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Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party

von Julian E. Zelizer

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995276,416 (4.11)4
"The story of how Newt Gingrich and his allies tainted American politics, launching an enduring era of brutal partisan warfare When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, President Obama observed that Trump "is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years." In Burning Down the House, historian Julian Zelizer pinpoints the moment when our country was set on a path towards an era of bitterly partisan and ruthless politics, an era that was ignited by Newt Gingrich and his allies. In 1989, Gingrich brought down the Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright and catapulted himself into the national spotlight. Perhaps more than any other politician, Gingrich introduced the rhetoric and tactics that have shaped Congress and the Republican Party for the last three decades. Elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich quickly became one of the most powerful figures in America not through innovative ideas or charisma, but through a calculated campaign of attacks against political opponents, casting himself as a savior in a fight of good versus evil. Taking office in the post-Watergate era, he weaponized the good government reforms newly introduced to fight corruption, wielding the rules in ways that shocked the legislators who had created them. His crusade against Democrats culminated in the plot to destroy the political career of Speaker Wright. While some of Gingrich's fellow Republicans were disturbed by the viciousness of his attacks, his party enjoyed his successes so much that they did little collectively to stand in his way. Democrats, for their part, were alarmed, but did not want to sink to his level and took no effective actions to stop him. It didn't seem to matter that Gingrich's moral conservatism was hypocritical or that his methods were brazen, his accusations of corruption permanently tarnished his opponents. This brand of warfare worked, not as a strategy for governance but as a path to power, and what Gingrich planted, his fellow Republicans reaped. He lead them to their first majority in Congress in decades, and his legacy extends far beyond his tenure in office. From the rise of the Tea Party to the Trump presidential campaign, his fingerprints can be seen throughout some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics. Burning Down the House presents the alarming narrative of how Gingrich and his allies created a new normal in Washington, introducing ruthless and destructive practices that have endured today"--… (mehr)
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I've been looking forward to reading this book because I love non-fiction modern history. The beginning and latter half were 5 stars but the middle seemed to drag out for too long and lose my attention- which doesn't happen that often when I'm balls-deep in a book like this. ( )
  booksonbooksonbooks | Jul 24, 2023 |
I've been looking forward to reading this book because I love non-fiction modern history. The beginning and latter half were 5 stars but the middle seemed to drag out for too long and lose my attention- which doesn't happen that often when I'm balls-deep in a book like this. ( )
  booksonbooksonbooks | Jul 24, 2023 |
There are a number of ways that the author could have played this, but he chose a fairly somber approach in what is really a political life of Gingrich, and how he made his bones bringing down Jim Wright, only to be undone by his own personal self-indulgence. The particular virtue of this approach is that it undercuts Newt's own creation myth and reduces him to being an expression of greater conflicts in American society, rather than the agent of history he imagines himself to be. I had the experience of working for the man at GOPAC into 1990 election and came to appreciate quickly that the bright and vigorous intellectual image was only a pose. ( )
  Shrike58 | Jun 9, 2021 |
I've been looking forward to reading this book because I love non-fiction modern history. The beginning and latter half were 5 stars but the middle seemed to drag out for too long and lose my attention- which doesn't happen that often when I'm balls-deep in a book like this. ( )
  swmproblems | Mar 18, 2021 |
I have maintained for more than 25 years that Reagan started the modern partisan divide and Gingrich codified it (and as more fallout from that came, I've added that Rove and Ailes perfected it; and T benefited). So when this came across my email feed last year through NetGalley, I requested a review copy. But, the request was sadly to me, declined, so I put it on my To Read list. I got a surprising email near the end of April offering it to me (from the publisher Penguin Group, again through NetGalley), so off the To Read and immediately on to Currently Reading! (And obviously, now Read.)

This is an in-depth look at where it began and how Gingrich machiavellied it. One might say "engineered", but I am an engineer and that's insulting, so I coined a new word. And the book is largely focused on the subject of the subtitle - taking down Speaker Jim Wright. Gingrich hardly is mentioned in more than half of the book, as Zelizer relates the complexities of the times and the histories of the event. He gives the well-researched background histories of the players in the grand game, Gingrich and Wright, obviously, but also the others who facilitated the coup or were victims of it. And from my armchair, we are all victims. Zelizer hits it in his Prologue
...the unlikely, unorthodox, nativist populist campaign trump had mounted, which aimed to tear down the political leaders of both parties and to destabilize the entire U.S. political system, was Gingrich's creation.
Zelizer notes that Gingrich recognized that politics in the modern media was "as much about perception as substance" (I'll submit less about substance,or actual substance, anyway). He says "The way journalists framed a story and the narratives they crafted about an issue could be as powerful as the facts." I long for the time when good journalism was about facts. That word doesn't mean what it used to mean.

