Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell

by Tim Miller, Josh Bloomberg (Narrator)

Former Republican political operative Tim Miller admits what no one else on the right ever will: they all encouraged the madness that has overtaken the party. The Trumpification of the American right was the inevitable result of a series of decisions made by people like Tim Miller over the past decade.

In a book that is part memoir, part anatomy of the Republican enablers, Tim Miller delivers the most honest insider assessment of the mindset of those who contributed to Trump's rise that has been delivered to date. Featuring astonishingly raw and candid interviews with former colleagues and friends who jumped on the Trump Train, he finally answers the question of why so many who knew better went along with the madness.

When mainstream Republicans teamed up with Steve Bannon and Breitbart or implied Hillary committed murder or asked questions about Obama's birth certificate, they told themselves they were just playing "the game" but deep down they knew they were feeding the very mob that has now tried to upend our democracy.

Churchill's famous statement about international diplomacy is applicable to the modern GOP as well: "Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured." Politicians and pundits know they get their power from whipping their base into a frenzy, assuming someone else would bear the brunt of their anger. But the Republican establishment were the ones who ended up getting eaten.

In this hard-hitting critique, Miller wryly recounts the key moments that he and others--colleagues like Reince Priebus and Lindsay Graham--decided it was fine to encourage the Obama-birth-certificate and Clinton "Kill List" crowd as long as it was good for the team.

The MSNBC contributor, Rolling Stone writer, and one of the strategists behind the famous 2012 RNC "autopsy" 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. Miller warns that Republicans will continue to make the same choices and political calculations, with disastrous consequences for the nation, until his former friends are shaken from their self-deception and stop playing the dangerous games with our democracy that brought us to the brink.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Audiobook, American History, Biography

288 pages, Audible Audio

First published June 28, 2022

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 In reading books like these I'm trying to get a understanding of how our country came to be where it is today. A country that seems hellbent on throwing our hard won democracy away, while in the Ukraine they are fighting and dying to hold on to theirs. Tim Miller was an insider who worked on various campaigns, a challenge, a game of one upmanship, until Trump. There he drew the line and in this book he explains why he did while so many did not. People he worked with, friends who saw the threat Trump posed, but still were drawn into supporting a man many knew was unfit and a detriment to this country.

He explains them by type, uses specific names and shows how these people became complicit, many who still are. Power, self delusion,wanting to be an insider, so many reasons, so many who knew and know better. Chris Christie, Elise Stefanik and others who continue to play a game with our very lives, makes me so angry, helpless and very afraid of what will be left of our country. If those in power won't speak the truth. When the quest for power embraces the lies, runs on hate and makes the extremes the normal, where do we go from here?

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trump is a psychotic monster. The author gets that and says that.

The author speaks of three phases he went through. First, he saw politics as a game to manipulate the rubes and mislead with half- truths but most of all to get your blood riled up and click on Facebook memes and send five dollars to his preferred candidates and make you feel better because of the hate he was giving you.

Then the second phase starts with John McCain who picked Sarah Palin. She marks the turning point when the stupid became real. She believed the non-sense she was spouting. “I’ve read about him, I can’t trust Obama, he’s an Arab”, Palin’s superfans would say as if Arabs and Muslims are one and the same, but when it comes to hate reason need not apply.

The comment sections of World Net Daily, Breitbart News or the Wall Street Journal reflected who they really were, not the stories contained in the articles, but the raw hate, fear and uncertainty that they espoused in their comments and believe with their hearts not their heads. As Miller notes, Birtherism was perfect for Trump. It is racist to its core and it was within the fevered swampland of all comment sections.

They shout ‘stop thinking and follow me’, they are all in on the joke while thinking that everyone else is the real rube and not them, because they know that Trump is saying what they feel. Trump is the psychotic monster and they are too, because it makes them feel good, they like the hate and they want to thrash anyone that is not them.

Just say the words “Kamala Harris”, around a Republican. You’ll see them physically shake with anger and they’ll mumble something about her policies or beliefs or ‘thank you Brandon’, or ‘they are teaching our children CRT (critical race theory)’. Read the comment sections on their sites, they hate without restriction. That is who they are.

