The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics by Steve Benen (2020 nonfiction)

In the plethora of books that have inundated the reading public about the current Republican Party and Trump administration this author takes a different view from the scandals, personal attacks, and questionable decisions that have titillated the reading public. He undertakes to demonstrate that Republican politicians, since the beginning of the Obama years, even when they wielded power in the Senate and/or House, abandoned any pretense of governing, developing programs and helping all citizens. Rather those in power gutted their experienced staffs who knew how government is supposed to work and replaced them with marketing types whose primary mission was to denigrate, obstruct, and defeat almost all attempts to provide missions and programs of their political rivals. Some readers will find good examples of the author’s thesis and will say “I told you so”, while others of a different persuasion will counter with the old saying “to the victor belong the spoils”. It is unfortunate that the vast number of citizens have not achieved any improvement in their lives through the failure of the Republican Party to take its role in the government seriously. One example will suffice: the failure of the Republican House and Senate, in spite of all their grandstanding and promises, to introduce a health care plan to counter their objections to the Affordable Care Act. Why not?

Reviewed by Ned Lyke