RIP GOP: How the New America Is Dooming the Republicans

by Stanley B. Greenberg

A demographic expert and longtime pollster to national and international political stars explains why the Republican party, despite Trump's election, is about to collapse.

In the mad rush to document the tangled, confusing, raucous present of the United States government, a little thing is lost in the shuffle: the future. How long can this last? What happens next? Where do we go from here?

Stanley Greenberg argues that the election of Trump is in fact the dying gasp of the Republican party. Rejecting the urging of their own consultants to build bridges and embrace new voters across the lines of identity politics, the GOP has constricted. It has retreated to what seems to be the safety of the evangelical white male voter.

The problem for them is that this won't be a safe zone for long. Try as some might to drag the United States backward with reactionary movements and a politics of division, the country marches steadfastly on into the 21st century. The power of democracy will soon prevail, and unless the party adapts, America will bury the GOP the way it did the Know Nothings.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History

Audible Audio

First published September 10, 2019

About the author

STANLEY B. GREENBERG is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller It's the Middle Class, Stupid! and polling adviser to presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs across the globe. He lives in Connecticut and Washington, D.C., with his wife, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT).

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was written before the 2020 election and many, but not all, his predicts proved correct. Of course, no one could have predicted the craziness, insurrection of our Capitol and the ongoing craziness that followed and is ongoing. So how and why did we get here?

If one reads this one quickly realized why the GOP is doing everything it can to remain a forceful entity. Trump, quite frankly, like the QAnon, is a cancer on their party that they can't seem or are unwilling to break. This party has huge demographic problems, a growing millennial base that finds their views outmoded, and their adoption and defense of these fringe elements have chased away many of the conservative, moderate members of their base. It is hard to see where they go from here, but in my opinion, they are going in the wrong direction.

This book lays it all out in delineated chapters, that cover many issues, often using information gained from focus groups of both parties. A quick read but chock full of info and if one has an interest in politics, this is a good read.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Past is prologue. The more Trump campaigns the more he alienates sane people. Just watch one of his Nuremburg rallies. I can’t. Non-racist or non-fascist can’t without feeling sick to their stomach. Two quick examples from this book in the run up to the 2018 midterms: 1) Trump touted the success of the economy as a whole and stated that individuals were economically thriving. 2) Trump and his fellow white supremacist mouth pieces at Fox News and Breitbart fabricated the fear of ‘the caravan’. In both cases sane voters and the non-white-supremacist didn’t fall for the lies. The Democrats won the mid-term elections handily. Trump’s hate is no longer working.

The tea-party remnants and white evangelicals make up the bulk of the 42% of the country that will support Trump no matter what. The number, 42% comes from the book. That number is also about the number of people who thought Dick Cheney was a good man, or about the number of people who think we have been visited by aliens, or who think evolution is not real, or the number of people who think that climate change is a Chinese hoax. What do you say to someone who says climate change is a fake? The answer is nothing. For those who enter into their beliefs without reason, cannot be dissuaded with reason. Don’t waste your logic on the willfully ignorant. The 42% will always be among us.

The 42% are comprised of tea-party dead enders and the white evangelicals each who created the monster Donald Trump. It was not Donald Trump that created them. They hate the same people. Trump says out loud what they felt in their heart. The book will mention anecdotal cases where Trump’s fascist or racist supporters felt put upon if they showed support for Trump at work or in public or among non-fascist or non-racist friends. I couldn’t imagine a world where I would be ashamed to state my political opinions. Perhaps, bigots should feel ashamed for their beliefs. The 42% are not reachable since to them abortion is murder and homosexuality is an abomination and a stain upon the nation and they never want to see a ‘black man in the White house’.

The tea-party dead enders never got past the fact that ‘a black man was in a White House’. Trump’s birtherism is who they are, and birtherism is racism. They suspended disbelief when they falsely claimed that Obama was not born in America, they deny the science of climate change for no more reason then their Republican overlords tell them to believe the science is not real even though they have never read a science book since high school all in order so the Republicans can get political donations from the fossil fuel industry and Fox news and their owners can get a 2.2 trillion dollar tax break that overwhelming benefits the already wealthy.

