Downfall: The Demise of a President and His Party

by Andrew Hacker

Take a tour through the elections since 2016 and the Republican Party’s​ strongest stances to understand the impending defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election. Downfall does not offer a prediction or wishful thinking—it affirms a certainty. Veteran political scientist Andrew Hacker’s vast array of evidence points to the conclusion that Donald Trump will not be reelected, regardless of which Democratic candidate opposes him. Based on a close analysis of midterm and special elections, Hacker has found that Trump’s so-called base is shrinking and that a strong majority of voting Americans want Trump out of office.  Alongside comments from Republican Party members on why they stand with their party, Hacker autopsies their most steadfast viewpoints to illustrate from where these opinions stem and why Trump supporters provide him with votes. This includes an examination of Republican positions      Gun controlAbortion and women’s rightsSexism and gender disparitiesRacism and affirmative actionLGBTQ rightsClimate Change And more  Both a look back at the years since Trump’s election and a glimpse into what lies ahead for politics, Downfall provides an optimistic outlook that the most divisive leader in the US’s history will join the ranks of one-term presidents. 

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

228 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 14, 2020

About the author

Andrew Hacker is an American political scientist and public intellectual.
He is currently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at Queens College in New York. He did his undergraduate work at Amherst College. This was followed by graduate work at Oxford University, University of Michigan, and Princeton University where he received his PhD degree.

Hacker taught at Cornell before taking his current position at Queens.
His most recent book, Higher Education? was written in collaboration with Claudia Dreifus, his domestic partner. Professor Hacker is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books.

Reviews

[Peter Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Downfall: the demise of a president and his party,” by Andrew Hacker (Skyhorse Publishing, 2020). “There is not even a long-odds chance that Donald Trump will gain a second term.”---This is the first line of Hacker’s latest book. Hacker, a social and political scientist who teaches at Queens College, who has written a number of heavily researched, contrarian books debunking, among other things, the value of higher education, and STEM delusions. Here he goes to extraordinary depth to explain why Trump will lose, from his deep and continuing unpopularity, and the many ways in which he is out of touch with the mainstream of American life and culture. Going beyond his excoriation of Trump, he also examines the future or lack thereof of the Republican Party, and how it has been steadily falling out of favor with the majority of the nation. All this was written before the disaster of the Covid virus and Trump’s failure to respond, and the nomination of a Democratic challenger! “This year,” Hacker says, “it doesn’t matter.” Before Covid I would say this was wishful thinking, no matter how many statistics Hacker presents. But now, I think he’s right. I sure hope so, anyway.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/book...

[Michael Laflamme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely 5 Stars!!

This book should be required reading for all secondary school history and political science courses and teachers of the same. This excellent source of facts should be widely distributed especially in states that voted for Donald Trump in the recent election. Facts are great for gutting propaganda.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sure wish I had read this book sometime in 2020 before the election - it would have eased the anxiety I had about the outcome. The results of the 2020 election came out to pretty much as this book predicted they would. I'll keep an eye out for Hacker's books in the future

[Alexander Jolley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Entirely irrelevant within only a couple years