Zelizer sums it well:
The new GOP goal was not to negotiate or legislate but to do everything necessary to maintain partisan power. If it was politically useful to engage in behavior that could destroy the possibility of governance, which rendered bipartisanship impossible and would unfairly decimate their opponents' reputation, the so be it.
They've been obstructing, destroying, and doing that anything to maintain power since. No legislation, no governing. And Gingrich played a huge role in creating the unculture to which we are subjected. Zelizer says what I've been saying since T broke through: "Gingrich planted; Trump reaped." And his theme: "We can date precisely the moment when our toxic political environment was born: Speaker Wright's downfall in 1989."

Note on my notes: My ADE e-reader allows me to highlight and make notes, but not copy quotes, so I'm going to have to be economical with which ones I'll include here because I have to type the quotes by hand and I have more books to read!

Selected observations:
In 1976,
"Our legislative system," Gingrich insisted with his attention turned toward Capitol Hill, "has become morally, intellectually, and spiritually corrupt."
Like evangelicals and too many of his party, to Gingrich, morals were what other people needed.

On the censure of Congressman Charles Diggs in 1979, a staffer for the NRCC noted
An A.P. reporter who covered Newt and another freshman in 1979 told him last week that there are about six Representatives whose phone numbers reporters know by heart, and Newt's was one of them - because they thought Newt understood what was happening and would play it straight with the press.
Straight...really? Oh how that was both so wrong and portentous.

Some of that background history
Reagan's election had only been possible after fifteen years of a brewing political backlash toward the Democratic embrace of civil rights in 1964 and 1965 - as President Johnson had famously predicted - finally allowed the GOP to start dominating the South.
Zelizer nails it again here.

Crystal ball:
It all came down to this: for republicans to dislodge House Democrats from power, they would have to be ruthless. Democrats didn't play fair, Gingrich believed. He said that incumbents rigged elections through gerrymandering and campaign money; they relied on arcane procedures, such as imposing rules that prevented floor amendments to bills, that disempowered the minority party; and they solidified their public support through corrupt pork-barrel spending and favors for business leaders in their districts.
Wow. Fast forward 15 and 30 years. Who's been gerrymandering and reaping the campaign money?

In 1982, Gingrich wrote to his "fellow Republicans" of the need to develop a coordinated message.
After reviewing twelve Sunday television interview shows, Gingrich came away impressed by how much attention congressional Democrats devoted to perfecting and repeating their message. Republicans were far less polished, Gingrich thought. "A political party which focuses on the management and allocation of campaign resources, and neglects political strategy, is a party that loses, "Gingrich warned. "Two minutes on the evening news is watched by more people, believed by more people, and, politically has a greater multiplier effect than paid political advertising."
Fast forward again...D messages are not polished, not consistent; Rs on the other hand... Of course it helps to have your own Pravda...

Gingrich though bipartisanship was a political trap that only benefited Democrats. Thinking on that, I can't argue.

On muckraker Jack Anderson, who wrote an attack column on Wright titled "SHOOTING AT FISH IN THE PORK BARREL"
Wright resented the piece, which he insisted was based on a fabricated account of the conversation [of a Public Works Committee secret session]. "The Anderson treatment," Wright noted to himself, "is so typical of the growing irresponsibility of sensational 'expose' type journalism that increasingly appalls, angers and even frightens a lot of conscientious public officials."
What was to become the blueprint for Fox.

On a procedural power play that Wright maneuvered for a vote on a deficit reduction bill, there were many temper tantrums by the Rs, and
Dick Cheney growled to the National Journal that the Speaker had proven he was a "heavy-handed son of a bitch"
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle,,,pot. Really?

On congressional accountability,
Without these reformers [reform-oriented institutions], Gingrich looked as if he were orchestrating a shabby partisan coup. They would offer reluctant Republicans the cover they needed to get behind him. This would be his masterstroke, and it would capitalize on the Democrats' shortsightedness.
I've observed that shortsightedness for more than 30 years... On the flipside of today, George Mair, former reporter and Wright's chief press officer in late 1987, attacked journalists and editors of U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times for their slander, innuendo, poor research, flat-out incorrectness, ...
Directly attacking the press was a dangerous strategy. They had a big platform from which to respond. And they did. The editors of these powerful publications were not going to sit quietly by as Mair delivered these reprimands and smeared the reputations of their top journalists. So, the editors exposed Mair's campaign by speaking to reporters. The story looked to many Americans like an effort to intimidate and harass honest journalists investigating potential corruption.
Well, damn... like some procedural reforms that backfired on them, they set the stage up for the other guys. T and ilk lowered the bar to the mind-numbing nadir it is today (I recommend Jim Acosta's book, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America.)

