Renegade

What happens when a political party abandons its principles and swears allegiance to a single man? In Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country, former congressman and Air Force veteran Adam Kinzinger traces his life from rural Illinois to the halls of Congress, illustrating how the Republican Party—and by extension much of American civic life—slid into nihilistic extremism. His story is both a personal memoir and a political diagnosis, a journey from faith-driven conservatism to courageous dissent inside a corrupted movement.

Kinzinger argues that the January 6 assault on the Capitol was not an isolated event but the violent crescendo of decades of religious nationalism, conspiracy politics, and moral cowardice. Through vivid scenes—from pastoral Midwest neighborhoods to military missions over Iraq, and later, chaotic congressional debates—he invites readers to see how democracy corrodes from within when loyalty to truth is replaced by loyalty to tribe and personality. His challenge to readers is blunt: if institutions can fail, only conscience and courage can save the republic.

The Journey of a Reluctant Rebel

Kinzinger opens amid congressional chaos in January 2023, as Kevin McCarthy endures fifteen humiliating votes for Speaker. While others treated it as political theater, it marked for Kinzinger the final proof that the GOP had succumbed to performative nihilism. From there, he writes backward and forward, weaving episodes from his youth, military service, and public career into a meditation on integrity and disillusionment. He confesses complicity in the culture that produced Donald Trump—admitting that the same political habits of fearmongering, showmanship, and moral compromise that once fueled GOP victories ultimately hollowed it out.

What makes Kinzinger’s tale distinctive is that it’s not just political commentary but spiritual autobiography. He explores how early religious rigidity in his Baptist upbringing intertwined with the rise of right-wing Christianity, shaping his worldview and that of millions of Americans who equated patriotism with divine favor. His eventual rebellion—first against intolerance, then against demagoguery—mirrors the inner reckoning required of citizens in any democracy under siege.

Faith, Patriotism, and the Making of an Ideologue

Raised in a moralistic Independent Fundamental Baptist church, young Adam absorbed doctrines stressing obedience and separation from secular culture. The church’s strict codes—no dancing, drinking, or dissent—taught conformity disguised as righteousness. Later, its alliance with the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition brought religion into partisan politics. He recalls attending a 1992 Christian Coalition rally where George H.W. Bush appeared to court votes from evangelical activists, marking for Kinzinger the moment faith and politics fused into a single combustible identity. That experience sowed both fascination and foreboding: religion could mobilize people, but it could also sanctify power.

From Service to Disillusionment

After 9/11, Kinzinger enlisted in the Air National Guard, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. His military experience—rigorous training, life-or-death decisions, camaraderie—shaped his idealism. War taught him discipline and genuine accountability, values he later found absent in politics. The contrast between the integrity expected in uniform and the hypocrisy tolerated in Washington anchors his analysis of America’s decline: institutions cannot function without personal honor. During his flights over war zones, Kinzinger saw firsthand what national fragmentation looks like—and realized how propaganda and resentment at home could produce the same destructive energy abroad.

The Long Descent: From Tea Party to Trump

Kinzinger’s election to Congress in 2010, buoyed by the Tea Party wave, initially seemed a victory for idealism. But the movement’s populist anger quickly mutated into paranoia. He watched colleagues embrace conspiracies, weaponize religion, and demonize compromise. The GOP that once produced pragmatic statesmen devolved into an ecosystem of grievance. Over time, pundits like Fox News’s Sean Hannity, radio host Rush Limbaugh, and politicians such as Jim Jordan transformed politics into perpetual outrage theater. For Kinzinger, these distortions weren’t merely strategic—they were moral failures that traded governing for performative rage.

In comparing his party’s decay to that of totalitarian revolutions described by Hannah Arendt and Timothy Snyder, Kinzinger argues that authoritarianism arrives less through coups than through cowardice. Each small surrender—to power, to conformity, to fear—adds up until a movement forgets what it once stood for. His eventual vote to impeach Trump after January 6 became, he admits, both a moral awakening and a professional death sentence. Yet, he says, “Democracy’s survival depends on leaders willing to sacrifice careers for truth.”

