Completed: 9/24/2022
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My Wife
Review:
This is an amazing analysis. Unlike many other books by journalists, this is not a collection of stories. This is an in-depth, continuous story that tracks from start to finish furthering the thesis that the Republican Party's destructive force started under Gingrich. The book is both well researched and provides a wealth of personal anecdotes as this was history Milbank lived in real-time. The argument--that Trump was neither the starting point, nor pinnacle of destructive politics--is well developed, articulately argued, and spiced with numerous samples along the way that provide an evidentiary scaffolding. This book is also well-written. There are few repeats as Millbank assumes the reader does not need to be constantly reminded of what was just said. I cannot begin to hold in my hand the vast number of references to individual speeches, particular talking points, and repeated examples of scurrilous hypocrisy. Trump is not an outgrowth of any of this, he is the nodule of cancer that develops when the environment is right. We have an entire political party which did not develop, but grew up on, positions untethered to facts. This does not bode well for the future and points out how impossible it is to "negotiate" with people who simply ignore reality.
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