Tag: Tennessee, Arkansas

Red and blue are no longer mere colors, but the war paints of choice of America’s dueling tribes. America’s emerging divisions were coming into focus. Enter Newt Gingrich, an army brat, small college history professor, and conservative trend-threader. When Ken Starr supplied congressional Republicans with ammunition to impeach President Clinton, Gingrich, the congressional GOP, and the Republican base eagerly drank from the poisoned chalice—even as it ended an ethically-addled Gingrich’s congressional career and to Republican defeat in the 1998 midterms, a historic rarity for the “out party” in the sixth year of a presidency. The Red and the Blue also captures the other players and hot-button issues that shape the politics of our day. Kornacki also notes Trump’s prior disdain for Buchanan in the context of the 2000 presidential contest where Buchanan ran on the Reform Party line. At the time, Trump and Buchanan both contemplated running for the party’s nomination. Fittingly, The Red and the Blue ends by circling back to Gingrich and Clinton. What he didn’t count on was that it would do the same for the Democrats. Like their party they could see where their future was.” But as the 2016 election teaches us, that’s not enough for the Democrats to get to 270.