To be a Republican one must believe in fairy tales. One must believe that Scientific American is non-sense when they say climate change is real, one must believe CNN and NYT and the Washington Post are full of lies and are not stewards for the truth, one must believe that a sharpie mark added to a map by a deranged pathological person (9/6/2019) showed that Hurricane Dorian had threatened Alabama, one must believe that inviting the Taliban to Camp David on 9/11/2019 was a brilliant stroke of negotiation and as the spawn of Cheney, Lynn Cheney, would say in a tweet that it showed true leadership and that ‘the President was right to end the talks’ with the Taliban. Perhaps, Ms. Cheney, it would have shown leadership not to have even begun the talks.

Trump’s signature issue is to hate the brown people and Muslims. This book shows thru data and surveys how overall, except for the hateful 42%, Americans tend to have reasonable view points on immigration and are fairly open minded. Americans tend to no longer hate gays, think affordable health care is good, and that reasonable immigration policies are good for everybody. The 42% do not.

Trump’s visceral brand of politics is alienating and needs willful ignorance in order to succeed or they need a candidate has inept as Hillary Clinton was (this book will make that point politely). Remember, if Trump had not won the Republican nomination in 2016 it probably would have been the even viler Ted Cruz. The stalwart Republicans, the 42%, want the hate and the vileness. That is who they are.

Past is prologue. Trump is not capable of learning. The more he stokes his base the more he alienates the 25% of the moderate Republicans (as stated in this book) and he fires up the non-fascist non-racist who are frighten when they hear a self described big brain one say ‘both sides have good points’ when Nazis run over and kill peaceful protestors. Suggesting to your Vice President to stay at your hotel when in Ireland just seems creepy to all but the cultish 42%. Favoring Putin’s interest over your own country’s interest does not jive with any but the 42%. Trump promised to show his tax returns, but he hasn’t. He just doesn’t give an appearance of trustworthiness except for those who are part of the cult.

The Republicans are whistling past the graveyard since past is prologue. Trump won’t change. Trump can’t stop his hate. It’s as if someone would say, Hitler could have won the war if he would not have indiscriminately killed the Jews since they could have helped Germany win the war by building a bomb, but the problem for Hitler and his fellow Nazi’s is that they would not have been who they were if they didn’t indiscriminately kill the Jews. Similarly, Trump will hate those who are not part of his self selected privileged tribe. Past is prologue and the Republicans and Trump are going to be thrashed in this next election because Trump’s feelings are obnoxious to all but 42% of the country who are racist or fascist and remain willfully ignorant.

I don’t think there was any point of fact that I disagreed with this book. The author’s prediction for the 2020 election seems reasonable and I fully expect Trump doesn’t have the ability to change and the Republicans will suffer by their wrapping themselves around his hate and ignorance, and they will blame everyone but themselves and their own cultish devotion when they lose the next election because Trumpist can never fail they can only be failed by others.

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

RIP GOP has an audacious premise: The Republican Party is doomed. It has painted itself into a corner by appealing to an ever-diminishing base and pushing aside the young, minorities, single women, non-religious people, immigrants, and other demographic groups. Stanley B. Greenberg is a longtime Democratic pollster who came to this conclusion after decades of polling both Republicans and Democrats. His wife is Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, who, not surprisingly, comes off rather well in these pages. At some points, the reader will wonder whether Greenberg injured himself while patting his own back, too.

Most of Greenberg's book covers ground that will be almost too familiar to those who have been following American politics over the past 20 years, especially Democrats. However, it offers a valuable history of American politics in the 21st century thus far and explains how this country became so polarized. Greenberg blames Hillary Clinton for not acknowledging the economic realities most Americans face enough in her campaign. He excoriates the conclusions JD Vance reached in his popular Hillbilly Elegy. His distinctions between Evangelical, Catholic, and secular Republicans are particularly interesting.

I was especially intrigued by Greenberg's assertion that Californians influenced the national Republican party. Like many East Coasters, I associate California with liberalism. Greenberg corrects that impression in stunning detail. The demographic panic that gripped California Republicans as their state became increasingly more Hispanic was slowly exported to Republicans in the rest of the country.

