It was all a lie

By Michael A. Cohen Globe Columnist,Updated August 1, 2020

Stuart Stevens, senior adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, read along with a speech during a campaign rally in November 2012 in Colorado Springs, Colo. His new book offers a sharp critique of the Republican Party.JUSTIN SULLIVAN

“The most distinguishing characteristic of the current national Republican Party is cowardice . . . the party demands dishonesty as a trait of membership.”

“If the Republican Party had been in charge in 1776, we’d all still be celebrating the queen’s birthday.”

“One of the hallmarks of the Trump era is the alacrity with which intelligent people embrace stupidity.”

You might imagine these are the words of a partisan Democrat or a political columnist for a large metropolitan daily.

But they come from “It Was All A Lie,” a new book by Stuart Stevens, a political consultant who has spent much of this adult life trying to get Republicans elected to office, including a number of presidential candidates.

Stevens’ book is a blistering attack on the modern Republican Party and its wholesale surrender to Donald Trump.

For Stevens, that surrender hardly comes as a surprise. The GOP is, at its heart, a “white grievance party,” he writes. And with Trump’s victory in 2016, it could “breathe a sigh of relief that no longer did it need to pretend that it must reach out more to nonwhite voters.”

Nominating a morally challenged, credibly accused sexual predator to be president might seem discordant for a party that has long talked about the importance of “family values” and character. But for Stevens it just showed how little Republicans cared about the principles they so loudly proclaim.

Talk of fiscal responsibility is another lie, says Stevens. In reality, neither Republican voters nor their leaders are all that interested in cutting federal spending or balancing the budget.

Stevens even takes on the intellectual heavyweights of the conservative movement like Bill Bennett, who in the 1990s bemoaned the coarsening of American culture and lacerated Bill Clinton for his moral failings. Rather than be aghast at Trump’s rise, Stevens notes, Bennett lauded it and attacked fellow Republicans who failed to get on board. A party so bereft of an ideological underpinning, Stevens says, is little more than a rabid fan base intent on defeating its key rival. Winning is now the only metric that matters.

Trump’s takeover, as far as Stevens is concerned, was the logical end point of the GOP’s twisted trajectory — and his ascendancy gave lie to every ideological argument and every talking point uttered by party leaders.

This analysis may sound familiar to close observers of American politics. Yet, it is striking to see an actual practitioner of these black arts point a finger at himself.

In the book, Stevens is honest enough to acknowledge the subtle ways he played the game of racial politics. He’s honest enough to write about how he cut ads that shaded the truth and put victory above all other considerations.

Some will characterize Stevens’ book as self-serving and disingenuous. Surely, he must have realized what he was doing for the GOP — and to the country — at the time. But he insists he was in denial. “Had Trump not been the nominee and won the election,” Stevens told me in an interview, “I probably could have kept denying it to myself. Most of us go through life trying to avoid moral crisis but Trump made it impossible to ignore.”

He told me that what initially drew him to the GOP was the notion of “personal responsibility.” And he didn’t know where else to begin but by taking responsibility for his own actions.

Trump’s takeover, as far as Stevens is concerned, was the logical end point of the GOP’s twisted trajectory — and his ascendancy gave lie to every ideological argument and every talking point uttered by party leaders.

This analysis may sound familiar to close observers of American politics. Yet, it is striking to see an actual practitioner of these black arts point a finger at himself.

In the book, Stevens is honest enough to acknowledge the subtle ways he played the game of racial politics. He’s honest enough to write about how he cut ads that shaded the truth and put victory above all other considerations.

Some will characterize Stevens’ book as self-serving and disingenuous. Surely, he must have realized what he was doing for the GOP — and to the country — at the time. But he insists he was in denial. “Had Trump not been the nominee and won the election,” Stevens told me in an interview, “I probably could have kept denying it to myself. Most of us go through life trying to avoid moral crisis but Trump made it impossible to ignore.”

He told me that what initially drew him to the GOP was the notion of “personal responsibility.” And he didn’t know where else to begin but by taking responsibility for his own actions.