Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party

by Julian E. Zelizer Narrated by Robert Petkoff

Overview

A New York Times Notable Book!

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

The story of how Newt Gingrich and his allies tainted American politics, launching an enduring era of brutal partisan warfare

When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, President Obama observed that Trump “is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party.” In*Burning Down the House, historian Julian Zelizer pinpoints the moment when our country was set on a path toward an era of bitterly partisan and ruthless politics, an era that was ignited by Newt Gingrich and his allies. In 1989, Gingrich brought down Democratic Speaker of the House Jim Wright and catapulted himself into the national spotlight. Perhaps more than any other politician, Gingrich introduced the rhetoric and tactics that have shaped Congress and the Republican Party for the last three decades. Elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich quickly became one of the most powerful figures in America not through innovative ideas or charisma, but through a calculated campaign of attacks against political opponents, casting himself as a savior in a fight of good versus evil. Taking office in the post-Watergate era, he weaponized the good government reforms newly introduced to fight corruption, wielding the rules in ways that shocked the legislators who had created them. His crusade against Democrats culminated in the plot to destroy the political career of Speaker Wright.

While some of Gingrich's fellow Republicans were disturbed by the viciousness of his attacks, party leaders enjoyed his successes so much that they did little collectively to stand in his way. Democrats, for their part, were alarmed, but did not want to sink to his level and took no effective actions to stop him. It didn't seem to matter that Gingrich's moral conservatism was hypocritical or that his methods were brazen, his accusations of corruption permanently tarnished his opponents. This brand of warfare worked, not as a strategy for governance but as a path to power, and what Gingrich planted, his fellow Republicans reaped. He led them to their first majority in Congress in decades, and his legacy extends far beyond his tenure in office. From the Contract with America to the rise of the Tea Party and the Trump presidential campaign, his fingerprints can be seen throughout some of the most divisive episodes in contemporary American politics.*Burning Down the House*presents the alarming narrative of how Gingrich and his allies created a new normal in Washington.

Editorial Reviews

SEPTEMBER 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Robert Petkoff has an impressive range of pitch and phrasing patterns, one for almost every type of emphasis a sentence may need to have maximum impact. In this timely audiobook about Congressional politics, his careful use of these phrasing tools connects listeners to the dynamics of power in Washington in a way that is riveting. Petkoff’s performance, along with the author’s colorful writing and grasp of historical detail, puts a welcome light on why the two major political parties function the way they do today. Whether you like his conservative, small-government agenda or not, Gingrich was a transformational figure. This enlightening audio is an excellent way to understand how today’s unrestrained use of his combative tactics continues to thwart legislative cooperation and inflame passions among voters. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Geoffrey Kabaservice PH.D.

Zelizer makes a convincing case that Gingrich not only "legitimated ruthless and destructive practices that had once been relegated to the margins," he also helped to degrade Congress's institutional legitimacy and paved the way for the anti-establishment presidency of Donald Trump…[Burning Down the House] is an insightful if deeply unflattering portrait of Gingrich…highlighting his signature traits of arrogance, ferocity, amorality and shoulder-shrugging indifference to truth.

The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai

…briskly entertaining (if politically dispiriting)…Zelizer writes…with aplomb, teasing out the ironies and the themes, showing that what made Gingrich exceptional wasn't so much his talent as his timing.

Publishers Weekly

03/02/2020

Today’s hyperpartisan politics can be traced to Republican congressman Newt Gingrich’s 1989 ouster of Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright, according to this meticulously researched account. Zelizer (coauthor, Fault Lines), a professor of history at Princeton University, sketches Gingrich’s working-class background, frustrated career in academia, and two failed attempts to flip Georgia’s sixth district from blue to red. Victorious on his third try, Gingrich entered Congress in 1979 vowing to root out establishment corruption and win the first Republican majority since 1954. Weaponizing post-Watergate reforms and skillfully framing his narrative in the media, Gingrich, according to Zelizer, transformed accusations that Wright had been involved in shady oil deals and had schemed to get around limits on how much he could earn from speaking fees into the appearance of corruption. After Wright resigned his speakership and then his seat in Congress, Gingrich orchestrated the Republican takeover of the House in 1994 before being forced to resign his own speakership following an ethics reprimand and the disastrous 1998 midterms. Zelizner’s witty, well-informed narrative occasionally bogs down in an excess of insider details, but successfully presents this episode as a foretaste of congressional warfare to come. Political junkies will be thrilled. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

