The Conspiracy to End America

Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy

By: Stuart Stevens

Narrated by: Jeff Bottoms

Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

“This is the first must-read of the 2024 election cycle if you want to understand the stakes.” –Nicole Wallace

A former chief Republican strategist and bestselling author of It Was All a Lie offers an ominous warning that the G.O.P. is dragging our country towards autocracy, and if we don’t wake up to the crisis in our system, 2024 may well be our last free and fair election.

Today’s Republican party is not a “normal” political party in the American tradition. It has become an autocratic movement masquerading as a political party. As Stuart Stevens argues in The Conspiracy to End America, if we look away from that truth, we greatly increase the likelihood that the America we love will slip away, never to return.

Whenever a democracy slides into autocracy, there are five critical elements at work: financers, propagandists, party support, legal theories to legitimize, and shock troops. The Conspiracy to End America examines each of these driving forces on the Right and makes clear how they are working in concert to end our democracy as we know it.

In the tradition of It Can’t Happen Here and On Tyranny, The Conspiracy to End America is a blinking red distress call about the dark intentions lurking within Stevens’ old party and a rallying cry to beat back this perilous threat and save the Republic.

©2023 Stuart Stevens (P)2023 Twelve

Critic reviews

“Republican campaign legend Stuart Stevens used his skills to battle Trump as candidate and president. Now Trump is back—and so is Stevens, with this anguished and eloquent summons to stand for democracy against reactionary authoritarianism at home and abroad.” (David Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic and MSNBC contributor)

“In THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA, Stuart Stevens uses his decades of working within the Republican Party to lay out in brutally honest terms how his old party is turning America into an autocracy. Every person—Democrat, Republican, and Independent—concerned about the rise of Trumpism should read this book.” (Dan Pfeiffer, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump)

“As a former Republican strategist and media consultant, [Stevens] knows the threat we face today from the Republican Party, which has embraced autocracy and works to damage our democracy beyond repair. His timely and heartfelt book lays out the essential elements and enablers of authoritarianism with admirable clarity. It’s essential and timely reading.” (Ruth Ben-Giat, MSNBC Opinion Columnist and author of Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present)

The Broad Range of the Historical Epochs of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.

Certainly, the broad overview presented. Catholicism's history is deftly presented. In terms of the post Vatican II Church, the author spent considerable time discussing the negative impact of the papal encycical, In Humanae Vitae. Interestingly, the author states that lay Catholics mostly ignore it and use contraception and view the use of contraception as being responsible. Clearly, the Church and Pope Paul VI who authored and promulgated this encycical, miscalculated.

I was surprised that the author said nothing of the ultra conservative, traditional Catholics that were forme bt Archbishop Lefebvre. His SSPX created an oppositional group to the seamlessness of Vatican II in regards to liturgical practice.

This is a wortwhile tome and a decent, concise history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, warts and all.

Every American should read this book, mostly Republicans.

As a lifelong Republican, Stuart is hitting the nail on the head. A must read for any never Trumper’s. A must read for anyone that really wants to have a democratic form of government in America. This thread is serious and real.

A must listen to!

This book is one of the most illuminating books on the knife’s edge America is walking.

The best commentary on Trump-ism I’ve ever read

Steven’s shares a sobering account of how today’s Republican Party has been transformed by the cult of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.

Make no mistake, Trump-ism is not a passing fad, it is nothing short of an all out assault on democracy. What makes this book so compelling is the fact that Stevens was a diehard, card carrying Republican for his entire life. That all changed with the rise of Trump.

Read this book - it will open your eyes to the threat facing our country.

Stevens nails it

He nails it. Well thought out and expressed. Not much more to say. Thank you for this Mr. Stevens.

Essential read for all Americans.

Essential to read this book and understand that the Republican Party in its current iteration will lead the way in destroying democracy in America forever if their candidates are elected.

Sane and Sensible

So sane and sensible. Well written and well read. Gives me hope that democracy will survive and perhaps even prosper if more lifelong, diehard Republicans like Stuart Stevens take the same honest and courageous look at what the Grand Old Party has become in the era of Trump.

The end of US democracy

Scary, confessional, autobiographical description of America slowly twisting in the wind of autocracy. Does not invoke fear as much as motivation to act. Voting as democratic action. As a better defiance than guns or conspiracy beliefs. Germany in the early 1930’s, Hungry under Orban. Russia under Putin, China under Xi. America under Republicans.

Please read this book

The best book I have read on the very real threat to our democracy. Sometimes it feels so much easier to ignore politics, and the condition of our democracy, but we do so at our own peril. Every voting American needs to read this book and take it seriously. I know that I have often assumed that our country would always be a land of freedom and justice for all, but the very core of our democracy, our Constitution, and the rule of law is being severely attacked. We simply cannot ignore this reality. Please read this book.

Please read /listen to this book!

Chapter 4&5 describes the reality of the Republicans embrace of Authoritarianism versus what I used to think of as surrender to Authoritarianism. I now understand that Authoritarianism is actually their pursuit after surrendering their morals.
We must, each and every citizen vote out every single republican MAGA person from top to bottom if we have any hope to save our country and world from this insanity!