Greenberg concludes by offering advice for both parties on how they can heal themselves and America as a whole. The shelf life of this book is short. However, if you are truly interested in American politics and/or wonder just how America became such an ugly and angry place, I recommend getting RIP: GOP on Kindle or at a discount. We'll see how right he is soon enough!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

[Julian Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greenberg's afterword opens with an admission that he sought to write this book "as quickly as possible" after the 2016 election of Donald Trump, and unfortunately, it shows. There is an unevenness in the quality of his writing, particularly in the earlier chapters that lead up to his generative research; these sections read like wooden, rote regurgitation of facts, laden as they are with footnotes aplenty and barely a narrative to speak of. I was worried that the entire book was going to be like this and had just begun to chalk it up to "well, that's what you get when you get a pollster to write an explainer", when he transitioned successfully into the research. Amazingly, at this juncture, he began to inject his point of view into the story with a real narrative!

As a result, the middle part of the book is Greenberg's most successful; he is a Democratic pollster and election strategist who, having been shocked into action after 2016, conducted detailed research with Republican voters. His segmentation of the base into Evangelicals, Tea Partiers, Conservative Catholics and Moderates is helpful in understanding what they care about and supported by a vast trove of data (perhaps too much data for such a book). Greenberg then contrasts their views with the views of Americans as a whole to make it clear that the GOP base is increasingly in the minority, fighting a losing battle against the inexorable tide of change -- change in demographics, change in rural versus urban issues, change in social and environmental issues, and so on.

Where Greenberg falls down again, though, is in his concluding chapters. The first of these covers the "campaign malpractice" (his words) that led Clinton to lose to Trump, where, for a variety of reasons (loyalty to Obama, being in the pocket of Wall Street interests, etc.) she simply could not pivot to repudiating Obama's legacy and position herself as the change agent that would take on the rich. Accordingly, she stood idly by, recognizing how much pain the country was in but being hamstrung and unable to take a bold position, thus letting Trump carry that mantle and win the election. So far so good, but then he paints the rosy picture (the book was finished in 2019, after the midterm drubbing of the GOP) that essentially, there is no way the Republican Party doesn't get demolished in 2020. Wrong again, as we all know now! Even in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that any sane person would say Trump handled extremely poorly, with a tanking economy and working-class families in even more pain than they were during the 2016 election, Democrats barely eked out a win for the presidency, not to mention that they lost seats in the House and are on track to (assuming they can even pull off both Senate runoffs in Georgia) merely tie the Senate. The biggest enemy of the Democratic Party is not Republicans, but themselves, who have a knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again and again. And this is even though they are right on most issues and broadly speaking, represent the will of the majority, as Greenberg so cogently illustrates! Obviously, "campaign malpractice" is not a one-time problem for the Democratic Party; it is an endemic issue, from which Greenberg mightily tries to extricate himself with a bunch of "I told you sos" to the Clinton team about 2016, but in which he is implicated nonetheless. (Greenberg is very clearly part of the Washington, D.C. inner circle, and his wife has been a congresswoman for decades.)

What I think the Democratic Party underestimates, again and again, is that developing a connection with working-class voters is necessary but not sufficient to win elections. This is true especially when you are facing an enemy that has their backs up against the wall and won't hesitate to use any available tactic to fight against their extinction. Now would not be the time to heed Michelle Obama's foolish advice to go high when they go low. For instance, there is no reason why progressives need stand idly by when Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, etc. are openly brainwashing the conservative base. The smart move would be to start a propaganda channel of their own -- or better yet, buy one of these corporations and remake it in their own mold to brainwash conservatives in a more progressive way. (You'd have to go about it like a ninja, of course.) And, to Greenberg's point about the vast divisions inside the GOP, this propaganda channel wouldn't even actually need to brainwash people per se. It would merely need to bring on a range of conservative voices that disagree with each other to break the monotheistic hold that the Tea Party has on the GOP, and it would be game over. Same goes for "dark money". Why doesn't the left weaponize Citizens United against the GOP? Why do the Koch Brothers have a monopoly on dark money? Why aren't there pools of progressive dark money, and why isn't there an progressive version of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) funneling model legislation to state governments? If all of these strategies can be employed by those who wish to do evil to America, there is no reason that the exact same tactics, and better, could be used by those wishing to improve America.