"Briskly entertaining . . . Zelizer writes about all of this with aplomb, teasing out the ironies and the themes, showing that what made Gingrich exceptional wasn’t so much his talent as his timing." —The New York Times

"Zelizer holds an endowed chair in history at Princeton but writes like a journalist. (A whisper to the faculty lounge: That is a compliment, not a disparagement.) His book has color and forward momentum. His story has drama and life lessons. His subject is, depending on your point of view, either heroic or odious. One way or another, no one can argue with Zelizer’s thesis that Gingrich changed American politics. . . a remarkable, riveting story." —Boston Globe
 
“We live today in the world Gingrich wrought, and the story of how he wrought it is the focus of Burning Down the House by Julian E. Zelizer . . .  his book provides an engaging, unsettling and, alas, timely look at the torch that Gingrich took to our system of self-government.” —Washington Post
 
“A lively and exceptional read.” –Los Angeles Review of Books

“Today’s hyperpartisan politics can be traced to Republican congressman Newt Gingrich’s 1989 ouster of Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright, according to this meticulously researched account. . . .  Zelizer’s witty, well-informed narrative . . . successfully presents this episode as a foretaste of congressional warfare to come. Political junkies will be thrilled.” —Publishers Weekly

“[A] compelling work of political history. . . . Zelizer’s accessible study of political behavior and leadership directly relates to today’s tumultuous political scene. Anyone interested in American politics will devour this book.” —Library Journal

“[A] thoughtful study of [Gingrich’s] politics in action. . . . Sharp, lucid. . . . A masterfully written political road map for anyone wondering how we got to where we are, a bad place indeed.” —Kirkus, starred review

“Newt Gingrich tied American politics to a rock and threw it down a well. That rock is still falling. Julian Zelizer’s new book takes readers to the edge of that well, not to listen for the splash, but to grab the rope, and pull.” —Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States

“With intensity and detail, Julian Zelizer recreates a drama that resounds in modern history. Most are well-acquainted with Newt Gingrich and his combative style, but here is the moment he transformed Congress and all of American politics.” —Steve Kornacki, author of The Red and the Blue

“In this essential history of Newt Gingrich, Zelizer shows that Donald Trump isn't so much an innovator as an imitator.  Zelizer argues that Gingrich wrote the modern Republican Party's destructive playbook, and the Democrats and the media have yet to figure out an effective response.”  —Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money and Chief Washington Correspondent, The New Yorker

"In this perfectly-timed book, one of America’s premier historians tells the story of how our present madness began—with a cunning, lying, hypocritical character assassin named Newt Gingrich. Zelizer offers a hugely important narrative of the 'evil wind' Gingrich brought to American politics by deposing the speaker of the House and casting the country into decades of bad feeling." —Jonathan Alter, author of The Center Holds

“How did we arrive at today's hyper-partisan, polarized, gridlocked and dysfunctional politics? In this rich and riveting tale of Newt Gingrich's rise to power, ace historian Julian Zelizer makes a compelling argument that the former House Speaker is to blame.” —John A. Farrell, author of Richard Nixon: The Life

“A gripping read about the rise of a ruthless, no-holds-barred Republican mode of politics and its main architect—Newt Gingrich. Anyone struggling to contend with our current political crisis—meaning, everyone—will be well served by reading this timely book by one of our leading lights on the history of the U.S. Congress.” —Joanne B. Freeman, author of The Field of Blood

