It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump by Stuart Stevens Read Free Book Online Page A

party becomes a soufflé of grievances and anger that exists to settle scores, not solve problems. A political party without a higher purpose is nothing more than a cartel, a syndicate. No one asks what is the greater good OPEC is trying to achieve. Its purpose is to sell oil at the highest prices possible. So it is with today’s Republican Party. It is a cartel that exists to elect Republicans. There is no organized, coherent purpose other than the acquisition and maintenance of power.
    Donald Trump has served a useful purpose by exposing the deep flaws of a major American political party. Like a heavy truck driven over a bridge on the edge of collapse, Trump has made it impossible to ignore the long-developing fault lines and failures of the Republican Party. A party rooted in decency and values does not embrace the vicious hate that Donald Trump peddles as patriotism. But the Republican Party did and does. This moment should signal a day of reckoning for the party and all who claim it as a political identity. Will it? I’m not hopeful. Better than most, I know the seductive lure of believing what you prefer to believe and ignoring the obvious truth.
    What the Republican Party must realize is that it needs America more than America needs the party. And the America it needs is the one that is 320 million Americans and growing, a country of immigrants and less white every day: the real America, not the gauzy Shangri-La of suburban bliss that never existed. I’d like to say I believe the party I spent so many years fighting for could rise to that challenge. But that would be a lie, and there have been too many lies for too long.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    A special note of appreciation to Scott Merriman, who greatly assisted in sourcing and footnoting as well as bringing general smarts and a great reader’s eye to the entire effort. Many thanks to Lynette Smith, who helped transform a rough first draft of misspellings and strange typos into far more readable form. Reid Singer was extraordinarily helpful in the fact-checking and research of It Was All a Lie. As always, all mistakes and errors are completely my fault and responsibility.
    And a very heartfelt expression of gratitude to Andrew Miller, Maris Dyer, and the entire Knopf editorial team. I grew up reading Knopf authors and seeing my writing published under the Knopf name is one dream of my youth that I feel so very fortunate to have come true.
    Lastly, my deepest appreciation to Peter Matson of the Sterling Lord Literistic Agency. It has been often observed that it is impossible to get published without an agent and impossible to get an agent without being published. I was somehow fortunate enough to avoid that paradox and have been guided and supported by Peter Matson from the first nutty idea I had about writing a book retracing Peter Fleming’s journey across China. He is the rarest combination of encouraging but critical, a superb reader, and I have no doubt I would never have been published without his wisdom. Eight books later, he’s changed my life and I will be forever grateful.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Stuart Stevens is the author of seven previous books, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, and Outside, among other publications. He has written extensively for television shows, including Northern Exposure, Commander in Chief, and K Street. For twenty-five years, he was the lead strategist and media consultant for some of the nation’s toughest political campaigns. He attended Colorado College; Pembroke College, Oxford; Middlebury College; and UCLA film school. He is a former fellow of the American Film Institute.

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