Why This Story Matters

Kinzinger’s book is more than memoir; it’s a civic manual for moral courage. Interweaving political history with personal testimony, he charts the dangerous feedback loop between extremist media, populist anger, and institutional decay. The lesson isn’t partisan but moral: without accountability and empathy, democratic systems rot from within. The same spiritual emptiness that once drove fundamentalists to condemn secular America now fuels modern authoritarian populism. To break that cycle, Kinzinger insists, ordinary citizens must rediscover civic virtue—the willingness to stand for truth over tribe, and duty over self-interest.

Ultimately, Renegade is Kinzinger’s manifesto for a new conservatism rooted in integrity, not idolatry. It’s an appeal to Americans—left, right, and center—to remember that democracy is not inherited but earned daily through courage, honesty, and compassion. His story shows that even amid chaos, individual conscience can still redirect history’s course.

Kinzinger’s early years in an Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) church reveal how well-meaning moral clarity can drift into cultish control. In the 1980s Midwest, his congregation banned dancing, secular music, and even short pants at a Six Flags outing. Disobedience invited discipline from multiple adults, a social microcosm of authoritarianism cloaked as holiness. For Adam, this childhood planted the seeds of empathy—he saw fear as corrosive—and also the first cracks in his blind obedience to authority.

The Political Fusion of Faith

The IFB’s political evolution mirrored the rise of America’s Christian Right. As the Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition mobilized believers, churches turned into campaign hubs. Fourteen-year-old Adam attended a 1992 Christian Coalition conference where George H.W. Bush awkwardly promised allegiance to ‘family values’ before conservative Christians who demanded theocracy. Watching politicized pastors equate godliness with Republicanism, Kinzinger glimpsed how faith could sanctify exclusion. He realized later that this fusion fertilized the soil for Trump’s messianic politics decades later.

The Psychology of Certainty

Kinzinger dissects how rigid religious doctrines reward obedience while punishing critical thought. In high-control environments, certainty feels safe, and dissent feels sinful. This comfort-with-certainty nurtures conspiratorial thinking when transplanted into politics. The same believers who once feared secular movies later feared voter fraud plots. Authoritarian movements thrive on identical mechanisms—shared persecution narratives and charismatic “prophets.” (Psychologist Erich Fromm made a parallel argument in Escape from Freedom, describing how individuals flee uncertainty by submitting to authoritarian systems.)

Rejecting Holier‑Than‑Thou Nationalism

By weaving family anecdotes—his father’s humanitarian leadership, his mother’s compassionate teaching—Kinzinger contrasts genuine faith with performative piety. He argues that religious humility should inspire service, not supremacy. This conviction would become his moral compass years later, guiding his defiance of Trumpist Christian nationalism, which, in his view, turned love of God into contempt for neighbor. His early rebellion against fear-driven faith became the rehearsal for political courage.

In Kinzinger’s telling, America needs less salvific certainty and more civic grace: principles drawn from Lincoln’s moral humility rather than from televangelists’ prophetic fury. “The stricter the church,” he writes, “the more resilient it became—in the short run. But it also broke easier.” The same truth, he warns, now threatens American democracy.

When the Twin Towers fell, Adam Kinzinger was driving to work, listening to Howard Stern. Within hours he resolved to serve. His military path—from struggling C‑student to Air National Guard pilot—became a crucible for his political philosophy: courage as accountability. War, he discovered, rewards integrity and quick decisions; politics, by contrast, rewards posturing.

Lessons from the Cockpit

Flying refueling missions over Iraq and Afghanistan taught him restraint and responsibility. “At 30,000 feet,” he recalls, “war looked calm—but below was death.” When he fought to subdue a knife‑wielding attacker in Milwaukee—earning the Airman’s Medal—he proved his point: acting decisively for others is instinct, not ideology. These experiences made later congressional cowardice incomprehensible to him. In war, lies kill. In politics, lies metastasize.

Seeing America from the Sky

Stations in Guam, Turkey, and Colombia expanded his worldview. Each assignment underscored America’s duality—global leader and flawed moral actor. He studied dictators and corrupt regimes, realizing how easily patriotic fervor justifies cruelty. In Colombia, he watched U.S. policies reduce drug violence but also saw conspiracy culture distort reality—a preview of the paranoia he’d later confront at home. Humility, he learned, must temper power, whether flying refueling planes or managing democracy.

