Fools on the Hill

From the halls of Congress, New York Times bestselling author Dana Milbank exposes the chaotic, incompetent and dysfunctional state of the current Republican House—a confederacy of dunces, united by paranoia and conspiracy theories, blundering from one self-inflicted crisis to the next.
 
When Republicans took control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections with a historically slim majority, mayhem began immediately. “Failed completely.” “Can’t govern.” “Broken.” “Lunatics.” “Embarrassing.” “Bunch of idiots.” And that’s how House Republicans described themselves. Take it from Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said in May 2024 that “many Americans in general are sick and tired and fed up with a feckless, useless Republican Party, a conference that does nothing.” This is the House of George Santos and Jim Jordan, of Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz. They investigated space aliens and Hunter Biden’s art dealer. They punched and they groped. They championed Confederates and insurrectionists—while disparaging the military and sabotaging the economy. They tied up the House so often with far-right fantasies that they produced what was arguably the least effective session of Congress in history.
 
Dana Milbank, widely-read Washington Post columnist, spent a year reporting from inside the Capitol, watching the circus from the front row.  The result, Fools on the Hill, is simultaneously horrifying and laugh-out-loud funny. Sadly, it is all true.
 

• “Dana Milbank is one of the most exhilarating writers covering Washington today.  When I see his by-line in my morning paper, I know my day is getting off to a bracing start.”
  Christopher Buckley, author of Thank You For Smoking
• “Who better to unpack the unserious insanity of the MAGA shock jock caucus than Dana Millbank, the D.C. columnist with the wryest wit and sharpest insight of them all? Dana will have you laughing while you cry for our republic.”
   
  Joy-Ann Reid, TV host and author of The New York Times bestselling Medger and Myrlie
• "If you crossed Dante's Inferno with Hieronymus Bosch's paintings of depravity you would get Dana Milbank's astounding account of the Fools on the Hill who have sacked America's House of Representatives. Milbank, a seasoned political columnist for the Washington Post, is a wonderful writer and his eye-witness reporting on the meltdown of democracy is mesmerizing. Equal parts funny and horrifying, it will make you both laugh and weep."
  Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money and Chief Washington Correspondent, The New Yorker
• Praise for The Destructionists
• "There is a fine and elegant line between humor and horror, and no one walks it any better than Dana Milbank. Literally no writer in Washington is better suited to answering the GOP’s ever-present 'How Did We Get Here?' question. It’s all right here in The Destructionists, in all its depressing, spiraling detail – and yet so thoroughly enjoyable, too. That’s the Milbank Miracle, right there. I devoured this."
  Mark Leibovich, This Town and Thank you for Your Servitude
• "Dana Milbank is a sizzling hot observer of American politics. His writing is irreverent, provocative and, whether or not you agree with his point of view — always entertaining."
  Jonathan Karl, Front Row at the Trump Show and Betrayal
• "In this painful, powerful, and deeply necessary account of the devolution of the GOP, one of the nation’s most trenchant political observers chronicles the growing threats to our democracy. Dana Milbank has written a riveting history and a bracing warning about the challenges we continue to face. How did we get here? Where did the epic failures, divisions, and dysfunctions in our politics come from? Milbank argues that Donald Trump, for all his faults, didn’t create this noxious environment -- he was the monster that the GOP had been creating for more than a quarter century."
  Charles J. Sykes, How the Right Lost its Mind
• “In this stunning historical review of the modern Republican Party, Dana Milbank chronicles the GOP’s race to the bottom in undermining faith in government by destroying long held and established democratic norms and principles. From swift boating a presidential candidate to sparking the birtherism movement of America’s first Black President and the non stop repeats of the 'Big Lie,'  Milbank proves that the Republicans' war is with  democratic institutions and perhaps with democracy itself.”
  Donna Brazile, former Interim Chair, Democratic National Committee, Hacks: The Inside Story of Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House
• "With characteristic wit, Dana Milbank reveals how, step-by-step, characters like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove (bolstered by a barrage of dark money and rightwing media) replaced normal politics with character assassination, violence, endemic lying and racial division. Trump was the inevitable result after the party of limited government morphed over decades into one obsessed with holding power at all costs. Dana documents how Trump accelerated the downward spiral, making it 'safe' to be a bigot and 'weaponizing' conspiracy theories. If you want to understand Trump, this account of Republicans’ destruction of democracy, truth and decency is essential reading."
  Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist and author of Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump
• "A thorough and scathing account of how the Republican Party fell prey to Trumpism."
  The New York Times Book Review