“Newt Gingrich was one of the most consequential figures in American politics in the Twentieth Century, with major responsibility for our current political turmoil. A lot has been written about the rise and fall of Newt. It takes a good historian to provide insight, new material and context to what we already know. Julian Zelizer is a first rate historian, and even for those of us present at Gingrich’s emergence into national life, especially through his assault on Democratic Speaker Jim Wright, and throughout his career, Burning Down the House enlightens and enriches our understanding of a pivotal time in American life.” —Norman Ornstein, co-author of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism

Library Journal

02/01/2020

To understand the political strategy of Donald Trump, one should revisit Newt Gingrich's insurgent takeover of the Republican Party in the 1980s and 1990s, maintains Zelizer (history, public affairs, Princeton Univ.; co-author, Fault Lines) in this compelling work of political history. The first half of the book covers Gingrich's arrival in Congress in 1979, as a member of Georgia's House of Representatives, where the politician became an early proponent of refusing to compromise with Democrats and manipulating media. Zelizer details the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS) Gingrich formed with like-minded congressmen, which significantly impacted Republicans' opposition to Democratic control of the House. The focus of the book then shifts to Texas congressman and House Speaker Jim Wright, who was forced to resign in 1989 after Gingrich conducted an ethics investigation. Meanwhile, Gingrich is elected Minority Whip by two votes, and when Republicans took control of the House after the 1994 midterm election, Gingrich became Speaker; his own ethical problems eventually drove him out of that position. VERDICT Zelizer's accessible study of political behavior and leadership directly relates to today's tumultuous political scene. Anyone interested in American politics will devour this book.—Thomas Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA

SEPTEMBER 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Robert Petkoff has an impressive range of pitch and phrasing patterns, one for almost every type of emphasis a sentence may need to have maximum impact. In this timely audiobook about Congressional politics, his careful use of these phrasing tools connects listeners to the dynamics of power in Washington in a way that is riveting. Petkoff’s performance, along with the author’s colorful writing and grasp of historical detail, puts a welcome light on why the two major political parties function the way they do today. Whether you like his conservative, small-government agenda or not, Gingrich was a transformational figure. This enlightening audio is an excellent way to understand how today’s unrestrained use of his combative tactics continues to thwart legislative cooperation and inflame passions among voters. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2020-01-12
Politics is war without blood, said Mao, but Newt Gingrich emerges as red in tooth and fang in this thoughtful study of his politics in action.

According to Zelizer's (History and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.; The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society, 2015, etc.) account, Gingrich had acquired a thirst for political power by high school, announcing to a teacher that he intended to move to Georgia "to create a Republican Party." That there was already such a party didn't matter: He wasn't in charge of it, and that was his first aim, certain as ever of the correctness of his views and the wrongness of his opponents. It took a few failed runs, but Gingrich rose steadily through the ranks of the Republican Party in Congress, undercutting his allies while waging ugly, unforgiving battles against his enemies. Gingrich, writes Zelizer, learned valuable lessons in leadership style and strategy alike from Richard Nixon, whom he credits with having gone after the overlooked blue-collar (and traditionally Democratic) vote shunned by the liberal/moderate wing of the GOP; he also changed the terms of the argument from "establishment versus outsider, not liberal versus conservative." There are few admiring moments in the book since Gingrich is not an admirable man, but the author does give him points for chutzpah. After all, Gingrich based his empire-building campaigns in Congress on a war against corruption even as he was as guilty of it as anyone. Still, building much of his power on a concerted action to remove Speaker of the House Jim Wright from his post, he "made his biggest impact on the GOP by defining what partisanship should look like and by expanding the boundaries of what was permissible in the arena of congressional warfare." In the bargain, writes Zelizer in this sharp, lucid portrait, he drew people even more radical than he into the party; in the end, they overthrew him, too.

A masterfully written political road map for anyone wondering how we got to where we are, a bad place indeed.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177394671
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/07/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

One

The Making of a Renegade Republican

When Newt Gingrich arrived on Capitol Hill in January 1979 to begin his first term as a U.S. representative from Georgia, he still saw himself as an outsider. The supremely confident Gingrich, who liked to describe himself as a "Pennsylvania-born army brat," had a love-hate relationship with authority figures. Whether it was dating an older woman-his high school teacher-despite his stepfather's admonition against doing so or applying to be the president of a college just a few months after joining as a junior faculty member, Gingrich had never been deferential to any of the bosses in his life. His favorite film in the late 1970s was Animal House, a raucous comedy about a fraternity of misfits who made life impossible for the dean.