Tolerance is not a suicide pact. We don’t have to be tolerant of fascists who want to destroy democracy and only support equality for their privileged group. We are close to losing the republic and they honestly believe the election was not a fair and free election because they feel Democrats cheat. Trump tells them how to think and they tell Trump how to think. The mob is not possessed by a demon they are a demon and are entwined with Trump. Democracy is at stake.

The third phase the author shows is how the enablers convinced themselves that Trump is for the best. They can’t quit Trump because they love him so. He makes them feel good with the hate he engenders. Trump is a psychotic monster and they are pathological. Trump makes them feel good about themselves and his deplorables love him all the more for it. Trump is not unique. He is not a Svengali. They love the hate, the fear, the uncertainty and the doubt that he sows. The mob creates him and they are the mob. Palin had that ability too. Re-watch ‘Game Changer’, most Republicans will see Palin as the hero, not the foe.

There is one story that Miller says that I want to repeat. Steve Schmidt foisted Palin on McCain and that’s not the worst of it, he was more than willing to support Mr. Starbucks (Howard Schultz) for president even if the most likely result was to siphon votes from Biden and re-elect Trump in the process. Miller said wisely that Schmidt would have created generational wealth for Schmidt and in the process destroyed the country. I like Schmidt as much as the next person because he articulates my dislike against Trump and his fascism better than almost anyone, but I realize that he can’t be trusted.

It is not a game I want to participate in. The New York Times sees the politics as a game. It is not. The headline two days ago (6/2022) ‘Supreme Court hands Biden a loss on EPA ruling’. My god, it is not politics, the country was handed a loss on dealing with pollution. It is not a game! The election was a fair and free election and Trump tried to instigate a violent overthrow of the country. It is not a game. Democracy is at stake. Call Trump the psychotic monster that he is and every single person that supports him for the danger that they are enabling. Miller gets it and definitely is warning us against what is currently happening.


I almost universally hate books written explaining the evil that Trump is because they miss the real story. Miller’s book is a pleasant counter to that genre of books. Democracy might not survive and Trump is a special threat because he is a psychotic monster and Miller does a good job at explaining how dangerous Trump is and the pernicious game that is being played at our expense.

[Graeme Newell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I’ve always been fascinated—and frankly, a little unnerved—by the mental gymnastics people use to justify doing truly terrible things. Political operatives are particularly intriguing to me because their actions often have far-reaching, devastating consequences, yet they rarely see themselves as villains.

No one wakes up in the morning thinking, “Yeah, I’m just so darned excited to do some voter suppression today!” Instead, they convince themselves they’re the good guys, that their actions—however shady or destructive—are all in service of some noble greater good. It’s this mindset, this slippery slope, that Tim Miller explores with brutal honesty.

Miller, a former Republican political operative turned outspoken critic of the modern GOP, knows this world intimately. He doesn’t pull any punches in this book. It’s part memoir, part confessional, and part scathing indictment of the culture of rationalization that permeates no-holds-barred political power games. For anyone who’s ever wondered how seemingly decent people end up enabling the worst of humanity, this book offers some eye-opening, albeit unsettling, insights.

The Good

First off, Miller’s voice is refreshingly candid. He doesn’t pretend to be a saint who suddenly saw the light. Instead, he owns up to his role in the machine, explaining how he justified his actions to himself at the time. This kind of honesty is rare, and it makes the book feel raw and real. Miller doesn’t sugarcoat the damage done by his choices, nor does he try to distance himself from the people he now criticizes. He was one of them, and he freely admits it.

One of the most compelling parts of the book is how Miller unpacks the slippery slope of justification. He explains how small compromises—things that feel almost inconsequential at the time—can lead to full-blown moral decay. You don’t start out saying, “Let’s rig elections” or “Let’s spread lies that undermine democracy.” You start by telling yourself that bending the truth a little is necessary to beat the other side, which you’ve convinced yourself is worse. From there, it’s a steady descent into justifying anything, as long as it serves the ultimate goal. It’s chilling and fascinating to see this process laid bare.

Miller also shines when he digs into the culture of fear and tribalism that fuels so much of modern politics. The idea that “if we don’t do it, they will, and they’ll be even worse” is pervasive, and Miller captures how intoxicating that mindset can be. It’s not just about winning; it’s about survival. And once you’ve framed your actions as necessary for survival, almost anything, even reprehensible stuff, becomes not just justified, but a righteous crusade.

