It Was All a Lie

How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump

By: Stuart Stevens

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the most successful Republican political operative of his generation, a searing, unflinching, and deeply personal exposé of how his party became what it is today

“A blistering tell-all history. In his bare-knuckles account, Stevens confesses [that] the entire apparatus of his Republican Party is built on a pack of lies." —The New York Times

Stuart Stevens spent decades electing Republicans at every level, from presidents to senators to local officials. He knows the GOP as intimately as anyone in America, and in this new book he offers a devastating portrait of a party that has lost its moral and political compass.

This is not a book about how Donald J. Trump hijacked the Republican Party and changed it into something else. Stevens shows how Trump is in fact the natural outcome of five decades of hypocrisy and self-delusion, dating all the way back to the civil rights legislation of the early 1960s. Stevens shows how racism has always lurked in the modern GOP's DNA, from Goldwater's opposition to desegregation to Ronald Reagan's welfare queens and states' rights rhetoric. He gives an insider's account of the rank hypocrisy of the party's claims to embody "family values," and shows how the party's vaunted commitment to fiscal responsibility has been a charade since the 1980s. When a party stands for nothing, he argues, it is only natural that it will be taken over by the loudest and angriest voices in the room.

Critic reviews

"Stevens stands out among Trump’s conservative critics because of his candor about the deeper rot at the core of the GOP... He offers a grand mea culpa for his own role in paving the way for Trumpism."
—Sean Illing, Vox

"It Was All a Lie is unlike anything published in the Trump era: a photo negative of the genre of self-justifying apparatchiks... He’s written a history of the modern GOP from an insider’s perspective, as well as something deeply personal."
—Benjamin Wofford, Washingtonian

"A stunning indictment."
—David Corn, Mother Jones

“A blistering tell-all history. In his bare-knuckles account, Stevens confesses [that] the entire apparatus of his Republican Party is built on a pack of lies."
—The New York Times

"This book is going to become an important reference volume for future historians trying to explain what happened to the Republican Party in the second half of the 20th century and the Trump era. It takes someone with Stuart Stevens' insights as a writer to be able to see this story and deliver it to us the way he has."
—Lawrence O'Donnell

“A sustained attack… Refreshingly frank.”
—John S. Gardner, The Guardian

"Washington in 2020 often beggars belief: an American President answering a deadly pandemic with ignorance, inflaming racial unrest with racism, stoking violent confrontations while his fearful party stands mute... What if the accounting comes from one of the Republican Party's most accomplished political strategists, an insider provoked by Trump to reconsider his life's work? In fact, it has. Stevens dissects several categories of deception. Though he could not have anticipated it -- the book, completed last September, does not include the words "coronavirus" or "George Floyd" -- events of recent days keep offering improbably-vivid evidence for his assessments.
—CNN

"A blistering attack on the modern Republican Party and its wholesale surrender to Donald Trump... His willingness to tell the truth should serve as a model for the mea culpas that Republicans who enabled Trump’s corruption, norm-shattering, and immorality owe us."
—Michael A. Cohen, The Boston Globe

"An epitaph, of interest to all politics junkies, for a formerly venerable party by a champion-turned-gravedigger."
—Kirkus

I Finally Understand

Thank you Stuart Stevens, I finally understand the republican party. You have answered questions that I have had for over 25 years regarding the motivations of republicans. This book is a terrific blend of history and insightful intelligence. I can truly say this book has changed my life.

Devastating

The hard, bitter truth about the modern Republican party, a cesspool of hypocrisy, moral cowardice, racism, and cultish idolatry. True conservatives should read this book and then look at themselves in the mirror.

Wow, every Republican should read this book

It gives me hope that decency will prevail among the conservative elements of our nation.

Truth-telling

Stuart Stevens laid it all out there.
He told the truth about the Republican party, schemes, wordplay, lies, games + racism.
For those of us who were aware of the harm + flaws it was refreshing to hear such honesty.
I hope folx will read it + realise we deserve better than this. Fight for our Constitutional Republic w empathy, compassion, sincerity + respect for all.

Its a shame this has gone on for so long.
Not sure the party or those disenchanted have the wherewithal to move forward in a healthy direction. But at least reading this book some folx will come to terms with the truth.
Thank you Stuart Stevens, for writing it.

superb

honestly its hard to oversell this book.

for anyone like me in the gop or never trump movement, its mandatory reading.

for any dems who saw for years what we never did, its worth your time to see into our crazy heads more clearly.

for trumpkins and vichy-cons, well....