In 1988, Michael Dukakis got a lot of mileage from (the at-the-time the worst presidency ever, my opinion):
The opinion that Reagan had run the "most corrupt administration" in American history was prevalent in Democratic circles.
Surpassed as another #1 by the 2017 administration, likely to never be broken. Another way the Ds started something that the Rs perfected:
The House Ethics Committee had earned a bad reputation since its creation in 1967. The solution for previous chairmen of this panel, like John Flynt, had been to do nothing when a complaint was made. With Democrats in perpetual control of the House, Republicans saw the committee as one more example of how the opposition abused their power to protect its own members, regardless of the sordid behavior that ethics investigations turned up.
Like I said, the Rs became masters of this. Another stage-setter, on the promotion of Gingrich's book, Window of Opportunity,
The COS [Conservative Opportunity Society] Limited Partnership, as Gingrich called it, raised $105,000 in 1984. Each partner contributed $5,000 to the fund. The goal, Gingrich genially acknowledged to a reporter, was a half-baked plan to "force a best-seller", which would of course enhance Gingrich's public standing.
Hardly a blink when Jr. did it 34 years later.

Then there were The Words...
Still, legislation remained a secondary concern for Gingrich, who spent most of his first month as minority whip selling his message to reporters. He tested out catchphrases such as the "looney left" to describe Democrats to the press. One of his favorite terms was "institutional corruption,"...
Where Gingrich crafted the narrative, T lowered it to a juvenile level. Journalists suffer greatly now. And as to journalism, the unwitting complicity...
Good government organizations and mainstream reporters, not always thinking about how they might be playing into a concerted partisan attack, had moved the investigation [of Wright] forward on their own terms, finding time after time smoke that looked like fire.
As they did in the election of 2000 and since...And on the ethics hearing,
What bothered Democrats most was that Wright's team did not seem to understand the most fundamental point: a technical defense would not work in such a highly politicized environment.
Neither would it work in the impeachment of 2020.

In his penultimate chapter titled "Gingrich on Top", Zelizer finally called the wrongwing for what they are: "Gingrich and his ilk had been emboldened." In his Wright's response in his step-down speech, Wright urged both parties to 'bring this period of mindless cannibalism to an end!'" Thirty one years later, I still do not think we will see that in my lifetime. Zelizer notes "Once politicians lowered the bar as to what kinds of actions were permissible in the political arena, it was virtually impossible to restore conditions to where they had been."

And we come to the codification of the lowered bar...
The gospel of Gingrich kept spreading. He literally shared his rhetorical style through a GOPAC pamphlet first distributed in 1990, titled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control," which he crafted with the pollster Frank Luntz, that offered a road map to replicate his way with words. Responding to Republican candidates who, GOPAC said, had told them, "I wish I could speak like newt," the memo recommended using certain words repeatedly like "corruption," "traitors," "sick," "radical," "shame," "pathetic," "steal," and "lie" to describe the Democrats.
This has continued to this day, only getting worse. Gingrich found himself a victim, reaping what he sowed when he was the first Speaker in history to be punished for ethics violations.

In the next to last paragraph of his concluding chapter "Mindless Cannibalism", Zelizer quotes President Obama...
We've seen this coming. Donald Trump is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. What surprised me was the degree to which those tactics and rhetoric completely jumped the rails. There were no governing principles, there was no one to say, 'No, this is going too far, this isn't what we stand for.' But we've seen it for eight years, even with the reasonable people like John Boehner, who, when push came to shove, wouldn't push back against these currents.
Spot on, Mr. President.

The fires Gingrich started still burn. If his part-time belief in a hell has any truth, his ticket was punched long ago. ( )
1 abstimmen Razinha | May 10, 2020 |
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"The story of how Newt Gingrich and his allies tainted American politics, launching an enduring era of brutal partisan warfare When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, President Obama observed that Trump "is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years." In Burning Down the House, historian Julian Zelizer pinpoints the moment when our country was set on a path towards an era of bitterly partisan and ruthless politics, an era that was ignited by Newt Gingrich and his allies. In 1989, Gingrich brought down the Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright and catapulted himself into the national spotlight. Perhaps more than any other politician, Gingrich introduced the rhetoric and tactics that have shaped Congress and the Republican Party for the last three decades. Elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich quickly became one of the most powerful figures in America not through innovative ideas or charisma, but through a calculated campaign of attacks against political opponents, casting himself as a savior in a fight of good versus evil. Taking office in the post-Watergate era, he weaponized the good government reforms newly introduced to fight corruption, wielding the rules in ways that shocked the legislators who had created them. His crusade against Democrats culminated in the plot to destroy the political career of Speaker Wright. While some of Gingrich's fellow Republicans were disturbed by the viciousness of his attacks, his party enjoyed his successes so much that they did little collectively to stand in his way. Democrats, for their part, were alarmed, but did not want to sink to his level and took no effective actions to stop him. It didn't seem to matter that Gingrich's moral conservatism was hypocritical or that his methods were brazen, his accusations of corruption permanently tarnished his opponents. This brand of warfare worked, not as a strategy for governance but as a path to power, and what Gingrich planted, his fellow Republicans reaped. He lead them to their first majority in Congress in decades, and his legacy extends far beyond his tenure in office. From the rise of the Tea Party to the Trump presidential campaign, his fingerprints can be seen throughout some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics. Burning Down the House presents the alarming narrative of how Gingrich and his allies created a new normal in Washington, introducing ruthless and destructive practices that have endured today"--

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