It was all a lie - by Stuart Stevens

[OnDoutside]

I'm listening to the audiobook at the moment, and so far it is everything we guessed it would be, but for a former Republican operative, it is raw and frank.

Here is a piece right from the start

IT WAS ALL A LIE

I have no one to blame but myself. I believed. That’s where it all started to go wrong. I was drawn to a party that espoused a core set of values: character counts, personal responsibility, strong on Russia, the national debt actually mattered, immigration made America great, a big-tent party invited all. Legislation would come and go, compromises would be necessary, but these principles were assumed to be shared and defined what it meant to be a Republican for the last fifty years.

What a fool I was. All of these immutable truths turned out to be mere marketing slogans. None of it meant anything. I was the guy working for Bernie Madoff who actually thought we were really smart and just crushing the market. What I missed was one simple reality: it was all a lie.

I come to this not out of bitterness but out of sadness. It’s not that I failed. I was paid to win races for Republicans, and while I didn’t win every race, I had the best win-loss record of anyone in my business. So yes, blame me. Blame me when you look around and see a dysfunctional political system and a Republican Party that has gone insane. To be sure, others share blame, but if there is any sane path forward for something resembling a conservative governing philosophy in America—and I’m not sure there is—it must start with honesty and accountability. I have this crazy idea that a return to personal responsibility begins with personal responsibility.

It is a strange, melancholy feeling to turn sixty-five and realize that what you have spent a good portion of your life working for and toward was not only meritless but also destructive. Among the many Republicans who find Donald Trump somewhere between distasteful and abhorrent, there are two distinct tendencies. One is to say that Trump isn’t a real Republican. The other is to say he is just an “unconventional president” and focus on his policies.

Both are wrong.

[Stand and Fight]

1. A link would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[OnDoutside]

3. Sure

You can download the epub (kindle version) here. https://1lib.eu/book/5714737/e25b19

Once downloaded, you can use

https://www.pdf2go.com/epub-to-pdf

to convert the epub to a pdf for free

[Stand and Fight]

8. Thank you. I just like to be able to cite a source if I want to bring it up to others.

[erronis]

2. Whenever I ask for a link to the original material, I'm told to just google it. Fail.

We need an authoritative link to the original material. Not an aggregator link

[OnDoutside]

4. See post #3

[BlueNProud]

5. The GOP abandoned the concept of truth after that POS Gingrich emerged.

[OnDoutside]

6. I'm actually at the chapter where he speaks about Gingrich, and he doesn't spare him either.

[BlueNProud]

7. Gingrich taught them to weaponize language

Even the idiot backbenchers started all saying the same focus grouped blah blah blah. The other thing is the ideology that emerged often contradicted itself making it impossible for them to govern effectively. Then they just stopped giving a shit about being responsible protectors of the citizenry and democracy. The GOP is the world's most dangerous terrorist organization.

[betsuni]

9. I have the book but only skimmed through it, have to finish the excellent "Let Them Eat Tweets"

first.

The Republican Party knew it should change, but it was like when you trip and think you can recover but reach a point where gravity takes over and there's nothing you can do, you're going down.

It still doesn't seem real:

"Perhaps what passes for the establishment in the Republican Party will be able to conjure a cover story to explain why they embraced a man who mocked the disabled, attacked a former POW hero, paid off a porn star from the Oval Office, defended Vladimir Putin's murder of journalists, bragged about assaulting women, and implored foreign governments to investigate his political opponents. Let's say our Republican overlords can convince us that these were just personal quirks of a 'Black swan' leader who kept us from the horror of ... a former secretary of state, U.S. senator, and First Lady becoming president. To avoid the nightmare of having a president who had actually spent decades preparing for the job, it was necessary to nominate a reality TV figure who talked openly of his desire to have sex with his own daughter and lectured Republican members of Congress on Article XII of the Constitution, which exists only in his mind. This positions Donald Trump as the Necessary Monster history demanded to save the Republican Party. ... Can anyone honestly define what the Republican Party stands for beyond 'owning the libs'?"