
Finish What We Started
The MAGA Movement's Ground War to End Democracy
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Narrated by:
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Will Damron
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By:
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Isaac Arnsdorf
About this listen
The immersive, captivating untold story of the mass radicalization of the Republican Party in the aftermath of January 6, 2021, entrenching the political power of a radical right-wing fringe dedicated to dismantling democracy itself.
Inspired by Donald Trump’s election lies, a growing movement of grassroots activists mobilized around the country to pick up where the insurrection left off, laying the groundwork to succeed next time where Trump had failed to keep himself in power. But their own success in taking over and purging the Republican Party became their undoing as it drove away moderates and supplied the Democrats with a winning message in the 2022 midterms. Still, the MAGA Republicans proved uninterested in learning from that defeat, only becoming more extreme, divisive, and dead set on returning Trump to power.
Washington Post national political reporter Isaac Arnsdorf has spent years at the forefront of reporting on this growing movement. Drawing on extensive, exclusive on-the-ground reporting around the country, and deepened by historical context, Arnsdorf has produced the defining journalistic account of the origins, evolution and future of the MAGA movement. Combining critical and rigorous reporting with the intimacy and complexity of a novel, this book is unlike any other in the decade since Donald Trump convulsed and transformed American politics.
Finish What We Started tells the story of the ordinary Americans driving this change, who they are and where they came from, what motivates them, and what their movement means for the survival of American democracy.
©2023 Isaac Arnsdorf (P)2023 Little, Brown & CompanyListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Finish What We Started is a bracing, deeply reported dispatch from the front lines of the MAGA movement—a movement that, as Isaac Arnsdorf convincingly shows here, is more radical and determined than ever as it gathers force for Trump’s campaign to reclaim the White House.”—Joshua Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Devil’s Bargain
"This book is extraordinary. By turning the lens away from the palace intrigues that crowd far too many Trump books, patiently earning the trust of his most devoted grassroots followers to document without adornment what they actually say and think instead, Isaac Arnsdorf has provided an invaluable service for future historians. But you can read it now. And you must. Your jaw will drop. Even mine did."—Rick Perlstein, author of Reaganland
“Isaac Arnsdorf ventures beyond the punditry of Washington, D.C and delivers a revealing, distinctive look at how our nation's democracy might be forever changed. Peppered with scoops and fresh insight, Finish What We Started manages to be both spritely and ominous, a closely-reported depiction of the reorientation of modern politics.”—Robert Samuels, New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer-Prize winning co-author of His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
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- By ludlow on 09-24-24
By: David Rohde
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Kingdom of Rage
- The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace
- By: Elizabeth Neumann
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When Elizabeth Neumann began her anti-terrorism career as part of President George W. Bush’s Homeland Security Counsel in the wake of the September 11 attacks, she expected to spend her life protecting her country from the threat of global terrorism. But as her career evolved, she began to perceive that the greatest threat to American security came not from religious fundamentalists in Afghanistan or Iraq but from white nationalists and radicalized religious fundamentalists within the very institution that was closest to her heart—the American evangelical church.
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Insightful
- By Anonymous User on 05-04-24
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The Longest Con
- How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism
- By: Joe Conason
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The Longest Con tells the fascinating story of the partisan con artists who have corrupted conservative politics in our time, creating a toxic phenomenon that culminated in the election of Donald Trump, a bumptious fraud whose checkered career and tawdry retinue, including his presidential cabinet, have featured almost every variety of scam. But long before he appeared, Trump's path to power was blazed by the motley horde of swindlers and quacks who preceded him.
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America Needs to Know the Truth and Dangers of Trump
- By Tiberius on 12-01-24
By: Joe Conason
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Rebellion
- How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart—Again
- By: Robert Kagan
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The 2024 election could be the last free election held in a unified America. So warns Robert Kagan in this brilliant and terrifying analysis of the perilous state of democracy in the United States today. If Donald Trump loses the upcoming election, as he did in 2020, but refuses to accept the result, as he also did in the last election, he is likely to call on his millions of followers to repudiate the election results. It will be a short step from there to Republican-dominated states rejecting the legitimacy of the federal government and effectively seceding.
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Best Book In Its Class
- By Laurie on 05-02-24
By: Robert Kagan
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White Rural Rage
- The Threat to American Democracy
- By: Tom Schaller, Paul Waldman
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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White rural voters hold the greatest electoral sway of any demographic group in the United States, yet rural communities suffer from poor healthcare access, failing infrastructure, and severe manufacturing and farming job losses. Rural voters believe our nation has betrayed them, and to some degree, they’re right. In White Rural Rage, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman explore why rural Whites have failed to reap the benefits from their outsize political power and why, as a result, they are the most likely group to abandon democratic norms and traditions.
