Newt Gingrich of Georgia carried Buchanan’s culture
war into the House speakership. For Gingrich, politics
was solely about winning; his scorched-earth approach
treated opponents as enemies and compromise as treason.
He wanted votes, and wasn’t concerned about who was
animated by his viciousness.
This aligns with my understanding. Which is that Gingrich mainstreamed the practice of crafting malicious animosity about political opponents and then sowing that enmity throughout as much of the electorate as possible.Some years back. Zoe Chase did an extraordinarily good story about it. It's part of a TAL episode. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/662/transcript
dodges tomato