We Should Have Seen It Coming
From Reagan to Trump - A Front-Row Seat to a Political Revolution
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Narrated by:
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Jason Culp
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By:
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Gerald F. Seib
About this listen
The executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal chronicles the astonishing rise, climax, and decline of the conservative movement, from the election of Ronald Reagan to the Republican Party's takeover by Donald Trump - with a new introduction covering the 2020 election and the future of the GOP
“Ably captures the most consequential American political developments in half a century.” (Peggy Noonan)
In 1980, President-Elect Ronald Reagan ushered in conservatism as the most powerful political force in America. For four decades, New Deal liberalism had been the country’s dominant motif, creating such popular programs as Social Security and Medicare, but it had become creaky in the face of soaring inflation, high unemployment, and a growing sense that the United States was no longer the dominant force on the world stage. Reagan's efforts to reshape the government with tax cuts, deregulation, increased military spending, and a more conservative social policy faltered at first. But the economy roared back, and the Reagan revolution was on.
In We Should Have Seen It Coming, veteran journalist Gerald F. Seib shows how this conservative movement came to dominate national politics, then began to evolve into the populist movement that Donald Trump rode to power. Conservative institutions including the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association, Americans for Tax Reform, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News gave the conservative movement a support system, paving the way for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America and George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism. But we also see multiple warning signs, many overlooked or misread, that a populist revolution was brewing. Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Sarah Palin, and the Tea Party - all were precursors of the Trump takeover.
With behind-the-scenes anecdotes, Seib explains how Trump capitalized on that populist movement to victory in 2016, then began breaking from conservative orthodoxy once in office. He shows how Trump altered Republican relations with the business world, shattered conservative precepts on trade and immigration, and challenged America’s long-standing alliances. This scintillating work of journalism brings new insight to the most important political story of our time.
©2020 Gerald F. Seib (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“The great Jerry Seib, as fair and trusted a political reporter and observer as there is, has written a serious, textured, and broad-gauged history of the Republican Party of the past 50 years, its highs and lows, triumphs and catastrophes. In doing so he ably captures the most consequential American political developments in half a century.” (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal columnist)
"Followers of contemporary political history will appreciate how Seib gathers together the many strands of people and events culminating in present realities.” (Booklist, starred review)
“Generously conceived, thoroughly researched, and guaranteed to please no one at the political extremes.” (Kirkus Reviews)
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Story
Every major decision governing our diverse, majority-female, and increasingly liberal country bears the stamp of the US Senate, yet the Senate allows an almost exclusively White, predominantly male, and radically conservative minority of the American electorate to impose its will on the rest of us. How did we get to this point? In Kill Switch, Adam Jentleson argues that shifting demographics alone cannot explain how Mitch McConnell harnessed the Senate and turned it into a powerful weapon of minority rule.
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Don't bother, narration intolerable!
- By Joseph on 03-08-21
By: Adam Jentleson
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The Impostors
- How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics
- By: Steve Benen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The award-winning producer of The Rachel Maddow Show exposes the Republican Party as a gang of impostors, meticulously documenting how they have abandoned their duty to govern and are gravely endangering America.
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Three Card Monte Politics
- By J.B. on 06-19-20
By: Steve Benen
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Pivotal Tuesdays
- Four Elections That Shaped the Twentieth Century
- By: Margaret O'Mara
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Pivotal Tuesdays looks back at four pivotal presidential elections of the past 100 years to show how they shaped the 20th century. During the rowdy, four-way race in 1912 between Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Eugene Debs, and Woodrow Wilson, the candidates grappled with the tremendous changes of industrial capitalism and how best to respond to them. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt's promises to give Americans a "New Deal" to combat the Great Depression helped him beat the beleaguered incumbent, Herbert Hoover.
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Important book...especially this year.
- By Jim on 07-31-16
By: Margaret O'Mara
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Great Society
- A New History
- By: Amity Shlaes
- Narrated by: Terence Aselford
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In Great Society, Shlaes offers a powerful companion to her legendary history of the 1930s, The Forgotten Man, and shows that in fact there was scant difference between two presidents we consider opposites: Johnson and Nixon. Just as technocratic military planning by "the Best and the Brightest" made failure in Vietnam inevitable, so planning by a team of the domestic best and brightest guaranteed fiasco at home. At once history and biography, Great Society sketches moving portraits of the characters in this transformative period.
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How have we forgotten how bad these ideas were?
- By Robert S. Allen on 02-09-20
By: Amity Shlaes
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Piety & Power
- Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House
- By: Tom LoBianco
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A revealing, in-depth biography of Mike Pence, the most secretive and ingratiating vice president in modern history, from a reporter with remarkable access. Piety & Power cuts to the core of the nation’s most enigmatic politician and unearths new, important, and fascinating anecdotes about Pence’s faith, his marriage to Karen Pence, his bizarre, obsequious relationship with Trump, his deeply buried personality, his ascent to power under John Boehner, and his presidential aspirations and plans for America’s future.
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Scary he's so close to the top job
- By John S. on 10-15-19
By: Tom LoBianco
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Why the Right Went Wrong
- Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond
- By: E. J. Dionne Jr.
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Why the Right Went Wrong offers a historical view of the right since the 1960s. Its core contention is that American conservatism and the Republican Party took a wrong turn when they adopted Barry Goldwater's worldview during and after the 1964 campaign. Since 1968, no conservative administration could live up to the rhetoric rooted in the Goldwater movement that began to reshape American politics 50 years ago.
