Ralph welcomes Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank, who draws a direct line from Newt Gingrich’s ascendency to Speaker of the House in 1994 to the January 6th insurrection in his book “The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party.” Plus, a new Capitol Hill Citizen is out!
Dana Milbank is a political columnist for The Washington Post, whose work is syndicated nationally. He has also been a contributor to CNN and MSNBC, and he is the author of the books Homo Politicus, Tears of a Clown, and O Is for Obama. His latest book is The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party.
The whole philosophy of Trumpism is to frighten the white, largely male, largely non-college-educated Americans and to frighten them into thinking they are going to be replaced. That they are going to be pushed aside, marginalized, and even made to disappear by immigrants and by racial minorities…. They’re voting in extraordinarily high numbers, and that’s because they are motivated by fear.
Dana Milbank, author of The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party
I think the important question is less, “Is Trump in control of the party?” than, “Is Trumpism in control of the party?” Because whether it’s Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis, I don’t think it matters that much. If DeSantis is following the same politics of white nationalism and mass disinformation that we’ve seen from Trump, they’re just continuing to go in that same direction.
Dana Milbank, author of The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party
Remember, Trump started an election fraud commission that amounted to nothing. But the “Big Lie” of 2020/2021 that has gripped the party right now is rooted in all of those other lies, the constant attacks on the truth, the constant attacks on the media, and this conditioning to distrust everything.
Dana Milbank, author of The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party
One thing that is missing is any rebuttal by the Democrats [to dirty Republican tactics]… And that’s because the Democrats are very bad at rebuttals, and they’re very bad at slogans and nicknames. The mass media…would repeat in 2016—verbatim— the slanderous epithets that Donald Trump hurled against his opponents. Republican and Democrat, alike…But they never ask the accused to rebut— sort of an unfair practice in journalism.
Ralph Nader
The Crack Up of the Republican Party