Prof. Jake Grumbach's book, "Laboratories Against Democracy", is discussed by Thomas B. Edsall in regards to the politics of of Republican led states being the source for recent trends in national turn to the right.
"Grumbach, who teaches at the University of Washington, is unsparing in his critique of developments in state politics, arguing, for example, that state governments under Republican control were the breeding ground for the rise of the Tea Party — the right-wing movement crucial to the 2010 Republican takeover of the House that helped elect Donald Trump president six years later...Trump, Grumbach continues, 'has been characterized as aberrant, a wrecking ball that disrupted American politics. But it was the states that were the wrecking ball, clearing a path for Trumpism throughout the American political system.'”
For the full article in The New York Times please link here.