Although he didn't like the people in charge, he thirsted for the power that they unjustly held. As a teenager, Gingrich explained to a teacher that he planned to move to Georgia when he was older to create a Republican Party. It didn't concern him that some Republicans already lived in the Peach State; he would do it better. On this and most issues, Gingrich tended to believe in the essential rightness of his views and was often unable to even hear what his opponents were saying. Extraordinarily arrogant, totally self-absorbed, and brutally ruthless, he rarely allowed anything or anyone to stand in his way. He arrived in Washington at the end of his fellow Georgian Jimmy Carter's troubled presidency determined to tear everything down.

A tough upbringing shaped Gingrich's demeanor. He grew up in a home that lacked much compassion. His parents, Kathleen "Kit" Daugherty and "Big" Newton McPherson Jr., separated just months after he was born on June 17, 1943, in Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania. The couple had met at a roller-skating rink, a working-class hangout where teenagers congregated to flirt and mingle. Kit instantly found herself attracted to the charismatic Newton. But the initial excitement wore off as she discovered that the hulking, six-foot-three Newton was an alcoholic with a penchant for loitering at bars, playing pool, and gambling. In short order, his drinking habits deteriorated. Bar fights were a regular occurrence. He became physically intimidating and even abusive to her during his binges.

Still, Kit said yes when he proposed, hoping that marriage would mature him and make him take more responsibility for his behavior. It proved difficult for her to live with that rationalization for long. Before the wedding, Kit (only sixteen years old) got cold feet as his long nights at the bars increased. Kit told her mother that she didn't want to marry Newton. But her mother, a widow who had enjoyed a wonderful marriage, pressured her into going through with the wedding, reminding her daughter that the announcement was all set to run in the local newspaper, so it would be embarrassing to the family if she pulled out at the last minute.

The union only lasted three days. Kit walked out on her husband after he assaulted her for waking him up from a drunken stupor. Rather than reform his ways, Newton decided to join the navy during World War II. Within a few weeks, Kit learned that she was pregnant. Their son, whom she named Newton Leroy (Newt for short), was born in June. Her husband returned from the war on a temporary leave in August only to formally begin the divorce process. Kit moved back in with her mother to save money.

With no father at home and with his mother working at a local factory on wartime production, Newt depended on his extended family for nurturing during the war years. His grandmother, aunts, and uncles-all of whom lived in the working-class, Republican town of Hummelstown, just east of Harrisburg and on the way to Hershey-tried to offer Newt the parental support that he otherwise lacked. The small, picturesque community, founded before the American Revolution, was largely populated by government workers who commuted to Harrisburg and employees of the Hershey chocolate plant. From a young age, Newt was encouraged by his family to find solace in reading and study; his grandmother, a teacher, instilled a strong commitment to education in her children and grandchildren, even though many of their family members were blue-collar workers who had not attended college.

Three years after her divorce, Kit Daugherty married an army lieutenant colonel named Robert "Gus" Gingrich, who was studying biology at Gettysburg College. He was on temporary leave from the military while recovering from a hernia. Robert was willing to raise Newt as his own but offered his young stepson scant warmth.

Robert, who liked to wear his lieutenant colonel uniform to his high school reunions in Hummelstown, also had a hardscrabble beginning. He was abandoned by his unwed teenage mother and grew up as a foster child until a family adopted him at age sixteen. Robert concluded that children needed to become self-sufficient and steely. He thought that Newt's grandmother had been too doting and that the boy needed to toughen up. Newt and his sisters-Susan, born in 1948, and Roberta, born in 1951-feared their father's temper and intolerance of anyone who broke the rules. Newt grew up thinking that Robert was his biological father, but hugs, fishing, playing catch, and other gestures of paternal affection were few. "He can go a whole day and say only fifty words," Gingrich's mother said. Newt usually felt alone in his home, finding comfort in his extensive collection of snakes and books about zoology.

