We Should Have Seen It Coming

I've been posting my book reviews in the order I read them this year, but this one felt too prescient to wait. I finished it just last weekend.

After the recent election, I found myself reflecting on how we got here. Trump's sweeping second win and the divisiveness in the country reminded me of Reagan's 1984 landslide victory, where he won 49 of 50 states. Reagan is a polarizing figure—celebrated by some as one of the best Presidents and criticized by others as one of the worst. I picked up "We Should Have Seen It Coming" to learn more about how each presidency and decade influenced the next. I wanted to see the historical dominoes in action and understand how the Republican Party transformed over time. What I learned is that Trump's rise didn't happen in isolation. The populist movement didn't come out of nowhere—it was a slow simmer, building for decades before reaching a boiling point.

Gerald Seib delivers a compelling narrative, tracing the GOP's transformation over four decades. The book opens with Reagan's rise, highlighting his ability to unite economic, national security, and religious conservatives into what Seib calls the "three-legged stool" of the Republican Party. Reagan's optimism and coalition-building set the tone for a new era of conservatism. His pragmatism is encapsulated in his famous quote: "I'd rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the cliff with my flags flying." But as the years progressed, this ethos of compromise was replaced by an "all or nothing" atmosphere, fueled in part by the Tea Party movement and a growing distrust of traditional political norms.

The book moves through George W. Bush's presidency, a period that signaled cracks forming in the GOP coalition. Seib details how Bush sensed the rise of populist sentiments even within his own party, noting a "trifecta of concerns: isolationism, nativism, and protectionism." These concerns, along with growing dissatisfaction over globalization and foreign conflicts, set the stage for the Republican Party to drift away from its Reagan-era roots. By the end of Bush's second term, the seeds of Trumpism were beginning to sprout.

Barack Obama's presidency accelerated this shift. The Tea Party's emergence during Obama's first term marked a sharp turn toward ideological purity and populism, rejecting Reagan's principle of compromise. By the time of Mitt Romney's candidacy in 2012, traditional conservatism was struggling to find its footing. Republicans were confident that Romney, a stand-up, dyed-in-the-wool conservative, would win the election. When he didn't, it prompted a reckoning within the GOP. Party leaders held conferences and strategy sessions to discuss how to better appeal to Hispanic voters. But just four years later, Trump's campaign took the party in the opposite direction, leaning heavily into hardline rhetoric, lambasting Mexican immigrants, and pledging mass deportations.

One of the most eye-opening sections of the book examines how Trumpism diverged from traditional Republican values, particularly on immigration. Seib writes: "Among other things, many of these new Trump stalwarts had limited appetites for traditional conservative principles. They didn't want to hear that the government programs on which they and their families relied—Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, disability payments—had to be cut in order to chase some ideologue's dream of a balanced budget." Conservative thinkers had historically viewed immigration as a boon to economic growth, but many Trump supporters saw immigrants as "interlopers who took jobs, drove down wages, and diluted their view of what America should be." Above all, they wanted to be "citizens of America, not citizens of the world." This stark shift from pro-immigration policies to nationalist rhetoric encapsulates how much the party changed under Trump's influence.

Seib also examines the fundamental shift in the Republican voter base. Trump's supporters were more aligned with "Main Street" than "Wall Street," distrusting traditional conservative policies like free trade and limited government. Instead, they rallied around Trump's promises to upend the establishment and protect their cultural values. This marked a dramatic departure from Reagan's pro-market conservatism, underscoring the growing tension between populism and traditional Republican ideology.

Ultimately, "We Should Have Seen It Coming" is an insightful, accessible exploration of how the Republican Party's priorities and strategies have evolved—and unraveled—over the last 40 years. Seib underscores the importance of understanding history not as a series of isolated events but as a continuous thread of actions, reactions, and unintended consequences. While I started this book seeking parallels between Reagan and Trump, I walked away with a deeper understanding of their vast differences and the slow, steady rise of a populist movement that reshaped American politics. It's the first library book I've read that I want to purchase for my own collection, so I can continue to reference it.