Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted

New York Times correspondent Peters debuts with a fluid and well-sourced, if familiar, look at how Donald Trump seized control of the Republican Party. Noting that Trump was fascinated by Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential campaign, Peters deconstructs how Trump drew on Palin’s playbook to channel the frustrations of working-class whites who feared they were losing their “cultural supremacy.” Recounting right-wing populist Pat Buchanan’s surprisingly strong showing against George H.W. Bush in the 1992 Republican primary and the rise of the Tea Party during the Obama presidency, Peters credits the motley crew of strategists who surrounded Trump, including Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Kellyanne Conway, with understanding that moderate Republicans had lost the party’s base. Drawing on extensive interviews with conservative politicians, strategists, and commentators, Peters documents how Trump won the crucial support of Fox News’s Roger Ailes and persuaded Federalist Society members and evangelical Christians that he was their best bet to overturn Roe v. Wade. It’s a persuasive and lucid analysis, but not especially revelatory, and the details about the Covid-19 pandemic and the January 6 Capitol insurrection feel tacked on. Still, this is a cogent and accessible history of how the GOP got to where it is today. (Feb.)