This powerful dystopian mindset is the genesis of behaviors like genocide and ethnic cleansing. The thinking goes something like this: great evil is temporarily required so that great virtue will prevail. Sure terrible tactics are required right now, but the central tenets of our beliefs are good. Evil that brings about a final good is just how the game must be played. Don’t be naive. Spare us your self-indulgent righteousness. Be a dutiful soldier and join us down here in the mud. I understand it’s difficult to do such terrible things, but this is the only way our virtuous cause can prevail.

Another strength of the book is Miller’s ability to weave personal anecdotes with broader commentary. His stories about his time working for prominent political figures are equal parts shocking and illuminating. They give you a front-row seat to the compromises and rationalizations that define political life.

The Not-So-Good

While Miller’s honesty is one of the book’s biggest strengths, it’s also a bit of a double-edged sword. At times, his tone can come off as self-serving, as if he’s trying a little too hard to distance himself from the people he once worked with. Yes, he acknowledges his complicity, but there’s a sense that he wants us to see him as “one of the good ones” now. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it does make some parts of the book feel less authentic.

Another issue is that the book sometimes feels repetitive. Miller hammers home the same points about rationalization and tribalism multiple times, sometimes without adding much new to the conversation. I found myself nodding along at first, but by the third or fourth iteration, I was ready to move on. A tighter edit might have helped.

I also wish Miller had dug deeper into the broader systemic issues that enable this culture of justification. He focuses heavily on individual choices and motivations, which is important, but it feels like he’s letting the larger system off the hook a bit. Political operatives don’t operate in a vacuum; they’re part of a machine that rewards bad behavior. It would have been interesting to see Miller explore how that machine could be reformed—or if it even can be.

Ultimately, this book is a thought-provoking read that pulls back the curtain on the disturbing world of political operatives and the moral compromises they make. It’s not always an easy book to read—it’s uncomfortable to confront the reality of how easily we can justify terrible things—but it’s still an important one.

This book is a sobering reminder that the line between good and evil is much thinner than we’d like to believe — and that we’re all capable of crossing it when the stakes feel high enough.

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will write more later, but for now I'll simply say: This is the book I've been searching for, all these years of reading books by Republicans and trying to understand what is happening to this country! Kudos to Tim Miller for coming clean and finally saying the quiet part out loud. Without a doubt, this will be one of the best books I read this year.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is well worth reading if you want to see how sick and conflicted and messed up in the head are the young people who chose to work for the treasonous sociopath who was allowed to occupy the White House prior to President Biden. However, for a better overview of how corrupt and evil the Republican party has been for many decades, I recommend Stuart Stevens's book, It Was All a Lie.

Tim Miller is a millennial, so his experience with the party is fairly short and recent. Stuart Stevens is at least twenty years older, and spent decades working to help Republicans get elected, thinking he was promoting a specific set of values and policy ideas. He discovered IT WAS ALL A LIE, and takes full responsibility for helping to advance the greedy, power-hungry monster that is now openly anti-democracy and pro-violence.

[Fullmetalfisting · Rating 1 out of 5]

It takes either a tremendous amount of balls or a tremendous lack of self-awareness to quote James Baldwin in the forward of your book about how you were instrumental in the “trumpification” of America.

[David Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, it was good, maybe even pretty good.

I suppose the best thing is when he focuses on his former good friend and previously like minded poltico, “Caroline". He really presses her and tries to dig out WHY she went for Trump…ALL IN for Trump.

The answer isn’t clear, but the part that surprised him was her anger. Anger at liberals, the media , Democrats…really just anybody not in with Trump.

It reminded me of the psychologist Scott Atran who (among others) says there is a part of the brain that holds “sacred values” once that part of the brain is tied to a thought, it is really UN-movable, especially not affected by logic or inconsistencies in that belief. THAT is what TRUMP is and of course there is much more too it.

In my unwritten book I say such “sacred values” are something people yearn for in order to bring certainty to a demonstrably UN-certain world. In fact, the ludicrousness of the belief forces a sort of “in for a penny in for a pound” way of living. So not only are these believers not swayed by argument and evidence, the double down, triple down, all in glee at “sticking it to them”, the libs or whomever.

