Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Why We Did It

A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Former Republican political operative Tim Miller answers the question no one else has fully grappled with: Why did normal people go along with the worst of Trumpism?

As one of the strategists behind the famous 2012 RNC "autopsy," Miller conducts his own forensic study on the pungent carcass of the party he used to love, cutting into all the hubris, ambition, idiocy, desperation, and self-deception for everyone to see. In a bracingly honest reflection on both his own past work for the Republican Party and the contortions of his former peers in the GOP establishment, Miller draws a straight line between the actions of the 2000s GOP to the Republican political class's Trumpian takeover, including the horrors of January 6th.

From ruminations on the mental jujitsu that allowed him as a gay man to justify becoming a hitman for homophobes, to astonishingly raw interviews with former colleagues who jumped on the Trump Train, Miller diagrams the flattering and delusional stories GOP operatives tell themselves so they can sleep at night. With a humorous touch he reveals Reince Priebus' neediness, Sean Spicer's desperation, Elise Stefanik and Chris Christie's raw ambition, and his close friends' submission to a MAGA psychosis.

Why We Did It is a vital, darkly satirical warning that all the narcissistic justifications that got us to this place still thrive within the Republican party, which means they will continue to make the same mistakes and political calculations that got us here, with disastrous consequences for the nation.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      January 1, 2022

      Former Republican political operative Miller, now an MSNBC contributor and Bulwark writer, offers an insider's account of the extremism that has come to define the Republican Party. He places the blame squarely on former friends and colleagues (many interviewed here), whom, he argues, knew exactly what they were doing--inciting a mob for their own gain.

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 25, 2022
      “America never would have gotten into this mess if it weren’t for me and my friends,” writes former Republican operative Miller in this anguished yet entertaining exposé of the party’s enthrallment to Donald Trump. Reflecting on his early experiences as a PR consultant and spokesman for John McCain’s 2007 Republican primary campaign, Miller admits that in an era when success “was so often removed from political beliefs,” he “ma allowances” for Republican opposition to gay marriage, despite being a closeted gay man himself at the time. (He’s proud, however, of his role in calling attention to the story that Mitt Romney more than once drove 12 hours with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car.) Comparing the “brainteasers I was playing with my closeted self” to the mental gymnastics of mainstream Republicans who hopped on the Trump bandwagon, Miller also documents the “informal working relationship” he developed with Breitbart cofounder Steve Bannon, despite their “deeply conflicting values and big-picture objectives,” and examines the forces—including House Speaker Paul Ryan’s departure—that pushed congresswoman Elise Stefanik to “take the red pill and open her mind to the great MAGA future.” Witty prose, colorful anecdotes, and copious insider details make this a worthwhile dissection of how Republican “Never Trumpers” got pushed aside.

    • Kirkus

      June 1, 2022
      A former GOP operative explores possible reasons why so many of his peers fell for Trumpism. "Why in the fuck did the vast, vast, vast majority of seemingly normal, decent people whom I worked with go along with the most abnormal, indecent of men? And why hadn't I seen it coming?" So wonders Miller, a communications whiz who locates the demise of the reasonable Republican Party of old in several key events of the last two decades. One was John McCain's acceding to cynicism in adding Sarah Palin to the ticket--but more, when he pandered to the tea party mob with demands to end immigration from Mexico with his "complete the danged fence" rhetoric, "a nakedly halfhearted version of the Build. The. Wall. chant that was to come." Numerous other stomach-churning turning points figure in the triumph of Trumpism, aided and abetted by an array of actors: the "LOL Nothing Matters Republicans" who "had decided that if someone like Trump could win, then everything that everyone does in politics is meaningless"; the "Tribalist Trolls" who demanded that nationalist ideas take center stage; and the "Inert Team Players" who couldn't imagine doing anything apart from being loyal Republicans, so much so that "the idea of being anything besides that is inconceivable." There were also countless self-serving, self-dealing players who attached themselves to Trump in the hope of taking a share of the big grift. While delivering a carefully argued account of how things went awry, Miller is unsparing in his descriptions of latter-day GOP figures such as Elise Stefanik, who "made a conscious choice to go all-in with her own personal Voldemort because she came to recognize that her popularity, fundraising, and ability to rise within the party would benefit"; and Corey Lewandowski, "a shriveled skin-flute-looking man with no appreciable skills outside of recognizing the popularity of unrestrained Trumpism." At once sobering and entertaining, a eulogy for a GOP run amok.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading