politics has evolved into a reality show. A reality show in which the greatest drama is inside of the home. In this case the home is in the Republican party. What a blown opportunity. GOP had it all - Supreme Court, House, Senate, White House, majority of state houses and Governorships. There were many wins, but but the fact way to many Congressman and President act more like Hollywood actors than intellectually curious listeners and doers resulted in opportunities wasted. This book is a damning indictment of the tribal state of the party.

This morning (6JAN2021) we see the consequences. The selfish nature of Trump, and many others elected Republicans, has led to both Georgia Senate seats being taken by the Democrats. The complete federal loss of GOP Control is now complete (less the Supreme Court) as a result of the civil war.

This book, and moment, serves as a great opportunity to regroup. The Democrat party will also likely to prove they are not a governing party. I can't see AOC in agreement with West Virginia's Joe Manchin. The good news is a new generation of leaders will rise. I find comfort in the fact that there are still GOP adults in both Chambers that understand the sorry state of affairs and are willing and able to lead. In particular, Rep. Mike Gallagher in the house and Sen. Ben Sasse in the Senate and hundreds at the state level.

[Anita Lynch-Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of nonfiction/political books but this was well worth the time and effort. I didn't read it quickly because I was constantly googling the Republicans described in the early Freedom Caucus and other segments of the Republican party. I gained new respect for John Boehner and confirmed my low opinion of Jim Jordan and Mick Mulvany.

How did a party of small government and fiscal responsibility become the Trump party of protectionism, isolationism and " spending money like a teenager with a new credit card". It describes the influence of talk radio and Roger Ailes' Fox News. It leaves me wondering what the party will evolve to next.