Well, that is me, now back to Tim…

Later in the book he touches on the tripling down thing…

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian who studies strongmen, wrote, “The authoritarian playbook has no chapter on defeat.” Acknowledging weakness pops the bubble of disreality. It can’t be accepted or broached. Caroline, with her Trump family friendships, understands the rules of omertà. - Location: 3,449

He does an honest job of describing his past and you feel he feels bad about most of his contribution to the degradation of the Republican party. But I get the feeling he really liked the jousting between sides with each using slightly dubious oppo research…but still going out for a drink with the other side at the end of the day.

[BTW the dude sounds like he can really hold his liquor, so don’t get in a drinking contest with him]

For my notes here is his taxonomy of enablers and hangers on

Messiahs and Junior Messiahs
Demonizers
LOL Nothing Matters Republicans
Tribalist Trolls
Strivers
Little Mixes
Peter Principle Disprovers
Nerd Revengers
The Inert Team Players
The Compartmentalizers
Cartel Cashers
- Location: 1,783

He has examples of each group and it make sense. But really it is just one way to look at people and why they do things. There are probably a thousand other ways to describe what type of people go for Trump, or any nut job really. Still, it is as good a way as any I suppose so nevermind.
The guy has an easy jazzy style and a deep vocabulary ( addendum of words I didn’t know at the end) so it was fun to ready and savor some of the phrasing with a “bit” of an edge, like…

Consider Chris Christie: a Little Mix and Team Player and Junior Messiah all wrapped up in Costco Club packaging. Christie is a Churchill in his own mind but was turned by Trump into a sniveling church mouse. - Location: 1,940

Were it not for one Joe Farah, the future birther-in-chief might never have discovered the issue that engendered a romance between rank-and-file evangelical Christians and a potty-mouthed, thrice-married adulterer who overcompensated for his tiny hands and aspic belly by periodically assaulting buxom blondes. - Location: 2,830

Most critically, birtherism allowed Trump to separate himself from all the other patsy pols who were just too weak to fabricate a xenophobic conspiracy against a political rival.
- Location: 2,838

Vice presidents have no actual duties besides being truckling toadies to their boss and no vice president in history truckled harder than toady Pence. - Location: 2,998

Although some of them require a quick Google assist to translate,

He was no more porangi than half the other jabronis walking around the West Wing - Location: 2,983

And it ends at the right spot but somehow I kind of feel the last line was one he wrote early on, because his story seems like it was heading to this conclusion from the start.

The road that brought us to this place was long. It seems as if it might just go on forever. - Location: 3,606

Addendum:
Words I didn’t know
asperity
diaphoresis
snaffling
stalking horse
hamartia
whinge
chundering
ephebophile
anemoia
sybaritic
asperous

Cultural references I had to Google
Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life
Finkle is Einhorn, Einhorn is Finkle. ( I SHOULD have recognized this one)
I wanted to be the Sean Maguire to her Will Hunting
He was no more porangi than half the other jabronis

[Steven M Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yeah, I read it, found it impossible to put down, found it insightful in places, but ultimately lacking in any real political understanding. I wanted to take Miller by the scruff of the neck and force him to answer all of my questions that he never got around to answering.

Questions like -

"Why were you a Republican in the first place? You think Trump lied to the people but Reagan, Bush I and II, Dick Cheney, etc. were honorable men? To me, it seems that the GOP has been engaged for the past fifty years in a largely successful effort to sell crap to the American people - like deindustrialization will be good for you (ok, Dems share in the blame on this one). Like climate change is a myth. Like pollution means jobs. And on and on. But you thought this an honorable place to be. Like rolling back the Voting Rights Act, piece by piece, all to maintain the rule of corporations and the rich - ALEC, etc. Yeah, John McCain had his moments of integrity, but think of all the Maverick went along with. A relatively thin hook IMHO to hang your integrity hat on. A book about politics that says nothing about the political stances of the two parties."

"What made you unlike so many of your cohort, able to break free? I suppose it was partly your being a gay man in an anti-gay party that set that ball rolling, but you don't really ruminate on that." That would be useful information.

My own views are that we Democrats are too high-minded for our own good. It bothers me no end that the most incisive critiques of Trump in 2020 came from the Lincoln Project, or that the most knife-thrusting prosecutor on the Jan 6 committee is Liz Cheney. Since Biden was elected we seem totally unable to motivate our own voters, at least until the Dobbs decision. We based our entire strategy on passing good legislation, a strategy that had no chance of success since we had nothing but nominal control (and that by a hair) of Congress. The right move would have been a vigorous effort to drive wedges between Republicans and Trump, to say to them "your party left you" as Nixon and Reagan did to us so long ago.

