A chilling and clear-eyed warning about the threats to our democracy
posed by the increasing radicalization of the Republican Party, from a
leading conservative historian and intellectual
Since 2017, and especially after the January 6 insurrection, many
Americans have feared a constitutional crisis that would paralyze the
institutions central to our nation's democracy. Robert Kagan is among
them. As he argues, Donald Trump will run again for president in 2024;
if he loses, he will not accept the outcome. The amateurish "Stop the
Steal" efforts of 2020 will be replaced by a more organized and powerful
effort to rig the election in his favor. And if Trump wins, or maneuvers
his way into office, there is no telling what he might do in a second
term.
In Everything Is at Stake, Kagan sounds a dire warning, diving deeper
than the op-eds and think pieces to explore the historical forces that
have brought us to this moment--from the political compromises that led
to slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow; to "America First" and the
latent fascism of the 1930s; and to modern conservatism's complicated
attraction to autocratic leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor
Orbán. Above all, he explores previous crisis moments in American
history and asks whether the rise of Trumpism is a temporary phenomenon
constructed entirely around a single individual, or whether it is a
larger political force that is here to stay.
This is an elegant and deeply informed synthesis of history and politics
and ideas that sheds important new light on this crucial moment.
