NATIONAL BESTSELLER, updated with a new afterword“This is the definitive account of what has gone wrong in our two-party system, and how our democracy has to adapt to survive it. I can’t say it in strong enough terms: Read. This. Book.” —RACHEL MADDOWThe award-winning producer of The Rachel Maddow Show exposes the Republican Party as a gang of impostors, meticulously documenting how they have … Republican Party as a gang of impostors, meticulously documenting how they have abandoned their duty to govern and are gravely endangering America
For decades, American voters innocently assumed the two major political parties were equally mature and responsible governing entities, ideological differences aside. That belief is due for an overhaul: in recent years, the Republican Party has undergone an astonishing metamorphosis, one so baffling and complete that few have fully reckoned with the reality and its consequences.
Republicans, simply put, have quit governing. As MSNBC’s Steve Benen charts in his groundbreaking new book, the contemporary GOP has become a “post-policy party.” Republicans are effectively impostors, presenting themselves as officials who are ready to take seriously the substance of problem solving, but whose sole focus is the pursuit and maintenance of power. Astonishingly, they are winning–at the cost of pushing the political system to the breaking point.
Despite having billed itself as the “party of ideas,” the Republican Party has walked away from the hard but necessary work of policymaking. It is disdainful of expertise and hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized, or implemented. This policy nihilism dominated the party’s posture throughout Barack Obama’s presidency, which in turn opened the door to Donald Trump — who would cement the GOP’s post-policy status in ways that were difficult to even imagine a few years earlier.
The implications of this approach to governance are all-encompassing. Voters routinely elect Republicans such as Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz to powerful offices, expecting GOP policymakers to have the technocratic wherewithal to identify problems, weigh alternative solutions, forge coalitions, accept compromises, and apply some level of governmental competence, if not expertise. The party has consistently proven those hopes misguided.
The result is an untenable political model that’s undermining the American policymaking process and failing to serve the public’s interests. The vital challenge facing the civil polity is coming to terms with the party’s collapse as a governing entity and considering what the party can do to find its policymaking footing anew.
The Impostors serves as a devastating indictment of the GOP’s breakdown, identifying the culprits, the crisis, and its effects, while challenging Republicans with an imperative question: Are they ready to change direction? As Benen writes, “A great deal is riding on their answer.”
more
THE IMPOSTORS: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics is an excoriation of the Republican Party. Their agenda vis a vis governing is non-existent. There single objective is to get elected then ignore the very real job of legislating. Ideology is everything, consequences be damned.
It is disheartening, to say the least, to read book after book about the current state of our union. I have spent the last four years trying to not use Trump’s name. When forced to do so for clarity, I refuse to capitalize it when posting on social media. Steve Benen often shares my little quirk by not referring to him by name or title, but by simply calling him the Republican. In my opinion, it is the perfect insult to the Republican Party. I saw it as sticking a finger in the eye of the do-nothings in Washington.
Somehow, I cannot write any of the buzzwords in use today regarding the Republican Party’s non-governance. I actually found it comforting to read that Republican legislators have eschewed competent staff that can assist in researching and crafting legislation in favor of “communications staffers” with the principal responsibility of “writing talking points and raising their bosses’ media profiles.” It meant that I was not seeing and hearing things when legislators spoke out of both sides of their mouths. I am in favor of the media not using hyperbole of any kind when Republicans make outrageous statements. Such utterances are not mind-boggling, they are the norm.
The Republican Party is a post-policy party. Benen contrasts the work of Obama’s administration and the work of both Democrats and Republicans regarding the major issues of healthcare, immigration, budget and taxation, and mass shootings and gun control with the work (or lack thereof) done during “the Republican’s” administration. Republicans enjoy control over the Executive and Legislative branches of government yet can get nothing accomplished.
I could use any (or all) of the many highlights I made while reading this on Kindle. I will include just one: “The most effective impetus to changing the GOP’s post-policy posture, however, will be external pressures that leave Republican leaders with the impression that the status quo is untenable. Some of this should come from independent news organizations that have too often been negligent, signaling to the party and voters that policy is trivia of limited importance to the American mainstream.”
Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, this is a book well worth reading. Although I’ve lived through everything that is mentioned in the book, I did learn a thing or two and found that I was limited in my thinking when berating the Republican personally; we should be demanding accountability from the party that allowed a reality TV narcissist to occupy the highest office in the land.
The Impostors
How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics
By: Steve Benen
Narrated by: Ron Butler
This book goes back decades and describes the changes the Republican party went through up to today. It is obvious the Republican party has changed over the years but other being more callous, it is really hard to really but a finger on it until someone like Mr Benen comes along and points it out with facts and dates. Then it is like, snap, “That’s it!”
Easy to understand and follow. Takes the trip down memory lane from before even my time and points out the deterioration of the party to DO any constructive work. Then it gets to tRump’s time in office and it changes to just insanity! There is nothing like this in the past! Still no policies or constructive work but plenty of trying to break the norms and the laws. Chaos!
This should be read not just by democrats but by republicans too so they can see how their party has been hijacked by extreme laziness and manipulators.
Great book! Wonderful narration!