The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-up of the Republican Party

Washington Post opinion columnist Milbank (Tears of a Clown) delivers an excoriating history of the Republican Party from Newt Gingrich’s rise to speaker of the House in 1994 to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Alleging that Gingrich’s “savage politics” set the stage for Trumpism, Milbank spotlights episodes in which Republican officials, party donors, and their media allies spread conspiracy theories, embraced violence, stoked racial animosity, and “sabotag[ed] the norms and institutions of American government.” These include independent counsel Ken Starr’s sprawling investigations of the Clintons, the use of false evidence to justify the Iraq War, and the “birther” movement. Milbank stuffs the narrative with precise and persuasive details, noting, for instance, that Republican lawyer and future Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh spent two years investigating White House counsel Vince Foster’s death in 1993, despite admitting at the outset that he believed Foster had killed himself. Elsewhere, Milbank recounts the “swift boating” of Democratic candidate John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race and the spreading of false accusations that the Affordable Care Act would lead to “death panels.” Though readers may balk at some of Milbank’s more outré attacks, such as calling the Republican Party a “death cult,” he makes a convincing and well-documented case. Liberals will be incensed. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn, ICM Partners. (Aug.)