Finished It Was All A Lie, a 2019 book by Stuart Stevens, a GOP political consultant and filmmaker for most of his adult life (he started in 1978 and worked on the Bush and Romney campaigns).
Stevens’ honesty about his past and the current state of the party under its current leader is refreshing and he’s extremely insightful. His main thesis is that the GOP lost the moral argument decades ago (with civil rights in the 60s) and has basically sunk further and further into a sport team model, where voters support the team and only care about winning and white grievance. All the various apparently long-held principles - fiscal responsibility, rule of law, small government, even gun ownership - are like players; you support them when they’re on the team and you stop caring about them when they aren’t.
Stevens of course doesn’t think the Democrats are much better - he’s very annoyed about Obama refusing federal funding to run for President - but he admits that they’re generally more likely to have genuine principles at both the politician and voter level, and they don’t have to rely completely on team loyalty as a result.
It’s an excellent book and I do feel sorry for him, I’m glad he wrote it. It seems prescient now about how things have developed since 2019.
Stevens’ honesty about his past and the current state of the party under its current leader is refreshing and he’s extremely insightful. His main thesis is that the GOP lost the moral argument decades ago (with civil rights in the 60s) and has basically sunk further and further into a sport team model, where voters support the team and only care about winning and white grievance. All the various apparently long-held principles - fiscal responsibility, rule of law, small government, even gun ownership - are like players; you support them when they’re on the team and you stop caring about them when they aren’t.
Stevens of course doesn’t think the Democrats are much better - he’s very annoyed about Obama refusing federal funding to run for President - but he admits that they’re generally more likely to have genuine principles at both the politician and voter level, and they don’t have to rely completely on team loyalty as a result.
It’s an excellent book and I do feel sorry for him, I’m glad he wrote it. It seems prescient now about how things have developed since 2019.
