PART II

REPUBLICANS AND THEIR PARTY

As this book was getting underway, early in 2018, I contacted several websites where Republicans gather. I posted a simple request. I said I was writing a book that would in large measure be about them. Would they, I asked each one, tell me—at whatever length they liked—why they had chosen to be a Republican? (I also asked for the state where they lived.) Within a week, I had received over a thousand replies, long and short. Representative excerpts are at the bottom of the pages that follow. I’d like to thank them all for their time and effort, ideas and insights, candor and passion.