It Was All a Lie review: Trump as symptom not cause of Republican decline

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/02/it-was-all-a-lie-review-trump-republican-party


Stuart Stevens’ It Was All a Lie is a sustained attack, both jeremiad and confession, on the Republican party he served for 40 years. His is the hand at Belshazzar’s political feast: “All of these immutable truths turned out to be 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.”

Stevens, a consultant, is refreshingly frank about his role and responsibility. “Blame me,” he writes, adding: “I had been lying to myself for decades.” He seeks a new leaf on a “crazy idea that a return to personal responsibility begins with personal responsibility”.

Unsurprisingly, he starts with race, “the original Republican sin … the key in which much of American politics and certainly all of southern politics was played.” Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Republicans have had difficulty appealing to African American voters. Stevens is not surprised.

“What happens if you spend decades focused on appealing to white voters and treating non-white voters with, at best, benign neglect? You get good at doing what it takes to appeal to white voters.” How, for instance, does a black person hear an “avowed hatred of government”?

*snip*

[Mike 03]

1. Saw this review this morning and moved this book into my Amazon cart

but haven't pre-ordered it yet. So many books coming out right now. My appetite is greater than the capacity of my stomach.

[agingdem]

2. Trumps is the culmination of a 50 year GOP rot...

Trump didn't "happen" overnight...he was a long time coming...the GOP saw a depraved "comic" as a vessel to push forward their hate agenda...and because Trump is an amoral sociopath, a compulsive liar and in constant need of praise, he became their guy...what they didn't calculate was that he was a fraud, a conman...but his stupidity, his overt racism and ethic hate and the like minded garbage (his family) surrounding him was just fine, a distraction, something they needed so they could pack the courts with incompetent whites-only idiots, pass a billionaire's tax cut and fill their campaign chests with foreign money and no one would know or care because their buffoon was center stage...and now their guy is going to take them all down...good

[roamer65]

3. Dump is a symptom of the decline of the American empire.

We are closely mirroring the decline of Rome.

[chriscan64]

4. It got away from them.

They groomed the gop voter with right wing radio to be more against what Democrats wanted than for conservatism in general. Nobody is going to take to the streets to keep rich people's taxes low. They created a hateful mob that turned on their creators by rejecting the establishment candidates they nominated. Trump gave them the perfect outlet for their hate and the establishment has had to swallow the bitter pill.

There should not a human being with Trump's attributes walking around, much less a president. But because the republicans brought forth this motley crew of voters, he is in the White House instead of a mental institution.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. K&R

[Trumpocalypse]

6. I agree

Trump is a symptom not the cause.

[manhattan123]

7. Here's an interesting op-ed Stuart Stevens wrote in the NYT a few days ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/opinion/trump-republican-party-racism.html?searchResultPosition=1


Excerpt:

"I saw the warning signs but ignored them and chose to believe what I wanted to believe: The party wasn’t just a white grievance party; there was still a big tent; the others guys were worse. Many of us in the party saw this dark side and told ourselves it was a recessive gene. We were wrong. It turned out to be the dominant gene.

What is most telling is that the Republican Party actively embraced, supported, defended and now enthusiastically identifies with a man who eagerly exploits the nation’s racial tensions. In our system, political parties should serve a circuit breaker function. The Republican Party never pulled the switch.

Racism is the original sin of the modern Republican Party. While many Republicans today like to mourn the absence of an intellectual voice like William Buckley, it is often overlooked that Mr. Buckley began his career as a racist defending segregation."