Moral Clarity amid Chaos

The military’s code—integrity first, service before self—became Kinzinger’s antidote to partisan rot. In Iraq, he observed how insurgencies exploit compromised leaders. America, he warns, risks the same fate when self-interest eclipses duty. His military frame shapes his later rebuke of Trump’s dereliction on January 6: true command requires moral courage under pressure, not opportunism. “Every pilot,” he writes, “learns that hesitation kills; every politician seems to learn the opposite.”

Through these chapters, Kinzinger transforms from soldier to statesman-in-waiting, translating the discipline of combat into a civic ethos: leadership as sacrifice, not spectacle.

Elected to Congress in 2010, Kinzinger rode what he calls “the angry wave” of the Tea Party revolution. At first he believed, like many, that the movement represented fiscal discipline and citizen activism. Instead, he watched its populist energy mutate into conspiracy and cruelty—a spiritual ancestor of Trumpism. Meetings once filled with budget charts soon echoed with cries of “socialism” and “take our country back.”

From Patriotism to Paranoia

In Illinois, Kinzinger witnessed rallies morph from civic assemblies into theatrical outrage sessions fueled by Fox News and talk radio. What started as opposition to Obamacare became a moral crusade against imagined enemies—immigrants, liberals, even moderate Republicans. He recounts rallies where tricorn hats waved beside racist signs portraying Obama as an ape or Hitler. The movement’s spiritual energy, once idealistic, curdled into resentment—the same psychological cocktail populist demagogues have always exploited.

Inside Crazytown

On Capitol Hill, Speaker John Boehner privately called the GOP caucus “Crazytown.” Kinzinger joined Boehner’s leadership circle, bridging moderates and hardliners. He recalls “knuckleheads” craving Fox News airtime more than legislative wins. Debates over debt ceilings devolved into hostage crises; colleagues feared primary challengers more than national collapse. Each stunt—shutdown threats, default brinkmanship—normalized dysfunction. The same nihilism would cripple the GOP under Kevin McCarthy years later.

How Media Radicalized Politics

Kinzinger dissects the echo chamber that manufactured outrage as entertainment. Hosts like Limbaugh and Hannity treated politics as perpetual war, rewarding cruelty and eroding empathy. When truth became optional, tribal identity filled the vacuum. He connects this ecosystem directly to the believers who stormed the Capitol in 2021: they were, in effect, the Tea Party’s final act. (Political scientists like Cass Sunstein and Yochai Benkler have documented similar polarization feedback loops in digital media.)

By exposing how moral absolutism eroded governance, Kinzinger doesn’t just lament a party lost—he warns that performative politics can turn any democracy into spectacle, where winning replaces governing and grievance replaces grace.

Kinzinger’s firsthand chronicle of Donald Trump’s rise reads like a slow-motion moral car crash. He traces how colleagues—many privately disdainful of Trump—submitted willingly to his dominance. John Boehner’s humor gave way to Kevin McCarthy’s sycophancy; policy vanished beneath personality. By the 2016 convention, Kinzinger saw his once-grand party transformed into a cult of grievance crowned by a messiah in a red tie.

The Normalization of the Abnormal

Attending Trump’s 2017 inauguration, Kinzinger watched the “American carnage” speech in disbelief. There stood a man who, rather than call citizens to unity, declared war on his own country’s institutions. He recounts Trump’s obsession with crowd size, vendettas against allies, and disdain for truth—an episodic theater of narcissism. Yet what disturbed Kinzinger most was not Trump’s behavior but his party’s silence. “A once‑moral movement became addicted to humiliation without shame.”

The Price of Compromise

Kinzinger admits that many Republicans, himself once included, rationalized their compliance as “holding the line.” They believed serving inside Trump’s orbit could moderate him. Instead, he moderated them. Figures like Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz turned scandal into strategy. Watching press conferences that resembled pro‑wrestling promos, Kinzinger realized that spectacle had supplanted stewardship. His own military code—duty before self—felt alien in a culture that revered chaos.