My point is that Greenberg, at the end of the book, leaves the reader feeling hopeful that one merely needs to put one's feet up and the GOP will "RIP" / self-implode at some point in the future. This is extremely naive. Yes, it is without irony that David Koch's name, as lead donor, is on the dinosaur wing at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, but progressives simply can't wait for the dinosaurs to die a natural death. This kind of smugness, intellectual superiority, and weird fatalism that if you're right, the spoils will accrue to you is what led to Clinton's defeat in 2016 and led to such a poor showing in 2020. It will continue to harm Democrats unless they refocus their attention on delivering actual value for working-class and middle-class voters -- with tactics that de-legitimize conservatives, as necessary.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

One can only hope that this autopsy proves to be as correct as Stan Greenberg believes it to be. As one of the Democratic Party’s longest serving and most authoritative pollsters, Greenberg has all the data to demonstrate that the Republicans embracing of white nationalists, anti-immigrant and anti-trade etc. is their death knell. One can only hope.

[John McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

A while ago, perhaps 2 or more years ago, I read a piece by Stan Greenberg where he emphatically stated that demographics alone will never be a cause for voters to become Democrats or progressive, even though demographic movements make a difference in how a specific district might vote. He sort of repeats that caution in RIP, but now he says, things have changed the way they should for progressives to move ahead with their agenda. Some readers will criticize Greenberg's work as a polemic written as propaganda to promote a Blue Wave in the 2020 elections. Here's why. Toward the end of this interesting data-filled book, Greenberg makes the following statement, based on his interviews and data collected from focus groups in Macomb County, Michigan at least since the first campaign of Bill Clinton for the Presidency:

"The year 202 will produce a second blue wave [following the one resulting from the 2018 midterm elections] on at least the scale of the first in 2018 and finally crash and shatter the Republican Party that was consumed by the ill-begotten battle to the New America from governing."

From his data Greenberg defines the "New America", the Rising American Electorate (RAE in the book) as millenials, college and working women of all races and ethnic orgins, blacks, suburban voters and even white college-educated males.

Greenberg, who has polled for more than 50 years and worked with clients such as the Wall Street Journal and with Republican pollsters, as well as poverty groups, has solid reputation in the world of politics. He is emphatic in his conclusions, so emphatic that a believer in his work like me begins to worry a little that might have drunk his own kool-aid. Greenberg is married to Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who has been an effective and outspoken advocate for the poor and civil rights. Greenberg is an MIT graduate whose statistical work and polling put Bill Clinton in the White House. He is not one to be trifled with when polls become the issue.

At the same time, it has to be said that it was Greenberg who told the Hillary Clinton campaign to move past President Obama and stake out ground that is unapologetically progressive, especially in the areas of corporate greed, workers' rights, and a defined immigration stance that recognized the concerns of those Democrats and independents concerned about some aspects of immigration while embracing the idea and ideal that we are a nation of immigrants and are strong because of it.

Greenberg's arguments are convincing and not because they are arguments I am pleased to hear.
He does something else that progressive writers and critics should have done years ago. He dispells in emphatic terms the rationals given by J.D.Vance for why so many white, lower-income working people were persuaded by Donald Trump even while Vance promoted the time-worn explanations the GOP has always made to justify poverty. Greenberg takes on the Vance mythology in an entire chapter and pretty much demolishes those arguments. When I read Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy sometime in 2017 (I wrote a review for it here on Goodreads), I, like Greenberg was struck by the lack of understanding of poverty and the role government has to play in ameliorating the destructive effects of it. It was clear to me then that Vance was advancing a GOP, free market philosophy that consistently suggests that government intervention to provide a failsafe or safety net to markets which have no mechanism to address issues of policy was an attempt to justify the votes of people, who I knew then and the data and Trump policies show now, was completely fraudulent.

There are a two things wrong with this book: the breathless haste in which the first half of it appears to have been written appears to have been written and the presentation of a couple of the graphs he uses to illustrate his results which, in at least 5 or 6 cases, left me clueless even though I have been a close reader of all kinds of polls for 40 years and have made charts and graphs to display data or movements. Nevertheless, this should be overlooked:Stan Greenberg is the pro from Dover when it comes to political polling and the finer points of voter sentiment, and politicians who disregard his counsel, especially when it is given with confidence, disregard that counsel at their own peril. Just ask Robby Mook and John Podesta who ran Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Greenberg's premise is fairly simple and is supported by polling data he's accumulated over the last 20-25 years which confirms to him that today's' America is not your father or mother's, or even older brother or sister's America. The Rising American Electorate, or RAE, as Greenberg refers to it has ensured that, and those who ignore the component interests of this group simply will be campaigning on political points that appeal to a smaller and smaller segment of the voting population.

