
The Destructionists
The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party
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Narrated by:
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Dana Milbank
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By:
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Dana Milbank
About this listen
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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Critic reviews
"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
"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
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In 1981, a young lawyer, fresh out of Harvard law school, joined the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice, taking up a cause that had been fomenting in Republican circles for over a decade by that point. From his perch inside the Reagan DOJ, this lawyer would attempt to bring down one of the defining pieces of 20th century legislation—the Voting Rights Act. His name was John Roberts.
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Lessons in Truth
- By Reggie Clark on 09-04-24
By: David Daley
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Tired of Winning
- Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party
- By: Jonathan Karl
- Narrated by: Jonathan Karl
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Packed with new reporting, Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party tracks Trump’s improbable journey from disgraced and defeated former president to the dominant force, yet again, in the Republican Party. From his exile in Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump has become more extreme, vengeful, and divorced from reality than he was on January 6, 2021. His meddling damaged the GOP’s electoral prospects and his legal troubles were mounting. Yet he re-emerged as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and the president-elect.
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Compelling and Terrifying
- By Shaz on 11-15-23
By: Jonathan Karl
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The Big Lie
- Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020
- By: Jonathan Lemire
- Narrated by: Jonathan Lemire
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In the more than five tumultuous, paradigm-shifting years of Donald Trump’s presidency and beyond, his near-constant lying has become a fixture of political life. It is inextricably linked with how his party behaves, how the Democrats respond to it, and how he remains relevant, even after a decisive loss in 2020. Jonathan Lemire brings his connections, profile, and reportorial instincts to bear in his first book that explores how this phenomenon shapes our politics. The Big Lie is the first audiobook to examine this unprecedented and tenuous moment in our nation’s politics.
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Don’t bother
- By Susan S. on 07-27-22
By: Jonathan Lemire
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American Reckoning
- Inside Trump’s Trial—and My Own
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Alter
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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As one of a handful of journalists allowed in the courtroom, for 23 days Jonathan Alter sat just feet away from the most dangerous threat to democracy in American history, watching the spectacle of the century: the felony trial of Donald Trump. Highly publicized but untelevised and thus largely hidden from public view, this landmark trial offered hope of real justice amid a grueling eight-year national ordeal and foreshadowed the drama of the 2024 presidential election.
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Good book
- By jeffrey on 03-23-25
By: Jonathan Alter
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Twilight of Democracy
- The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else.
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Modern Dictators & President who wants to be them
- By AJ on 07-23-20
By: Anne Applebaum
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It Was All a Lie
- How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump
- By: Stuart Stevens
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Stuart Stevens spent decades electing Republicans at every level, from presidents to senators to local officials. He knows the GOP as intimately as anyone in America, and in this new book he offers a devastating portrait of a party that has lost its moral and political compass. This is not a book about how Donald J. Trump hijacked the Republican Party and changed it into something else.
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A party gone astray
- By Devin on 08-07-20
By: Stuart Stevens
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The Man Who Sold America
- Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story
- By: Joy-Ann Reid
- Narrated by: Joy-Ann Reid
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Candidate Trump sold Americans a vision that was seemingly at odds with their country’s founding principles. Now in office, he’s put up a "for sale" sign - on the prestige of the presidency, on America’s global stature, and on our national identity. At what cost have these deals come? Joy-Ann Reid's essential new audiobook, The Man Who Sold America, delivers an urgent accounting of our national crisis from one of our foremost political commentators.
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Good explanation of how we got to where we are
- By Caduceus26 on 07-13-19
By: Joy-Ann Reid
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I Alone Can Fix It
- Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year
- By: Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker
- Narrated by: January LaVoy, Carol Leonnig, Philip Rucker
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The true story of what took place in Donald Trump’s White House during a disastrous 2020 has never before been told in full. What was really going on around the president, as the government failed to contain the coronavirus and over half a million Americans perished? Who was influencing Trump after he refused to concede an election he had clearly lost and spread lies about election fraud? To answer these questions, Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig reveal a dysfunctional and bumbling presidency’s inner workings in unprecedented, stunning detail.
