American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump

New York Times Bestseller

Not a conventional Trump-era book. It is less about the daily mayhem in the White House than about the unprecedented capitulation of a political party. This book will endure for helping us understand not what is happening but why it happened. [An] indispensable work.Washington Post

Politico 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.

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 progressive agenda, coupled with the nations rapidly changing cultural identity, lit a fire under the right. Republicans regained power in Congress but spent that time fighting among themselves. With these struggles weakening the partys defenses, and with more and more Americans losing faith in the political class, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to launch his campaign 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 GOP can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of Americas current turmoil.

Loaded with explosive original reporting and based on hundreds of exclusive interviewsincluding with key players such as President Trump, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Mitch McConnellAmerican Carnage takes us behind the scenes of this tumultuous period and establishes Tim Alberta as the premier chronicler of a political era.