Why Disgraced Congressman Trey Radel Went Crazy (And America Will Too)

Summary: The first rule of the Congressional Fight Club, says Trey Radel, is "don't buy cocaine from a federal agent." In January 2013, Radel came to Washington as a Republican congressman representing Florida's 19th district, an area that includes Fort Meyers and Naples. He had been a TV anchor prior to his win and he ran on a libertarian-leaning Tea Party platform of shrinking the size, scope, and spending of the government. Just a year later, Radel resigned from Congress after getting busted buying drugs and pleading guilty to misdemeanor cocaine possession. Ironically, Radel has always been a staunch critic of the drug war. In his riveting new memoir about his short time in office, he documents not just his self-destruction but a political system that puts maintaining the unsustainable status quo and fattening party coffers first and philosophical ideals and good policy last. Democrazy: A True Story of Weird Politics, Money, Madness, and Finger Food is a no-holds-barred account of what it's like to come to Washington and really, really screw up. More than that, though, it reveals a system that needs radical reform if the United States is going to avert an entitlements-driven financial crisis and a drift toward even greater polarization and economic stagnation. In a wide-ranging conversation with Nick Gillespie, Radel explains the compulsions that destroyed his political career; doubles down on libertarian positions regarding the drug war, civil liberties, and foreign policy; and articulates his worries that Americans won't demand systemic change until the country has gone "full Greek." "I fear," he says, "that Donald Trump is going to slip into George W. Bush-era policy that led itself to making Republicans disaffected, which was this: Let's lower taxes, increase spending, and pray to God the economy booms. I'm afraid that's just not going to happen."