John Ganz’ When the Clock Broke, a prehistory of MAGA future

A review in 230 words

I was asked by The Conversation here ‘down under’ to write 150 words on what I thought was the best book I’d read in 2024. I couldn’t do it. I landed at 230 words, so this probably won’t run there as is, so I will run it here. Ganz’ book deserves as many readers as it can get. Matt Sharpe, Australia

John Ganz, When the Clock Broke: Conmen, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (USA: Macmillan, 2024)

Future historians will puzzle about how in 2024, a twice-impeached, convicted felon, facing indictment for his role in the insurrectionary violence of January 2021, promising mass deportations and trading in conspiratorial xenophobia, was able to return to office by popular vote. John Ganz’ When the Clock Broke will be a work of reference in solving this mystery, as it is for anyone today trying to understand “how America cracked up” — in the very decades when its cold war triumph seemed set to announce America’s finest hour. Trump is not a “black swan”, coming from nowhere, Ganz shows. From January 21, 1989, when Ku Klu Klan Leader David Duke became the Republican governor in Louisiana, via the anti-establishment, pro-business populism of Ross Perot and Pat Buchanon, to the rise of outrage radio spearheaded by Rush Limbaugh and heartland conspiracists arming against the “globalist” federal government, MAGAism is the product of over three decades of American radicalisation to the Right. Ganz’s scope is sweeping, his prose rapid and incisive. But perhaps the greatest merit of When the Clock Broke is that it does not preach. It simply reports. Ganz leaves the reader to draw for themselves the links between then, when anything like Trumpism remained unthinkable, and now, when it radiates disaster triumphant.