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Outstanding, refreshing, inspiring
- By James Adams on 03-19-16
By: E. J. Dionne Jr.
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The Center Holds
- Obama and His Enemies
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Alter
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, Jonathan Alter uses his unmatched access and deep knowledge of politics and history to produce the first full account of America at the crossroads. He pierces the bubble of the White House and of the presidential campaigns with exclusive reporting and rare historical insight. More than a campaign book, this is the epic story of an embattled president facing a historic moment he considered more pivotal than 2008.
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The Best Telling of the 2012 Campaign So Far
- By Mike on 06-11-13
By: Jonathan Alter
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Donald J. Trump
- A President like No Other
- By: Conrad Black, Victor Davis Hanson - foreword
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Conrad Black, bestselling author of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom and Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, turns his attention to his "friend" President Donald J. Trump and provides the most intriguing and significant analysis yet of Trump's political rise. Ambitious in intellectual scope, contrarian in many of its opinions, and admirably concise, this is surely set to be one of the most provocative political books you are likely to listen to this year.
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45th President of the United States of America
- By JEYCEE on 05-16-18
By: Conrad Black, and others
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The Red and the Blue
- The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism
- By: Steve Kornacki
- Narrated by: Steve Kornacki, Ron Butler
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him speaker.
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Simply marvelous
- By Hector Gonzalez on 10-04-18
By: Steve Kornacki
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Talk Radio’s America
- How an Industry Took Over a Political Party That Took Over the United States
- By: Brian Rosenwald
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Radio hosts form a deep bond with their audience, which gives them enormous political power. Unlike elected representatives, however, they must entertain their audience or watch their ratings fall. Talk radio boosted the Republican agenda in the 1990s, but two decades later, escalation in the battle for the airwaves pushed hosts toward ever more conservative, outrageous, and hyperbolic content. Donald Trump borrowed conservative radio hosts' playbook and gave Republican base voters the kind of pugnacious candidate they had been demanding for decades.
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Excellent history of our national demise
- By CommentDante on 02-20-22
By: Brian Rosenwald
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Fault Lines
- A History of the United States Since 1974
- By: Kevin M. Kruse, Julian E. Zelizer
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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If you were asked when America became polarized, your answer would likely depend on your age: You might say during Barack Obama’s presidency, or with the post-9/11 war on terror, or the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, or the “Reagan Revolution” and the the rise of the New Right. How did the US become so divided? Fault Lines offers a richly told, wide-angle history view toward an answer.
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Good overview of the past 45 years
- By Adam Shields on 02-26-19
By: Kevin M. Kruse, and others
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The Man Who Ran Washington
- The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
- By: Peter Baker, Susan Glasser
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 26 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a pause-resisting portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations.
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We Need Baker Now More Than Ever
- By @Gazi2a on 01-08-21
By: Peter Baker, and others
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Outsider in the White House
- Special Audio Edition
- By: Bernie Sanders, Huck Gutman, John Nichols - afterword
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett, Brian Sutherland
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Bernie Sanders' campaign for the presidency of the United States has galvanized supporters all over the country, drawing attention to issues of economic, racial, and social justice and spotlighting one of the most interesting and unconventional candidates in decades.
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Behind the Scenes with Bernie--- WORTH it!
- By Susie on 02-23-16
By: Bernie Sanders, and others
What listeners say about We Should Have Seen It Coming
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Nathan
- 08-03-21
Objective, Comprehensive Post-Morten of Trump’s Rise in the Republican Party
Gerald F. Seib is one of America’s great, objective reporters. Unsurprisingly, this book is the best post-mortem I’ve seen on the ascendancy of Donald Trump and his brand of populism in the Republican Party. With precision and dispassionate analysis, Mr. Seib tracks the trends that led to Donald Trump’s rise from Regan to the Tea Party. An absolutely essential and fantastic read for anyone looking to understand how the Republican Party has ended up the way it is today.
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- Ryan
- 08-31-20
An interesting account and 40 year overview of the conservative movement
An interesting account and overview of the conservative movement over the past 40 years. I’ve enjoyed Gerald Seib’s reporting for the Wall Street Journal and he didn’t disappoint here either.
If you grew up as a Reagan Republican and want to know how we got here today with President Trump, this is worth a listen.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-04-20
Brilliant!!!
This book spells it out. It stands by its title. If one wants to comprehend how we got to where we are today, there is no better book. Gerald F. Seib is masterful in his writing and the narrator is terrific.
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- eric j rotzoll
- 12-21-22
shallow
except for a very brief effort at the end, this does not match the title. it is an ok summary of the highlights of the highlights of national level GOP history from Reagan to Trump, but lacks depth or insight.
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- Shane Iverson
- 11-03-20
Fact based, sober and entertaining
Great book about the last four decades of conservatism and the Republican party. Written dispassionately and accurately. Focuses more on the major players, more than factors of the American electorate,
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- Shawn Wilker
- 09-06-20
This books shows it really is not all about Trump
This was an excellent summary of a series of events that have ushered in the change that has occurred in the Republican party over the past 40 years. This summary helps to shape the idea that Trump is more of a symptom rather than a cause of movement that began years prior to his election in 2016. The book could have even gone further into detail about a number of events but took more of an overview approach, which I think works well. I would highly recommend this book.
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