A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Trump Enabler
About this episode
Atlantic writer Mark Leibovich discusses 'Thank You for Your Servitude,' his account of Donald Trump's Washington. He argues the Republican Party has transformed from a policy party into a post-policy, brute-force party organized around loyalty to Trump — and that the real story is the enablers who made it possible. He offers a taxonomy of their justifications: true believers, pragmatists, martyrs, and accommodationists, spanning figures like Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Paul Ryan, Elise Stefanik, and J.D. Vance. The conversation traces the transformation's roots through Eric Cantor's primary loss and the party's intellectual collapse, considers what a post-2022 GOP would do with power, and asks what the Democrats' counterreaction reveals about American politics.