Crossing the Rubicon

A lawless president, an unleashed plutocracy, an impotent Congress, and a blatantly partisan Supreme Court; growing political polarization and outrage alongside increasing economic inequality; military adventurism leading to failed war after failed war: after 250 years of America's exceptional experiment such are the signs of the times. And though the chaos, brutality, and squalor of Donald Trump's second term may bring our national crisis to a head, still greater turmoil could easily lie ahead. The current breakdown has been long in the making, prepared by years of hubris on high and outrage from below. There is no resolution in sight.

Mark Danner is one of America's finest reporters, and in Crossing the Rubicon he presents a blow-by-blow account of the erosion of democratic institutions and the inexorable rise of authoritarianism that the United States has undergone in the last quarter century. Starting from the Supreme Court's reckless validation of George Bush's victory in 2000—opening a wound to democratic legitimacy that festers to this day—Danner describes how America arrived at its present pathological condition. He diagnoses the Bush administration's wanton and foolish War on Terror, anatomizes how big money and social media have debased public life, and considers how the financial meltdown of 2008 and the election of Barack Obama led to the ascent of Trump. Danner's brilliant reporting on Trump's grisly January 6 assault on the Capitol and his subsequent return to power round out his account, as thoughtful as it is urgent, of a collapsing American political establishment and the new barbarism we face.