Witnessing a Party’s Collapse

By 2020, when Trump praised strongmen like Erdogan and Putin and demanded loyalty oaths, Kinzinger saw echoes of the fascist playbooks he had studied as a history-minded pilot. The Big Lie became creed; violence became sacrament. His moral line hardened on January 6, when mobs chanting “Hang Mike Pence” shattered the Capitol’s sanctity. In those hours, he realized his oath to the Constitution superseded any partisan identity.

This chapter, both confession and eulogy, shows how incremental cowardice kills republics. “I felt responsible,” he writes, “not because I built the riot—but because I helped build the culture that made it possible.”

The climax of Renegade unfolds in real time: sirens wailing through the Capitol as insurgents break doors and police fight for their lives. Kinzinger hides in his locked office, handgun ready, watching democracy teeter on television. His testimony is visceral yet disciplined; like a veteran under fire, he catalogues each betrayal—not just of security protocols but of conscience.

Inside the Insurrection

He recounts texts from Trump-world strategists urging fake electors, and calls with officials paralyzed by electoral delusion. When rioters invaded the Rotunda shouting “Hang Mike Pence,” Kinzinger saw decades of conspiracism made flesh. “Trump,” he writes, “was the charismatic preacher of a new Fundamentalism—political, not spiritual—but just as unforgiving.”

Choosing Country Over Career

In the aftermath, Kinzinger became the first Republican to call for Trump’s removal under the 25th Amendment, fully aware it would end his career. Colleagues called him a traitor; family members branded him ‘the devil’s soldier.’ Yet he insists that courage, like flight training, becomes reflex through repetition: “You don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to your level of discipline.” That discipline—truth-telling under threat—made him one of ten Republicans to vote for impeachment, knowing political exile awaited.

Inside the January 6 Committee

Kinzinger’s later service on the House Select Committee offered redemption. Working alongside Liz Cheney, he reconstructed the attack like a military operation gone rogue. Testimonies from insiders—Cassidy Hutchinson, Sarah Matthews, AG Bill Barr—revealed Trump’s dereliction in chilling detail. Kinzinger’s televised questioning, especially during the “Dereliction of Duty” hearing, framed accountability as patriotism: leaders must be willing to lose power to preserve principle.

For readers, this section distills Kinzinger’s definition of courage: fidelity to one’s oath when it isolates you from your tribe. His experience transforms abstract virtue into civic muscle memory—an antidote to the cowardice that bred January 6.

After the dust settled, Kinzinger left Congress but refused cynicism. In the book’s poignant conclusion, he establishes Country First—a movement to reclaim the center through integrity and empathy. Freed from Washington’s performative cruelty, he rediscovers purpose as father, husband, and citizen.

Life After Power

Kinzinger compares leaving Congress to leaving the battlefield: you must decompress before rediscovering peace. He writes from Houston, reflecting on “the silence after years of gunfire.” His newfound clarity—politics as service, not addiction—anchors his optimism that decency, not demagoguery, still defines most Americans. Like Eisenhower’s postwar temperance, Kinzinger’s withdrawal embodies restraint as leadership.

Democracy’s Spiritual Challenge

Kinzinger situates America’s struggle within a moral frame. Democracy, he says, is sustained not by laws alone but by shared character. He quotes theologian Russell Moore and scholar N.T. Wright to show how true faith champions compassion, not conquest. Christian nationalism, he argues, has corrupted religion the way authoritarian populism has corrupted politics—both replacing humility with hubris. Restoring democratic health therefore requires spiritual renewal: empathy over rage, truth over idols.

A Call for Courageous Civility

His final appeal is simple yet radical: every citizen must practice “civic compassion” by listening to opponents with respect. Instead of matching rage with rage, he urges Americans to “turn the other cheek while holding their ground.” Courage, he concludes, is persistence without hatred—a lesson drawn from the battlefield, the Bible, and the broken Capitol. “Fear destroys authenticity,” he writes. “Courage restores it.”

In closing, Kinzinger transforms his political obituary into a love letter to democratic virtue. By telling his story, he reminds readers that honor, once mocked as naïve, may yet be America’s strongest weapon against extremism.