The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink
by Thom Hartmann
View on GoodreadsHartmann's argument is that Trump is a symptom of a system that was already decaying, not its cause. You get a man shaped by a damaging childhood and by Roy Cohn, and a Republican Party that spent decades trading principle for power.
Core ideas
- The Cohn doctrine: Never apologize, hit back harder, use lawsuits as weapons, because in Hartmann's words institutions "can be bent and broken if one is shameless enough."
- A party sold out: From Nixon's Southern Strategy through Gingrich's 1990 GOPAC memo to the launch of Fox News, the party chose power over principle.
- Resistance still works: Poland's Solidarity and Argentina's mothers of the disappeared are the book's proof that ordinary people can beat autocrats, and it closes with seven strategies.
Published2025
Pages224
ISBN9798890571861
ReadJan 2026