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The Facts are There
- By Thomas E. Jones on 07-23-21
By: Carol Leonnig, and others
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The Conspiracy to End America
- Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy
- By: Stuart Stevens
- Narrated by: Jeff Bottoms
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Today’s Republican party is not a “normal” political party in the American tradition. It has become an autocratic movement masquerading as a political party. As Stuart Stevens argues in The Conspiracy to End America, if we look away from that truth, we greatly increase the likelihood that the America we love will slip away, never to return.
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Required Reading
- By Arturo Zendejas on 10-27-23
By: Stuart Stevens
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Beyond the Big Lie
- The Epidemic of Political Liars, Why Republicans Do It More, and How It Could Burn Down Our Democracy
- By: Bill Adair
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Adair knows a lie when he hears one. Since 2008, the site he founded, PolitiFact, has been the go-to spot for media members and political observers alike to seek the truth in an increasingly deceitful world. Since the site’s launching, politics’ tenuous relationship with the truth has only gotten weaker—and weirder. In this groundbreaking book, Adair reveals how politicians lie and why.
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Beyond the Big Lie
- By Steve Tone on 10-22-24
By: Bill Adair
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Weapons of Mass Delusion
- When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind
- By: Robert Draper
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a terrible day for American democracy, but many people dared to hope that at least it would break the fever that had overcome the Republican Party and banish Trump's relentless lies about the stealing of the 2020 election. That is not what happened. Instead, “the big steal” has become dogma among an ever-higher percentage of American Republicans. What happened to the Republican Party, and America, during the Trump presidency is a story we more or less think we know.
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If you had told me ...
- By kimberly stewart on 10-30-22
By: Robert Draper
What listeners say about The Destructionists
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- Robert Erickson
- 03-02-23
A good review to answer how we got here
This is a good review to show how bad or improper actions will have serious consequences in following years. This book explains when bad politicians are allowed a platform then later there are more difficult challenges to the core of democracy. This book should become a film documentary for a wider audience to understand who are/were our elected officials.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-03-22
Connecting the Dots
This mandatory reading for all those who want to understand how we got to the politics of hate. I am 74 years old. I lived through all the sign post Milbank covers. I really needed someone to connect the dots for me…he did just that. I am greatly indebted to him!
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- asdf
- 10-13-22
Meticulous
Meticulously researched, this will anger, horrify, and terrify you. A "must" read. Please read it before you vote.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-07-22
Great Summary
Nothing new in Dana's book, but it provides a great summary of where we are as a nation. It's a cold bucket of water on the head to hear such a point by point review of where the GOP is today.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-21-24
Incredible
This book pulled everything out of my memory and put it together to make it make sense.
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- And vice versa
- 09-22-22
How we got into this mess
No scoops, just a terrific and authoritative overview of how one political party let morality and country take a backseat to power - and succeeded, at a great cost. Those who most need to absorb and embrace this book’s message, unfortunately, will not.
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5 people found this helpful
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- J. Kelly Duncan
- 02-06-23
Democracy in Peril
The Destructionists should be required reading for any citizen who cherishes our democracy and wants to understand the very real threats to same that exist.
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1 person found this helpful
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- P & D
- 02-01-24
It is real.
The hypocracies of the Rs is well-detatiled through concrete examples of their spineless "leaders." Truth be known, they have succumbed to one man. Well done.
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- PilatesGirl
- 11-12-22
Illuminating & terrifying
This is an excellent dissection of the corpse that is the later Republican Party - I was a lot more oblivious back in the 1970s and 80s, but even so, I could sense that something wasn’t right.
Little did I realize how “not right” things were, but when I got interested in the Civil War (50+ books later) the parallels between the 1850s and now were patently obvious. The incomprehensible, twisted, bigoted mindset that basically tanked any hope for a “United States” has been there since well before that war, and the deliberate dumbing down of the citizenry over decades has created a malleable populace of sheep easily led over the cliff.
This is Germany in the 1930s all over again, and it’s appalling.
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- Tarzan152
- 09-11-22
Wait! That really happened!!
Great book to listen to and I got a lot of "Wow, I forgot about that" moments. Few statements in this book can be seen as assumptious but far to many are based on facts that the accused said or did publicly. All in all, it's a book that really makes you think about the future of this great country.
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