[Jerry Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book is guaranteed to appeal to me, hence reading it. I hope that this is the case but I must confess I have my doubts. I have been hoping for years that time and the changing demographics of the US would soon catch up with the Republican Party and that their cynical, machiavellian, despicable attempts to hold on to power with gerrymandering, voter suppression, lying, refusal to meet their duties, changing the rules to suit them etc. would eventually spell their doom. However, as I say, I am doubtful.

This book left me slightly cold. I couldn't fathom quite what the structure was and, weirdly to me, there seemed to be a certain mixing of tenses. This is a recently published book in 2019, and so we about 3/4 of the way through Trump's first (please his only) term and the mid-terms are behind us. However, it seems as though Greenburg is occasionally talking as though 2020 has already happened, or that the midterms are about to happen. I think I was misreading, but it wasn't clear to me.

Much of the text actually bemoans why the Dems managed to lose the 2016 Presidential election. There is some interesting, well thought out and argued prose here that definitely helped me understand and with which I agree. It is too easy to lay it all at the door of Hillary Clinton, or the focus on identity politics, although those played a role for sure. More telling is the failure of HRC and the DNC to appreciate Obama's failings as well as his positives, and most importantly, not appreciate how the working and middle classes were not impressed with Obama's (and therefore the Dems) conclusions that all was now going in the right direction. It was there in front of them, but they ignored it and/or were worried about distancing themselves from the previous 8 years.

This is painful for a progressive lefty like me to read but I hope the message is well taken. Given the Dems track record, I doubt it. However the midterm message was better, and they need to major on that not just be anti-Trump. However I found that this book, whilst making these points, was too short on what should be the strategy and whilst I can hope it to be so, I am not sure that the case that the GOP will collapse and be essentially wiped out as a force in 2020 is convincingly made.

There are many surveys here that give data to the arguments and I like that, but I guess I worry that Trump has managed to buck the apparent trends so often that he will again. There are sections on his base that explain why they are in lock step with him, and whilst I have never seen it laid out quite so comprehensively, there was little here that surprised me.

So I was a little disappointed. I want the message conveyed in the title to be true, but maybe I have just seen too much over recent years to dare to believe it.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's useful to read political books in pairs nowadays, as the Republicans' abandonment of rational thought has had an obvious reciprocal effect on the other party. Since it's impossible to make a facts-based argument that can persuade anyone on the other side to change their minds, Democrats have gotten really bad at even trying. RIP GOP, written by a professional pollster and spouse of a US Representative, makes the facile argument that it doesn't matter. Demographic change will marginalize and ultimately destroy the Republican party in twenty years' time. No matter what! Don't even worry about it! Greenberg, as you would expect, has a variety of charts to present that demonstrate that women, young people, college graduates, and minorities support Democratic policies. And he has some more charts to prove that these constituencies are growing more rapidly that traditional Republican groups. That's all well and good, but at no point does the author address the fact that political parties change policy. He also has little time to consider that over the long-term Democratic policies that poll well (significantly, Obamacare) may not benefit Americans to the extent that their authors believe they will. Nor does he allow that a future Republican innovation in an area like immigration reform (which, OK, seems impossible now, but a decade is an eternity in politics) could swing an entire demographic group's allegiance all at once. It's happened before. RIP GOP is guilty of the most dangerous sin possible for a national political organization, which is complacency. Stay the course! We're doing the right thing! All the good people are on our side and we are winning! Sounds a lot like the Hillary Clinton campaign, and look how that worked out. There's a reason that the radicals are controlling the agenda in the Democratic presidential primaries. And there's a reason that whomever the nominee is has an extremely good chance of losing in the general election to an incompetent, dishonest, lazy, lying criminal. To quote the great Margo Martindale (in character on The Good Fight), the Democrats need to stop being such pussies.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a long life Republican... until Trump won election and Republicans enabled him and support him despite all the blunders, treachery, lies, immorality, racism, bigotry, hatred and many other bad traits Trump personalizes. No matter how much I want to support a self sustained, self supporting hard working people to grow and prosper according to prosper and let prosper (which is what I, probably naively thought was the ultimate goal of conservatism - to support those who work hard rather than those who free-ride), Republicans proved themselves to no longer cherish those values. If Trump and his immorality is what are the today's Republican values, then I must go.
I hope Stanley Greenberg is right in his assessment of Republicans, and American people that they will not let their country to destroy by this unimaginable deception and will vote all Republicans out until they are totally destroyed (politically), so that allows for a rebirth of the old good party.