The end of World War II didn't make things much easier for the Gingrich family. They were not among the millions of veteran families that found prosperous lives in the growing suburbs of 1950s America. Between the ages of three and eleven, Gingrich lived in a modest apartment in Hummelstown, on top of a fumy gas station. He shared a room with his grandmother, who kept one eye open for much of the night because she was terrified of his many jars of snakes. (He named one of the reptiles "Oscar Aloysius Stinky III.")

The dinner table was always lively at the Gingrich home, albeit with clear rules. Newt's father would go around the table to grill each child about what they had learned in school that day. None of the kids dared challenge their father. "Dad was the ruler of the house," Gingrich's sister Susan recalled.

Once the Korean War started, Robert was again called on to serve. Kit found herself working hard to raise the kids even as she continued to struggle with depression. The kids spent as much time taking care of her as she did them.

Newt and his sisters learned to fend for themselves. "I was a 50-year-old at 9," Gingrich recalled. At age eleven, telling his mom that he was going to the library, Newt bought a bus ticket to Harrisburg to see two documentaries about African wildlife. He was enchanted by the films and left the theater wondering why Harrisburg didn't have its own zoo. As he walked onto the street, Newt noticed a sign pointing to city hall. Instead of heading back toward the bus, an inspired Gingrich walked directly over to the government building. The receptionist, amused to hear a young boy so earnestly asking her about why the city didn't have a zoo, sent him upstairs to meet with the assistant director of parks and recreation. The two had a serious conversation, reviewing old files, budgets, and well-worn maps. The civil servant explained to Gingrich that if he wanted to pursue the idea further, he needed to return the following week to make his case directly to the city council. He ordered a cab to drive Gingrich home, handing him a thick book of laws and regulations as a souvenir for his efforts. Gingrich returned dutifully the next Tuesday and waited his turn to address the council. The zoo did not get built, but Paul Walker, the editor of a city newspaper, the Harrisburg Home Star, was so captivated by watching this neatly dressed, polite young boy make his case to a roomful of government officials (which was much more interesting to him than the other matters on the agenda, namely garbage collection) that he published a story about the curious incident. "An 11-year-old is fighting in City Hall here in an attempt to establish a zoo in the city's Wildwood Park," Walker wrote, in an article titled ambitious zoo keeper which was picked up by the Associated Press. "Young Newton Gingrich told Mayor Claude Robins and four city Councilmen that he and a number of youthful buddies could round up enough animals to get the project started if granted use of the park." Walker also allowed Gingrich to write an article that appeared on the front page of the local giveaway paper, about why Harrisburg needed a zoo.

Not everything about Gingrich was serious. He loved to memorize comedy routines from television stars such as Red Skelton and Dick Van Dyke. He also had a mischievous side. His favorite prank was to pretend that his friend Dennis Yantz had beaten him up on the sidewalk. When someone pulled over to see if he was okay, Gingrich would push Yantz aside, jump up, and yell, "Surprise!" He would laugh in delight as he watched the startled stranger jump back. One of Newt's go-to places in Harrisburg was the movie theater, where he especially enjoyed classic Westerns and war films on the big screen. Newt loved to watch his movie heroes, including John Wayne, track down and kill the bad guys, no matter how powerful they were.

Newt had an insatiable appetite for learning and new ideas. Following his father's service in the Korean War, the family moved to Fort Riley in Kansas. Newt instantly stood out in the classroom. He expanded his early interest in zoology, obsessively studying different species and endlessly talking about them with his teachers and classmates. "Newtie," as his mother called him, fed his snakes hard-boiled eggs as she looked on apprehensively. At Fort Riley, he had the opportunity to spend time with Lucius Clay, the famed U.S. colonel who had administered occupied Germany after World War II, who now schooled the precocious boy in international relations and the art of war. According to one biographer, Newt could stand in a roomful of parents and feel totally at ease, without the nerdy awkwardness he displayed around other kids.

