Jeremy Peters's epic narrative of the fracture and collapse of the Republican Party chronicles the once-in-a-lifetime self-destruction of a major political party through the dark and powerful forces that it wrought. Peters turns his incisive gaze toward the people whose shifting core ideas over the last twenty years have fundamentally changed the meaning of what it is to be a Republican. How, he asks, did the Republican Party cease to be the party of small government and fiscal responsibility and morph into a home for nativists, far-right social conservatives, and others whose views were traditionally relegated to the fringes? The answer is a tale traced across two decades, born with the Tea Party revolution in 2009 and fueled by the shattering defeat of Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. Facing an existential crossroads, many in the party believed
