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Résumé :
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The "Politico Magazine" chief political correspondent reveals how a decade of cultural upheaval, populist outrage, and ideological warfare made the GOP vulnerable to a hostile takeover by an unlikely presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump. The 2016 election was a watershed for the United States. But, as Tim Alberta explains in American Carnage, to understand Trumps victory is to view him not as the creator of this era of polarization and bruising partisanship, but rather as its most manifest consequence. American Carnage is the story of a presidents rise based on a countrys evolution and a partys collapse. 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 forceful pursuit of his progressive agenda, coupled with the nations rapidly changing societal and demographic identity, lit a fire under the right, returning Republicans to power and inviting a bloody struggle for the partys identity in the post-Bush era. The factions that emerged, one led by absolutists like Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz, the other led by pragmatists like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, engaged in a series of devastating internecine clashes and attempted coups for control. With the GOPs internal fissures rendering it legislatively impotent, and that impotence fueling a growing resentment toward the political class and its institutions, the stage was set for an outsider to crash the party. When Trump descended a gilded escalator to announce his run 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 and of the parallel sense of cultural, socioeconomic, and technological disruption during that period can we appreciate how he won the White House and consider the fundamental questions at the center of Americas current turmoil.
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