[Keith LaFountaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting to read this after the 2020 election, and approaching the 2022 midterms. In some ways, I agree with Greenberg's overall assessment -- that changing demographics and an increasingly nationalistic Republican party are making it more difficult for them to stay competitive in a country that is increasingly liberal, racially diverse, and accepting of immigrants.

However, Greenberg also gets a lot wrong. Some of that has to do with COVID, which nobody could ever have predicted. However, he predicted that the eventual Democratic candidate in 2020 would "break" the Republican party, the Democrats would expand or maintain their lead in the House, and that they would win every competitive senate race and take control of the senate. This, in his view, then leads to an era quite similar to the 1930s-40s, where FDR and the impossibly powerful Democratic party rewrote the rules and delivered some of the most substantive policy proposals in our country's history.

As we all know, the 2020 race was not nearly as decisive as Greenberg predicted it would be. Biden's win was healthy, but far from a mandate, and while Democrats did retain the house and take the Senate, they did so with the slimmest margins possible -- actually losing ground in the house and barely scraping by in the Senate, fumbling a number of winnable competitive races.

And then, of course, there's the fact that the GOP is prepared to wipe the floor with Democrats in 2022, largely due to Joe Biden's flagging approval numbers, a Democratic party that can't seem to pass basic legislation and a Republican party that spends more time firing up its base with racist and xenophobic rhetoric than actually governing.

In essence, I don't think Greenberg is wrong that the future for Republicans is grim -- at least when it comes to popular opinion. A Republican presidential candidate hasn't won the popular vote since 2004. The changing demographics will make it harder for Republicans to win, especially as places like Texas become more diverse. At the same time, Greenberg is too confident in the Democratic party's ability to reach voters, especially in rural slices of the country. This disconnect is likely just going to lead to greater division overall.

All this is to say, I think a book titled R.I.P. G.O.P. is presumptuous no matter what. If anything, the Republican party is more emboldened now than ever, and time will tell whether the country can stand up to their increasing slip toward fascism, or if the Republicans' determination to remain in power, morality be damned, will be too difficult to curtail.

[Cale · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that will unite all its readers in dismay - portions of it will be unpleasant to people of every political stripe.
For a book that has such a provocative title, very little of its content is actually focused on proving the title's thesis statement. Instead, most of the book is looking backward, focused on 2008-2018 and how the GOP managed to win in 2016, with a little bit touching on why he thinks it's their last gasp. There is some very uncomfortable reading when it discusses real world comments from various Republican focus testers across a variety of topics. It's easier to demonize them than to listen and understand where they come from, and this book very pointedly avoids that demonization (for the most part)
That being said, I did appreciate the statistics and details Greenberg provides to support his point - most everything in the book is backed up by on-the-ground interactions and focus tests, which feel a lot more grounded than the polls we normally see. It also allows him insight into the groups he explored, breaking the GOP into 5 distinct groupings rather than seeing them as a unified whole, and discussing how each has reacted to Trump and the Tea Party. Some of the breakouts are a little weird, based on the groups he was working with (Unmarried Women as a group seems both generic and overly specific), but there is still a lot of interesting data supplied. I'm not 100% convinced he proves his thesis statement, but I do appreciate the evidence and nuanced details provided, including some of the inside baseball of the Clinton 2016 campaign (although I will admit some of chapter 8 feels a bit like sour grapes over policy choices that didn't go his way, and chapter 7 spends its entire time critiquing Hillbilly Elegy, which felt like overkill). It's good to know how ideas and slogans are focus tested and how minor changes in messaging can have big impacts.
Ultimately, I would recommend this to anyone on the political spectrum - Republicans can see an explanation of their successes and the challenges their party faces (although the solutions suggested basically seemed to boil down to 'be more Democratic'), and Democrats might find some comfort in the idea that inertia is moving leftward, even though there isn't enough to let them relax and not get involved.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to read Stanley Greenberg's new book, R.I.P. G.O.P., because I am gravely concerned about what is happening to our nation, and our world, because of the effects that our incompetent, and despotic, president is having on our national interests and our international relations. The author has made a concerted effort to present the issues thoroughly and fairly, with thoughtful commentary. RIP GOP is easy to read, if not a cheerful assessment of the damage that Donald Trump to doing to our political processes, and our relations with our allies, to say nothing of the effects of his narcissistic arrogance on those around him in congress. He sets a terrible example of how a president should not behave, and his incessant lies & excuses have not helped him, or his supporters, to deal with the mistakes he makes almost daily. The author points out how our national politics and social relations have become polarized and mutually destructive because of the dishonesty that has become rife in our political interactions as a people. And it's not just these issues that are affected by the efforts of Mitch McConnell and other Republican party leaders to cover up Trump's egregious prevarications, his gaffs and his mistakes. The legacy of our previous president, Barack Obama, which included efforts to shore up our Environmental Protection processes, and to deal with the dreadful effects of Climate Change and Global Warming have been hampered in the extreme because of their foolish acceptance of Donald Trump's denial of the truths our scientists have pointed out, repeatedly. If I were a Republican at the start of this administration, I certainly would not be one now, and Greenberg's book points out all the good reasons for feeling that way--not just for me, but for the rest of the G.O.P's misguided citizens.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author, Stan Greenberg, presents a comprehensive view of who the American electorate is and how we got were we are. The book is well-researched, and brings out ideas, events and actions that have all contributed to the sorry state we find ourselves in today. Greenberg starts with the well-known premise that the Republican Party today is dying because it speaks to and aligns itself with an aged white population, who espouse many ideas and needs that speak to another era. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is more aware of just what is going on, how the country is changing demographically, and is tying itself to this emerging demographic. Everyone who is tuned into politics has read or heard this before, but Greenberg brings into the mix a myriad of reasons, actions, events and history to support his ideas. My only problem as I read the book was the way he jumped around a lot throughout, making it sometimes more difficult to follow and fully understand. Nevertheless, this is a book well worth reading for the history of how and why we got here today for anyone closely aligned with following current events and politics. It helped clarify a lot of things for me, and I am sure it will do likewise for others. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this complimentary from NetGalley. My opinions are my own. This was not a favorite. I found it very hard to read and it was written from what seemed to me a place of privilege that I don’t have access to. There were many points the author made that I just blatantly disagreed with. That’s probably why I found it hard to read though - because it was ostensibly agreeing with my POV but not in cause. I just struggled with this.

