Newt Gingrich and the Dawn of a Toxic Political Era

Julian E. Zelizer's book Burning Down the House was reviewed in the New York Times.

To hear President Trump use the term, “corruption” can do double duty as a hand grenade and a safe word — a ready-made epithet to yell out whenever he’s feeling the squeeze.

It’s a tried-and-true strategy in the frantic trajectory of American politics since the 1970s. As Julian Zelizer shows in his briskly entertaining (if politically dispiriting) new book, Burning Down the House, an ambitious and impatient Republican from Georgia by the name of Newton Leroy Gingrich long ago figured out that corruption was a useful charge for a young upstart to deploy against establishment politicians—a way of turning their vaunted experience against them. More political experience meant more connections with powerful constituents, which meant more of a chance that some of those connections smelled bad, or could be made to seem that way.