How Donald Trump laid waste to American politics, culture, and social order After Donald Trump’s rise to power, after the 2020 presidential election, after January 6, is American politics past the point of no return? New York Times columnist and political reporter Thomas Byrne Edsall fears that the country may be headed over a cliff, arguing that the election of Donald Trump was the most serious threat to the American political system since the Civil War. In this compelling and illuminating book, Edsall documents how the Trump years ravaged the nation’s politics, culture, and social order. He explains the demographic shifts that helped make Trump’s election possible, and describes the racial and ethnic conflict, culture wars, rural/urban divide, diverging economies of red and blue states, and the transformation of both the Republican and Democratic parties that have left our politics in a state of permanent hostility. The Point of No Return brings together a series of Edsall’s columns, bookended by a new introduction and conclusion, which show how we got to this dangerous point. These dispatches from our new political landscape chronicle the emergence of what Edsall calls “the not-so-silent white majority” and show how Trump deployed fears about race and immigration to appeal to voters. Edsall examines Trump’s construction of an alternate reality, discusses why we don’t always vote according to our own self-interest, and explores the Democrats’ calibrated response. Considering the 2020 election and its violent aftermath, Edsall looks at the Capitol insurrection and warns that American democracy is under siege. The forces behind Trump’s election, and the “stop the steal” true believers, have pushed the nation to the brink.

Named by the Boston Phoenix in 1988 one of the top ten political reporters in America, Thomas Byrne Edsall has a special talent for cutting through the camouflage of the political process to reveal power shifts in the U.S. political system. This collection of Mr. Edsall's newspaper and magazine reporting is grouped into five chapters: "Baltimore and Maryland: Power, Money, Race, and Class-American Politics Writ Small," "The Conservative Rearmament," "The Early Years of the Reagan Administration," "Money and Connections in Washington," and "Parties in Crisis: The Elusive Majority."

"A first-rate book that deserves the widest possible attention. It is the best political-economic analysis I have seen yet."—Robert L. Heilbroner

In the past decade, power controlling the nation's taxing and spending policies has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of the affluent—and excercised for the benefit of the affluent. Traditional liberal beliefs in tax equity and income redistribution have been replaced by theories justifying tax reductions in income concentrated among the very rich.

In this book, Thomas Edsall, a Capitol Hill reporter for the Washington Post, examines the new power centers in the Democratic and Republican parties, the corporate lobbying community, and organized labor, and explores the changes in United States politics that have led to the shift in economic policy under the Reagan administration.

"[Edsall] has written a cool analysis of trends in voting patterns, union power and the fortunes of the two major parties. . . . This first-class book [is] the best single explanation of Reagan's success that I have encountered."—Robert Lekachman, Washington Post

"Here is a book of the first importance. . . . [Edsall] has written a cogent and convincing analysis of a major shift in the balance of power over the past decade. . . . In this solid work of political analysis and argument, he is extremely good at explaining the sort of fine point that most writers on this subject automatically assume you know."—Jack Beatty, Atlantic

"Superb. . . . This is the best book on class, ideology, money, and politics in many a political year."—Robert Kuttner, New Republic

The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics

"One of the richest, most nuanced studies of American politics and voting behavior in recent years. . . . Timely and important."—Sol Stern, New York Newsday

Three volatile issues—race, rights, and taxes—drive American politics today. They have come to intersect with an entire range of domestic issues, from welfare policy to suburban zoning practices. In an explosive chain reaction, a new conservative voting majority has replaced the once-dominant Democratic presidential coalition, and a new polarization has pitted major segments of society against one another.

How did this massive power shift occur? Thomas Byrne Edsall of the Washington Post and Mary D. Edsall provide answers in this compelling analysis, cited by Newsweek as "[one of] the books that shape[d] the debate" in the 1992 presidential campaign.

For this edition, Mr. Edsall has added an Afterword—as up to date as the shocking Los Angeles riots—on emerging trends in the politics of race, as mirrored in the attack of the Republican party on what its spokesmen characterize as "the failed social programs of the 1960s and 1970s."

"Brilliantly illuminates the Democratic Party's mistakes and its problems. . . . Should be read by anyone with an interest in American politics. . . . A remarkably candid and insightful account of the Democrats' steady decline. . . . In the United States today, race—not class—dominates the domestic political agenda. And the price for the once-proud Democratic Party, as the Edsalls so superbly demonstrate, has been division, desertion and defeat."—David Oshinsky, New York Times Book Review