[Budd Margolis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe few know the American voter better than the author Stanley Greenberg. His analysis of trends and opinions foretell a Blue Tsunami majority for Democrats in 2020. Some fascinating charts measuring how people feel on various critical issues. His vision is clear and his conclusion is both academic and experienced. It is optimistic for the anti-Trumpers and will be seen as fake news by pro Trumpers. But it is highly informative and written well.

[Gerry Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stanley Greenberg’s RIP GOP is part analysis and part hopeful thinking. He is strong when he recounts the importance of a cogent economic message for Democrats but weaker when he predicts a coming GOP electoral collapse. He is confident in predicting a 2020 Democratic victory but offers tangential evidence to back it up. His critique of free trade agreements is belief-based lacking causality data to prove the harm he asserts. One hopes he is right and prescient.

[Mlg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionally well researched book on the appeal of Trump to the various groups who support him and the demographic reasons why the Republicans are destined to become the losing party unless they cheat by disenfranchising voters and gerrymandering. The author even takes a swing at the book Hillbilly Elegy and suggests that most reviewers took the wrong lesson from the book. Well worth reading.

[Kamy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent analysis from one of the nation's top pollsters. Mostly data-based insights into the GOP and its many challenges. Wishful thinking about weakness of GOP and strength of Democratic party made many of the predictions wrong. If you are a Dem you will appreciate the research and validation. If you are an old skool Repub you may like it. If you are a MAGA Repub you will hate it.

[John Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has the conservative Right spent itself? Have demographics and the Right's extreme politics finally shifted energy toward the left? That's Greenburg's thesis. I'd like to hope so, and there's good evidence that may be the case. See what you think.

[Will Atkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty decent book by a political scientist that isn’t just Trump bashing, and spends about half the time explaining why the Dems suck just as bad as the Reps. Well done, and one I may have to buy in physical form instead of just this kindle version.

[Rick Ferris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Information packed book that explains why Trump won in ‘16, why the Dems won in ‘18 and why the Dems will win in 2020.

[Patrick Bair · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book. Unfortunately reads as if written by a statistician (it is), and would have profited from better editing.

[Deanne Smithey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to get a little more insight into what is going on with the Republican Party.