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Preaching to the choir
- By Mike on 03-07-24
By: Tom Schaller, and others
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Black Pill
- How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics
- By: Elle Reeve
- Narrated by: Elle Reeve
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning journalist and CNN correspondent Elle Reeve was not surprised by the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. With years of in-depth research and on-the-ground investigative reporting under her belt, Reeve was aware of the preoccupations of the online far right and their journey from the computer to QAnon, militias, and racist groups. At the same time, Reeve saw a parallel growth of counterforces, with citizen vigilantes using new tools and tactics to take down the far right.
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Great story — uneven performance
- By SSG on 08-19-24
By: Elle Reeve
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American Reckoning
- Inside Trump’s Trial—and My Own
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Alter
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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As one of a handful of journalists allowed in the courtroom, for 23 days Jonathan Alter sat just feet away from the most dangerous threat to democracy in American history, watching the spectacle of the century: the felony trial of Donald Trump. Highly publicized but untelevised and thus largely hidden from public view, this landmark trial offered hope of real justice amid a grueling eight-year national ordeal and foreshadowed the drama of the 2024 presidential election.
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Good book
- By jeffrey on 03-23-25
By: Jonathan Alter
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Interference
- The Inside Story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller Investigation
- By: Aaron Zebley, James Quarles, Andrew Goldstein
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Interference is the true history of the most important and consequential decisions, obstacles, and quandaries Mueller and his team faced when investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. For the first time, Mueller’s only deputy, his most senior counselor who served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and the lead prosecutor looking into obstruction of justice and Russian interference, have come together to tell a highly relevant and compelling account of what it was like to carry out their investigation of election interference.
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Just plain duped
- By Brooklynshops on 10-12-24
By: Aaron Zebley, and others
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Preparing for War
- The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next
- By: Bradley Onishi
- Narrated by: Bradley Onishi
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots in Preparing for War.
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Religious Fundementalism and Freedom
- By John C. Morris on 06-06-24
By: Bradley Onishi
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Sedition Hunters
- How January 6th Broke the Justice System
- By: Ryan J. Reilly
- Narrated by: Ryan J. Reilly
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The January 6th attack is an unprecedented crime in American history. Sprawling and openly political, it can't be handled by the traditional rules and norms of law enforcement—threatening the very idea of justice and its role in society. A mass of online tipsters—"sedition hunters"—have mobilized, simultaneously providing the FBI with valuable intelligence. In this work of extraordinary reportage, Ryan Reilly gets to know would-be revolutionaries, obsessive online sleuths, and FBI agents, and shines a light on a justice system that's straining to maintain order in our polarized country.
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Lost Opportunity
- By JenMarie66 on 10-21-23
By: Ryan J. Reilly
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Erasing History
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for America and the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity’s past began in schools; the same place so many of today’s right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks. Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right’s tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history.
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The bias attitude of the author
- By Elizabeth ohanna on 09-30-24
By: Jason Stanley
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Standing My Ground
- A Capitol Police Officer's Fight for Accountability and Good Trouble After January 6th
- By: Harry Dunn
- Narrated by: Harry Dunn
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Standing My Ground will provide a crucial, definitive first-hand account of what happened that day our world was shocked to its core. But it will also share the story of a man who refused to stay quiet when he learned that some of the men and women he had risked his life protecting, who knew him by name, would deny the horrors they faced.
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Listen and listen, again
- By B on 10-24-23
By: Harry Dunn
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Apprentice in Wonderland
- How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass
- By: Ramin Setoodeh
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Here for the first time is the definitive untold story of Donald Trump’s years as a reality TV star. Trump himself admits he might not have been president without The Apprentice. Now, just as he uncovered the chaos inside the daytime favorite The View in his bestselling Ladies Who Punch, Ramin Setoodeh chronicles Trump’s dramatic tenure as New York’s ultimate boss in the boardroom, a mirage created by Survivor producer Mark Burnett and NBC boss Jeff Zucker.
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Everything I feared was true…really is
- By debra on 06-22-24
By: Ramin Setoodeh
We’re all doomed
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This book appeals to a return to the republican who still wants a democracy and rule of law.
Movement Dissected
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Blending of Narrative and truth
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Mass Mental Illness
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Wow! So enlightening!
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The reader ruined the audiobook.
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The maga movement has torn this country apart. this book made me actually contemplate how a normal Republican must view the situation.
Having watched the lies and disinformation spread like wildfire over the course of the last 8 years, this book really brings home the point that many of these people genuinely believe what they claim to believe; which is somehow scarier to me than grifters just trying to make a quick buck.
How many people have been brainwashed by the likes of Alex Jones or Fox news? How many people died needlessly during the pandemic because they got their news from a disreputable source that traffic in fear instead of reality?
this book does a fantastic job of pointing out how the Republican Party became what it currently is. but the author does not come forth with ideas to fix it or to combat it.
I'm terrified for our country's future
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The rotten core of the MAGA takeover of the GOP
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Not enough Americans know about this
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the author is a liar
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