American Carnage

New York Times' Top Books of 2019Politico Magazines chief political correspondent provides a rollicking insiders look at the making of the modern Republican Partyhow 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 inAmerican Carnage, to understand Trumps victory is to view himnot as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence.American Carnageis the story of a presidents rise based on a countrys evolution and a partys 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 partys base. Yet Obamas forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nations rapidly changing cultural and demographic landscape, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the partys identity in the post-Bush era. The factions that emergedone led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnellengaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOPs 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 Republican Partyand of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, andtechnologicaldisruptionduring that periodcan we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of Americas current turmoil. How did a party obsessed with the national debt vote for trillion-dollar deficits and record-setting spending increases? How did the party of compassionate conservatism become the party of Muslim bans and walls? How did the party of family values elect a thrice-divorced philanderer? And, most important, how long can such a party survive?Loaded with exclusive reporting and based off hundreds of interviewsincluding with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and Reince Priebus, and many othersAmerican Carnagetakes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period as weve never seen it before and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of this political era.