Billionaire at the Barricades: The Populist Revolution from Regan to Trump
Laura Ingraham, 2017
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250150646
Summary
Americans didn’t just go to the polls in 2016. They joined a movement that swept the unlikeliest of candidates, Donald Trump, into the Oval Office.
Can he complete his agenda? Or will his opponents in the media, protestor class, and political establishment block his efforts and choke off the movement he represents?
In Billionaire at the Barricades, Laura Ingraham gives readers a front row seat to the populist revolution as she witnessed it.
She reveals the origins of this movement and its connection to the Trump presidency. She unmasks the opposition, forecasts the future of the Make America Great Again agenda and offers her own prescriptions for bringing real change to the swamp of Washington.
Unlike most of her media colleagues, Ingraham understood Trump’s appeal and defied those who wrote his political obituary.
Now she confronts the president’s critics and responds to those who deny the importance of his America First agenda. With sharp humor and insight she traces the DNA of the populist movement: from Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, to Nixon’s Silent Majority, to Reagan’s smashing electoral victories.
Populism fueled the insurgency campaigns of Buchanan and Perot, the election of George W. Bush, and the Tea Party rallies of the Obama presidency. But a political novice ― a Manhattan billionaire ― proved to be the movement’s most vocal champion. This is the inside story of his victory and the fitful struggle to enact his agenda. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 19, 1963
• Where—Glastonbury, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Dartmouth College; J.D., University of Virginia
• Currently—lives near Washington, D.C.
Laura Anne Ingraham is an American TV and radio talk show host, author, and conservative political commentator. She hosts the nationally syndicated radio show, The Laura Ingraham Show, is the editor-in-chief of LifeZette, a long time Fox News Channel contributor, and host of her own FNC show, The Ingraham Angle, weeknights at 10 p.m.
In the late 1980s, Ingraham worked as a speechwriter in the Ronald Reagan administration for the Domestic Policy Advisor. She also briefly served as editor of The Prospect, the magazine issued by Concerned Alumni of Princeton.
After law school, in 1991, she served as a law clerk for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York and subsequently clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She then worked as an attorney at the New York-based law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. In 1995, she appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in a leopard-print miniskirt in connection with a story about young conservatives.
In 1996, she and Jay P. Lefkowitz organized the first Dark Ages Weekend in response to Renaissance Weekend.
Ingraham has had two stints as a cable television host. In the late 1990s, she became a CBS commentator and hosted the MSNBC program Watch It! Several years later, Ingraham began campaigning for another cable television show on her radio program. She finally got her wish in 2008, when Fox News Channel gave her a three-week trial run for a new show entitled Just In.
Her book, Of Thee I Zing, was released in 2011. In August 2013, conservative Newsmax magazine named Ingraham among the "25 most influential women in the GOP."
Political columnist Paul Bedard reported on January 15, 2017, that Ingraham had been approached by Republican party "insiders," to run for the Senate seat held by Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine. Ingraham later confirmed that she was considering it.
Personal
Ingraham has previously dated broadcaster Keith Olbermann, Dinesh D’Souza, and former New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli. In April 2005, she made two announcements: her engagement to Chicago businessman James V. Reyes and her surgery for breast cancer. In May 2005, Ingraham told listeners that her engagement to Reyes was canceled, citing issues regarding her diagnosis with breast cancer.
Quick Facts: Ingraham is 6-'3", a convert to Roman Catholicism, and has studied Russian.
In May 2008, Ingraham adopted a young girl from Guatemala, whom she has named Maria Caroline. In July 2009 she adopted a 13-month-old boy, Michael Dmitri, and two years later, in June 2011, she announced the adoption of her third child, 13-month-old Nikolai Peter. Both of the boys were from Russia. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/28/2017.)
Book Reviews
I ran into my old friend Laura Ingraham last week the day her new book launched. I haven’t had a chance to dip into it yet, and there are certainly things I disagree with in it (we’ve had our disputes over the past two years), but I’m sure it’s smart and sharp-elbowed. Even if you are not in sympathy with Trump-style populism, it’s not going away, and Laura is one of its top voices.
Rich Lowry - National Review
Laura Ingraham was one of the few people who saw Donald Trump’s shocking victory coming. More importantly, as a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan who saw firsthand how viciously the Bush-aligned establishment despised Reagan’s working-class voters. Ingraham understands how powerful the conservative-populist movement is and why the elites in the permanent political class have spent gazillions and worked overtime for three decades to thwart it.… [A] must-read.
Tony Lee - Breitbart News
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Billionaire at the Barricades ... then take off on your own:
1. Nearly everyone — in media and politics — dismissed the candidacy of Donald Trump early on. What was it that tipped Laura Ingraham off about the power of Trump's appeal?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Consider Dave Brat's stunning 2014 victory in Virginia over then House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Ingraham called Brat's win "cataclysmic." Why? What did it reveal about the party and the voters?
3. What were your initial reactions to Candidate Trump? Did you dismiss him at first … or take him seriously? Did your reaction to him change over time? Has it changed since he has taken office?
4. How would you define the progressive movement and its supporters? Consider Ingraham's observation that voters "didn’t care about [Trump's] rough language." Instead, “they cared about saving their country and knew the only way to do it was to elect a renegade — a disruptor — someone who owed the Old Guard nothing.” What do progressives want to save the country from? Why does it take a renegade to save it?
5. Follow-up to Question 4: In what ways was Trump a "disruptor?" How did he pit himself against the Establishment Republicans? How did (does) he differ from the "Old Guard"?
6. Ingraham reports that in a private GOP meeting, everyone "laughed out loud at the idea that Trump's border wall would ever be built." Are people laughing now? What do you think of the wall — and what do you think its chances are of being built? Ingraham predicts that if it is not built "the president and his part will pay a severe political price." Do you agree?
7. Pointing to politicians' hypocrisy, Ingraham notes that while many claim they had never seen populism before, all successful "presidential candidates invoke the populist style because it connects with working people." But, she goes on to say, except for Regan, once in office, all presidents have "governed as globalists." First, define globalism: what policies, specifically, does the term refer to? Second, do you agree with her assessment that previous presidents have all been globalists? Talk about the reasons populists and Trump oppose globalism. What is the argument in favor of it?
8. Ingraham also posits, however, that there is an overlap between conservative and populism. In what areas do the two blocs agree?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)