Dana Milbank - The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party

It began where it ended, on the West Front of the United States Capitol.

On January 6, 2021, a mob incited by President Donald Trump smashed barriers, overpowered police, and stormed the steps of the Capitol on the side of the Rotunda facing the Washington Monument across the Mall. The insurrectionists scaled the scaffolding that had been erected on the West Front for President-elect Joe Bidens inauguration en route to sacking the U.S. seat of government for the first time since the War of 1812.

Sent with instructions from Trump to fight like hell and a call from Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani for trial by combat, the mob halted Congresss certification of Bidens victory, sending lawmakers fleeing for their lives and hiding under desks. At least seven people died in the riot and its aftermath, and more than 140 police were hurt. Some 800 insurrectionists, many with ties to white supremacist or violent extremist groups, faced charges.

The bloody coup attempt shocked the nation. But a sober view of history might have lessened the shock. For the seeds of sedition had been planted earliertwenty-six years earlierin that same spot on the West Front of the Capitol.

On September 27, 1994, more than three hundred Republican members of Congress and congressional candidates gathered where the insurrectionists would one day scale the scaffolding. But on this sunny morning, they assembled for a nonviolent transfer of power.

Bob Michel, the unfailingly genial leader of the House Republican minority for the previous fourteen years, had successfully ushered Ronald Reagans agenda through the House. But he had now been forced into retirement by a rising bomb thrower who threatened to oust Michel as GOP leader if he didnt quit.

Newt Gingrich had almost nothing in common with the man he pushed out. Michel was a portrait of civility and decency, a World War II combat veteran who knew that his political opponents were not his enemies and that politics was the art of compromise. Gingrich, by contrast, rose to prominence by forcing the resignation of a Democratic speaker of the House on what began as mostly false allegations, by smearing another Democratic speaker with personal innuendo, and by routinely thwarting Michels attempts to negotiate with Democrats. He had avoided service in Vietnam and regarded Democrats as the enemy, impugning their patriotism and otherwise savaging them nightly on the House floor for the benefit of C-SPAN viewers.

My friends, Ill not be able to be with you when you enter that promised land of having that long-sought-after majority control of the House of Representatives, Michel said that morning to the gathered Republicans, who were within striking distance of a majority for the first time in forty years. I can only stand with you today and see that vision from afar.

Minutes later, that vision took on a distinctly dystopian hue.

Newt! Newt! Newt! Newt! the candidates and lawmakers chanted. They waved miniature American flags. A pudgy fifty-one-year-old with a helmet of gray hair approached the lectern.

The fact is that America is in trouble, Gingrich declared. It is impossible to maintain American civilization with 12-year-olds having babies, 15-year-olds killing each other, 17-year-olds dying of AIDS and 18-year-olds getting diplomas they cant even read. This is a crisis of our entire civilization, and within a half mile of this building these conditions happen in our nations capital, and they happen in every major city, and they happen in West Virginia and they happen in most Indian reservations and across this country. (The areas mentioned were all Democratic strongholds.)

The pejoratives piled up in Gingrichs shouted, finger-wagging harangue: CollapsingFailed so totally Worried about their jobs Worried about their safety Trust broke down Out of touchWasteful DumbIneffective Out of balanceMalaise Drug dealersPimps ProstitutionCrimeBarbarism DevastationHuman tragedy Chaos and poverty.

Recognize that if America fails our children will live on a dark and bloody planet, Gingrich told them.

Somewhere in this catalogue of catastrophe, Gingrich signed the Contract with America, a ten-point legislative agenda proposing a balanced budget amendment, congressional term limits, and other reforms. We have become in danger of losing our own civilization, Gingrich warned. Today, on these steps, we offer this contract as a first step towards renewing American civilization.

Americans had seldom heard a politician talk this way, and certainly not a speaker of the House. But thats what Gingrich became after the GOPs landslide victory in the Republican Revolution of 1994. The Contract with America made little headwayonly three relatively minor provisions (paperwork reduction!) became lawbut the rise of Gingrich and his shock troops fundamentally altered American government for a generation and counting, and set the United States on a course toward the ruinous politics of today.

The epic government failures of the last quarter century can all be traced back to Gingrich and the savage politics he pioneered: three impeachments; two botched wars and a botched pandemic response; several government shutdowns; a sevenfold increase in the federal debt; a market collapse and the Great Recession; and failure to address crucial matters such as climate change, inequality, and immigration. Its no wonder that there has been a wholesale loss of faith in American democracy.