Julian E. Zelizer

...the unlikely, unorthodox, nativist populist campaign trump had mounted, which aimed to tear down the political leaders of both parties and to destabilize the entire U.S. political system, was Gingrich's creation.

The new GOP goal was not to negotiate or legislate but to do everything necessary to maintain partisan power. If it was politically useful to engage in behavior that could destroy the possibility of governance, which rendered bipartisanship impossible and would unfairly decimate their opponents' reputation, the so be it.

"Our legislative system," Gingrich insisted with his attention turned toward Capitol Hill, "has become morally, intellectually, and spiritually corrupt."

An A.P. reporter who covered Newt and another freshman in 1979 told him last week that there are about six Representatives whose phone numbers reporters know by heart, and Newt's was one of them - because they thought Newt understood what was happening and would play it straight with the press.

Reagan's election had only been possible after fifteen years of a brewing political backlash toward the Democratic embrace of civil rights in 1964 and 1965 - as President Johnson had famously predicted - finally allowed the GOP to start dominating the South.

It all came down to this: for republicans to dislodge House Democrats from power, they would have to be ruthless. Democrats didn't play fair, Gingrich believed. He said that incumbents rigged elections through gerrymandering and campaign money; they relied on arcane procedures, such as imposing rules that prevented floor amendments to bills, that disempowered the minority party; and they solidified their public support through corrupt pork-barrel spending and favors for business leaders in their districts.

After reviewing twelve Sunday television interview shows, Gingrich came away impressed by how much attention congressional Democrats devoted to perfecting and repeating their message. Republicans were far less polished, Gingrich thought. "A political party which focuses on the management and allocation of campaign resources, and neglects political strategy, is a party that loses, "Gingrich warned. "Two minutes on the evening news is watched by more people, believed by more people, and, politically has a greater multiplier effect than paid political advertising."

Wright resented the piece, which he insisted was based on a fabricated account of the conversation [of a Public Works Committee secret session]. "The Anderson treatment," Wright noted to himself, "is so typical of the growing irresponsibility of sensational 'expose' type journalism that increasingly appalls, angers and even frightens a lot of conscientious public officials."

Dick Cheney growled to the National Journal that the Speaker had proven he was a "heavy-handed son of a bitch"

Without these reformers [reform-oriented institutions], Gingrich looked as if he were orchestrating a shabby partisan coup. They would offer reluctant Republicans the cover they needed to get behind him. This would be his masterstroke, and it would capitalize on the Democrats' shortsightedness.

Directly attacking the press was a dangerous strategy. They had a big platform from which to respond. And they did. The editors of these powerful publications were not going to sit quietly by as Mair delivered these reprimands and smeared the reputations of their top journalists. So, the editors exposed Mair's campaign by speaking to reporters. The story looked to many Americans like an effort to intimidate and harass honest journalists investigating potential corruption.

The opinion that Reagan had run the "most corrupt administration" in American history was prevalent in Democratic circles.

The House Ethics Committee had earned a bad reputation since its creation in 1967. The solution for previous chairmen of this panel, like John Flynt, had been to do nothing when a complaint was made. With Democrats in perpetual control of the House, Republicans saw the committee as one more example of how the opposition abused their power to protect its own members, regardless of the sordid behavior that ethics investigations turned up.

The COS [Conservative Opportunity Society] Limited Partnership, as Gingrich called it, raised $105,000 in 1984. Each partner contributed $5,000 to the fund. The goal, Gingrich genially acknowledged to a reporter, was a half-baked plan to "force a best-seller", which would of course enhance Gingrich's public standing.

Still, legislation remained a secondary concern for Gingrich, who spent most of his first month as minority whip selling his message to reporters. He tested out catchphrases such as the "looney left" to describe Democrats to the press. One of his favorite terms was "institutional corruption,"...

Good government organizations and mainstream reporters, not always thinking about how they might be playing into a concerted partisan attack, had moved the investigation [of Wright] forward on their own terms, finding time after time smoke that looked like fire.

What bothered Democrats most was that Wright's team did not seem to understand the most fundamental point: a technical defense would not work in such a highly politicized environment.

The gospel of Gingrich kept spreading. He literally shared his rhetorical style through a GOPAC pamphlet first distributed in 1990, titled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control," which he crafted with the pollster Frank Luntz, that offered a road map to replicate his way with words. Responding to Republican candidates who, GOPAC said, had told them, "I wish I could speak like newt," the memo recommended using certain words repeatedly like "corruption," "traitors," "sick," "radical," "shame," "pathetic," "steal," and "lie" to describe the Democrats.

We've seen this coming. Donald Trump is not an outlier; he is a culmination, a logical conclusion of the rhetoric and tactics of the Republican Party for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. What surprised me was the degree to which those tactics and rhetoric completely jumped the rails. There were no governing principles, there was no one to say, 'No, this is going too far, this isn't what we stand for.' But we've seen it for eight years, even with the reasonable people like John Boehner, who, when push came to shove, wouldn't push back against these currents.