About this episode
Much of the blame for the sad state of affairs the United States is facing gets heaped at the feet of Donald J. Trump. But while a fair amount of guilt should be borne by his contemporary enablers, there has also been a clear path over the last 50 years that has led the Republican party towards the existential darkness the president is now dragging them into. Bradlee Professor of Government & the Press at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government Thomas Patterson and Julian Zelizer , the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton School of Public & International Affairs, pinpoint the key players in this grand decline, including Nixon, Cohn, Reagan and Gingrich.