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The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party Audiobook
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NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • A scalding history of twenty-five years of Republican attempts to hold on to political power by any means necessary, by a hugely popular Washington Post political columnist
"A thorough and scathing account of how the Republican Party fell prey to Trumpism."—The New York Times Book Review
In 1994, more than 300 Republicans under the command of obstructionist and rabble-rouser Congressman Newt Gingrich stood outside the U.S. Capitol to sign the Contract with America and put bipartisanship on notice. Twenty-five years later, on January 6, 2021, a bloodthirsty mob incited by President Trump invaded the Capitol.
Dana Milbank sees a clear line from the Contract with America to the coup attempt. In the quarter century in between, Americans have witnessed the crackup of the party of Lincoln and Reagan, to its current iteration as a haven for white supremacists, political violence, conspiracy theories and authoritarianism.
Following the questionable careers of party heavyweights Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell, and Rudy Giuliani, and those of many lesser known lowlights, Milbank recounts the shocking lengths the Republican Party has gone to to maintain its grip on the American people.
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"With characteristic wit, Dana Milbank reveals how, step-by-step, characters like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove (bolstered by a barrage of dark money and rightwing media) replaced normal politics with character assassination, violence, endemic lying and racial division. Trump was the inevitable result after the party of limited government morphed over decades into one obsessed with holding power at all costs. Dana documents how Trump accelerated the downward spiral, making it 'safe' to be a bigot and 'weaponizing' conspiracy theories. If you want to understand Trump, this account of Republicans’ destruction of democracy, truth and decency is essential reading."
— Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist and author of Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump
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Milbank compresses every awful political occurrence of the past quarter century into a page-turner that is both difficult to stomach and hard to put down.
— Foreign Affairs -
A thorough and scathing account of how the Republican Party fell prey to Trumpism.
— The New York Times Book Review -
[Milbank] has well-honed edge as a commentator...[his] fans will not go away disappointed.
— NPR -
There is a fine and elegant line between humor and horror, and no one walks it any better than Dana Milbank. Literally no writer in Washington is better suited to answering the GOP’s ever-present 'How Did We Get Here?' question. It’s all right here in The Destructionists, in all its depressing, spiraling detail – and yet so thoroughly enjoyable, too. That’s the Milbank Miracle, right there. I devoured this.
— Mark Leibovich, author of This Town and Thank you for Your Servitude -
Dana Milbank is a sizzling hot observer of American politics. His writing is irreverent, provocative and, whether or not you agree with his point of view — always entertaining.
— Jonathan Karl, author of Front Row at the Trump Show and Betrayal -
In this painful, powerful, and deeply necessary account of the devolution of the GOP, one of the nation’s most trenchant political observers chronicles the growing threats to our democracy. Dana Milbank has written a riveting history and a bracing warning about the challenges we continue to face. How did we get here? Where did the epic failures, divisions, and dysfunctions in our politics come from? Milbank argues that Donald Trump, for all his faults, didn’t create this noxious environment -- he was the monster that the GOP had been creating for more than a quarter century.
— Charles J. Sykes, author of How the Right Lost its Mind -
In this stunning historical review of the modern Republican Party, Dana Milbank chronicles the GOP’s race to the bottom in undermining faith in government by destroying long held and established democratic norms and principles. From swift boating a presidential candidate to sparking the birtherism movement of America’s first Black President and the non stop repeats of the 'Big Lie,' Milbank proves that the Republicans' war is with democratic institutions and perhaps with democracy itself.
— Donna Brazile, former Interim Chair, Democratic National Committee and author of Hacks: The Inside Story of Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House -
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. . . a convincing and well-documented case. Liberals will be incensed.
— Publishers Weekly -
"Well-researched...lends a genealogy to homegrown authoritarianism.
— Kirkus Reviews
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About Dana Milbank
Dana Milbank is a columnist for the Washington Post. Milbank is the author of Smash Mouth: Two Years in the Gutter with Al Gore and George W. Bush—Notes from the 2000 Campaign Trail, as well as the author of the polemic biography of conservative pundit Glenn Beck: Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America. He is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a member of Trumbull College, the Progressive Party of the Yale Political Union. He is a graduate of Sanford H. Calhoun High School in Merrick, New York. Milbank has been married since 1993 to Dona Lynn DePasquale.
About George Newbern
George Newbern is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a television and film actor best known for his roles as Brian MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, as well as Danny in Friends. As a voice actor, he is notable for his role as Superman on the Cartoon Newtork series Static Shock, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. He has guest starred on many television series, including Scandal, The Mentalist, Private Practice, CSI: Miami, and Numb3rs. He holds a BA in theater arts from Northwestern University.