In 1956, when Newt was thirteen, the family moved again, when the military stationed Robert Gingrich in France. The entire family packed up and moved with him. His father purchased an expensive set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which Newt treasured, devouring every entry. But his relationship with his father remained icy. When the fifteen-year-old Newt and a friend stayed out late one night, breaking his father's 11:00 p.m. curfew rule, Robert snatched his son up by the shirt and pinned him to the wall. After a few seconds, the father let go, dropping the teen to the ground; without looking back, he walked away, confident that his son would never repeat the mistake again.

Such tense moments were not all that young Newt experienced with his dad. On a weekend trip, he was deeply moved by the World War I battlefield at Verdun, where the barbed wire and trenches were still visible; the young American picked up helmets buried in the dirt and saw the bones of 100,000 deceased servicemen stacked behind a glass window. The visit brought home to Gingrich the grim reality of the devastation inflicted by war, as well as the ongoing threats that democracy still faced. This was the height of the cold war, and Newt interpreted issues through a moralist lens, viewing politics as an epic struggle between good and evil. Over the course of an entire school year, he wrote a two-hundred-page, single-spaced paper about the balance of global naval power. During the family's more than three years overseas-they spent the last leg of the tour in Stuttgart, Germany-he devoured various armed forces publications and listened to armed forces radio shows. While he admired his stepfather's continued service, Newt concluded that being a politician "was the most effective thing I could do to ensure that the US would remain free."

The Gingrich family returned to the United States in 1960. Robert was stationed at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, where Newt entered the racially segregated Baker High School as a junior. Gingrich thrived in the classroom and excelled at debating. His high school classmates voted him "Most Intellectual." The only student carrying around an overflowing briefcase and wearing a pocket protector, Newt was hard to miss. While other teens were eagerly learning to drive, his mother recalled, he preferred to sit in the passenger seat and read.

At seventeen, Newt returned to Hummelstown, where he spent the summer of 1960 with his extended family. He sought out Paul Walker, the journalist who had written about his impromptu effort at lobbying as a child. Walker agreed to mentor him, even helping him to find work on some radio and television shows that a friend hosted. Gingrich spent most of his time calling to ask local businesses to purchase ads, the paper's main source of revenue. Walker, a loyal Democrat, introduced Newt to local politicians and lobbyists during their lunches at Davenport's Restaurant, where Gingrich was invited to listen in on the city's power brokers. Although his father and Walker were both Democrats, Newt was drawn to the small-government philosophy of the GOP.

Gingrich started to gain a feel for political organization as well as communication. Harrisburg was filled with churches and military installations, a city inhabited by working- and middle-class Republicans who were a central target of national party leaders seeking to broaden their electoral reach. When Gingrich learned that the city planned to temporarily shut down the State Museum for major renovations, he was upset; it was one of his favorite places to spend time. He exhibited his instinctive political skills by sharing the information with Walker, who in turn leaked the news to local reporters. Thanks to the ensuing backlash, the state kept the museum open during the work.

Back in Georgia that fall, inspired by his work in Harrisburg, Gingrich volunteered for Richard Nixon's 1960 presidential campaign, sending out mailers, making phone calls, knocking on doors, and organizing school debates to build interest in Nixon's candidacy. He and his coterie of high school friends-and there were not many southern Republicans in those days-were profoundly disappointed when Nixon lost narrowly to Senator John F. Kennedy. They spent all night drowning their sorrows in intense political conversation. One book that made a big impression during these years was Theodore White's Making of the President, 1960. Gingrich was fascinated with this gripping account of the 1960 presidential election, particularly White's discussion of an idea-oriented wing of the Republican Party that dated back to the nineteenth century. White argued that the GOP had become alienated from the "intellectual mainstream" since the end of Theodore Roosevelt's presidency when the "regulars" took control of the party machinery. The GOP paid a long-term price for the decision, White argued in a point that captured Gingrich's attention, including in 1960 with Richard Nixon, who had not offered voters any vision.

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