After the Iraq war and the Great Recession, public trust in government plummeted while the flashpoints of race, religion and education moved to the fore. Barack Obama’s mantra of hope and change left many unsatisfied, if not seething. On election day 2016, Donald Trump lit a match. But the kindling was already there, decades in the making.
Staring at the mess is Jeremy Peters of the New York Times, with Insurgency, his first book. A seasoned national political reporter and MSNBC talking head, Peters chronicles how the party of Lincoln and Reagan morphed into Trump’s own fiefdom. He writes with a keen eye and sharp pen. Beyond that, he listens.
