It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump
by Stuart Stevens
View on GoodreadsTrump didn't hijack the Republican Party, in Stuart Stevens's telling; he revealed it. The lead strategist on Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign argues that decades of racial appeals, starting when Nixon and Reagan courted white Southern and rural voters after Goldwater's 1964 run, had already turned the party's professed values into cover, and he owns his share.
Core ideas
- Strategy, not accident: The party's drift toward white nationalism came through deliberate strategy over decades, not a sudden break.
- His own part: He admits using race in his first campaign by drawing attention to a Black independent candidate.
- Principles abandoned: Bill Clinton's record fit traditional Republican ideas better than Trump's, he observes. That said, he ends with some hope for renewal through moderate Republicans at the state level.
Published2020
Pages256
ISBN9780525658450
ReadJul 2023
