Modern Politics: "The Destructionists," The Twenty-Five Year CrackUp of the Republican Party, Dana Milbank

Today, Americans’ confidence in virtually all the pillars of a free society—Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, public schools, the media has declined from where it was in 1994. (3)

White nationalists and anti-government violence is spreading, and a significant chunk of the country is living in a parallel universe of “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories. (4)

The Department of Homeland security—Trump’s Department of Homeland Security—concluded that the white supremacist violence was the “most lethal threat in the homeland.” (4)

Since Trump departed office, Republicans in Congress have been fighting to rewrite the history of the January insurrection as a “normal tourist visits in which the insurrectionists were the victims and the police were the villains. (5)

There is a perfectly logical, if deeply cynical reason for this, Democracy is working against Republicans. In the eight presidential contests since 1988, the GOP candidate has won the popular vote only once, in 2004. (7)

Globally south to north has ignited nationalist movements around the world and given rise to a new era of autocrats. (7)

But the biggest cause by far is racism. (7)

Before the Big Lie about the 2020 election, Republicans fabricated libels against Obamacare “death panels” the false accusation That Saddam Hussein perpetrated 9/11, and an endless stream of conspiracy theories holding that Bill and Hilary Clinton wee nothing short of mortal killers. (8)

Before Republicans endorsed Russian propaganda about Ukraine during Trump’s impeachment trial, there was Darrell Issa’s false claim that Hillary Clinton ordered the military not o help besieged Americans in Benghazi, Helen Chenoweth’s paranoia about the government’s black helicopters; and Dan Burton shooting a melon to prove a Clinton aide was murdered. (9)

This book connects four roughly equal sections: the Clinton presidency defined by the slashing style of Gingrich, The Georg W. Bush’s presidency (defined by the dishonestly of Karl Rove), the Obama presidency (during which democratic norms were assigned from withing by Mitch McConnell and without by Sarah Palin, and finally, the reign of the (still ongoing) Trump era. (10)

51 pages, 16,800 words, visuals