From the most successful Republican political operative of his generation, a searing, unflinching, and deeply personal expose of how his party became what it is today
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.
"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
"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
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