Despite its obvious partisan bent, The Impostors seeks to do more than ridicule, shame and condemn. At its heart, the book is a plea for saner heads to rescue the Republican Party from its current morass ... At the same time, the book is clearly designed to enrage sympathetic readers. As a producer on 'The Rachel Maddow Show' on MSNBC, Benen has a knack for comprehensive — if at times excessive — policy detail and a keen eye for intrigue and choice quotes. He has culled years of reporting to present a greatest-hits-style review of Republican intransigence, dissembling and willful ignorance ... While Benen makes a strong case that the Republicans have become a post-policy party, he comes up short in offering a compelling explanation for why this occurred ... Searching for an internal coherence, grand strategy or intellectual project is a fool’s errand, he concludes. When it comes to a post-policy party, there is no there there.
The author ably lays out the many disturbing trends in the Republican political arena, making a convincing case for his argument that the GOP has 'quit governing' and now merely focuses on attaining and wielding power or simply negating any progress made by Democrats. Unfortunately, given the pace at which events unfold in today’s political landscape, much of the narrative may feel like old news not long after publication ... A cleareyed argument that 'strategy and governing [have] been replaced by instincts and partisan id.
Benen, a political commentator and producer of 'The Rachel Maddow Show', debuts with a sober-minded attack on the modern GOP for being a 'post-policy party' more interested in winning elections than effective governance ... Benen writes fluidly and incisively, and backs his claims with support from liberal and center-right policy wonks, but fails to fully address the roots of the GOP’s electoral successes, and his call for the party’s reform is half-hearted at best. This exasperated polemic packs a mild punch.
