The Steal

Alex Wagner—cable news anchor, acclaimed journalist, TV personality—tells the wild origin story of the conservative takeover of the American judiciary, and how it all started with the Reagan Revolution of 1980.

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was a sharp right turn for American governance. After decades on the fringes, the conservative right had their eyes set on tax cuts, an aggressive foreign policy, and law and order. But there was one area of the federal government that was less talked about at the time, but no less crucial: the courts. In her first narrative book of political history, Alex Wagner shows how a few devoted Reaganites kept their focus when no one else would, and how we’re all still living with the effects.

Ed Meese, a native Californian, former DA, and aide to Reagan from his days as governor, saw that goal very clearly. Get as many judges on the bench as possible and make sure they’re as conservative as he was: on abortion rights, on taxes, on criminal justice. To help him achieve this goal, he enlisted a few fellow true-believers: Paul Weyrich, the firebrand organizer; Joe Coors, the beer magnate whose fortune funded many of Weyrich’s efforts; and Robert Bork, the towering legal intellect of the right, and an important mentor to a few young law students starting a new organization called The Federalist Society.

Told with Alex Wagner’s trademark sardonic wit and deadpan delivery, TK is a wild romp through a slice of American history that proves that the long game pays off when championed by the right group of people, no matter how unlikely.