I have read very few books about Trump or Trumpism or about how the Republican Party came to be a Trump property.
But I read this one. Susan Glasser recommended this book on a New Yorker Political Scene podcast: America Last: The Right's Century-Log Romance with Foreign Dictators documents a century of love for dictators and hatred of democracy in what was the right wing of the Republican Party. That party is now devoted to America's own dictator wannabe.
The current love objects for the Right are Putin in Russia, Xi in China, Erdogan in Turkey, Kim in North Korea, and the real fave of the Religious Right Viktor Orban of Hungary.
The Republican's still worship the most loathsome dictators around the globe, but Jacob Heilbrunn shows this is now a Trump-related phenomenon. Long before Trump dodged the draft for the first of five times, the Right was loving global strongmen.
Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh got awards from Nazi Germany for their support and service for the Third Reich. Dozens of members of House and Senate supported the Nazis, primarily by trying to keep America out of World War II and blocking support for the embattled UK. The pro-Nazi rhetoric was latent during WWII but roared back as soon as the war was over. Pro-Nazi Republicans fought against the Nuremberg trials and said the war was a mistake. Predictably, they denied the Holocaust and made excuses for Nazi atrocities.
Although I remember Pat Buchanan's Presidential runs in the 90s and early 2000s, I did not remember that he was explicitly America First. Buchanan heralded the end of the conservative Republican party and paved the way for Trump.
If you are interested in the specifics of the on-going attack on democracy by the Right, this book has all the details.
