It is often said that Donald Trump has mounted a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, that he successfully forced the party to bend to his will and vision.
But what if it was the opposite? That the Republican party invited Trump in, and created the moment where he glided down his gold-plated escalator to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World” and declared his candidacy?
The conditions that allowed Trump to take over the party were there for years. And Republicans are now all wearing the red baseball cap.
That’s the argument in Tim Alberta’s new book titled “American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump.”
Tim Alberta. Credit: Sweta Alberta.