I had hoped for Miller's take on such strategery questions, but that's not what this book was about.

On the plus side, some of his dishes are epic and worth the price of the book. But ultimately, it's on the shallow side. Partly good gossip but ultimately still too much of the "rancid remnants of Reaganism."

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate horse race political reporting but will still sometimes watch Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of the PBS NewsHour, disturbed by the gleam in their eyes, the happy smiles, as if they are kids on Christmas morning rather than journalists describing the collapse of democracy. What is inside these people? Are there values in there? Nicolle Wallace, liberal MSNBC host, anti-Trump democracy defender, was once George W. Bush's communications director, where she defended such policies as waterboarding detainees. Who is the real Nicolle Wallace? I suspect it's just an empty shell, willing to be filled with whatever (dollar bills, future employment prospects).

Miller, a former Republican operative and PR flack, pulls back the curtain to reveal that there is no moral core to the political class. Whether they are "journalists, campaign hands, politicans," they are all "rented professionals, doing a job". Most of them are junkies, addicted to the "game," the drama, the high. Ted Cruz, who forgave Trump for implying his wife was ugly, and Matt Gaetz (he in the past tense now) "aspire to be multiplatform entertainers more than they care about governing." Chris Christie was used and abused, made into the Trump "family's personal gimp," playing the role of Biden for debate prep in 2020 until Trump gave him Covid and sent him to the ICU for several days where he nearly died.

Many of those who voted for Trump were duped and manipulated. The same can't be said of the political class: they watched the Trump sausage being made up close and still wanted to serve it and eat it.

Miller creates a taxonomy of those who supported Trump, whether all along, or after their preferred candidates (or they themselves) had withered away during the 2016 campaign. (The book was published in 2022 so it covers the January 6th Insurrection and doesn't foresee Trump's third run.) Some do it for the big money (millions in consulting contracts), some from sheer ambition and striving (Elise Stefanik, who started out as a moderate Republican), some for the proximity to power (Lindsey Graham, once a Trump loather). Some rationalize that they will be the adults in the room, steering Trump away from his basest instincts. If they don't take that Trump White House position, some actual crazy QAnon nutjob will. Some don't have any special fondness for Trump but are repulsed by Democrats, "wokeness," Priuses, and plastic-straw-shaming.

This all sounds perfectly obvious, but the book is much better than I was expecting. Miller is genuinely insightful and he personally knew (to some degree) everyone he writes about. The bottom line is that humans are irrational and humanity is endlessly disappointing. This is essentially a work of anthropology with tales and critiques that are unspooled perhaps with a few too many quips, but engagingly. 3.5 stars.

[Dennis McCrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Miller. Look up his bio but he has a long history of working in Republican candidate campaigns as a press secretary and senior campaign advisor for the McCain, Huntsman, Romney, and Jeb Bush campaigns, until 2016 when he simply couldn’t support Trump. Since then he has been an ardent anti-Trumper.

This book is a current rendition of how the GOP arrived to the point it is today, very much a political party that past conservative icons such as Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, Cheney, McCain, Romney, etc. would not recognize nor support.

For me it is the culmination of the last 70 plus years of the GOP’s gradual capitulation to McCarthyism, Goldwaterism, John Bircherism, Nixon and the Southern Strategy, Reagan and White Christian Nationalism and the use of Dog Whistles, Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich and The Contract With America, Bush II and Karl Rove, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party movement…do I need to go on?

2 similar books that I’ve either read of read extensively about cover a similar theme where there is very little ethics demonstrated by those vying and supporting the Republican/conservative cause: ‘Killing the Messenger’ (2016), by David Brock (How the Republican/conservative establishment worked for years, using very questionable tactics, to taint the public persona of Hillary Rodham Clinton) and ‘Rat F**cked’ by David Daley (2016).

Most revealing (and discouraging) for me was Miller revealing the mindset of those who continue to this day supporting Trump/Trumpism. I couldn’t help but think as I read these stories of the Old Testament warning to not sell one’s values and integrity for a pot of porridge.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A funny, profane, and often insightful memoir-ish book from Tim Miller, a vehement anti-Trumper who worked on a variety of GOP campaigns in the 2000s and 2010s. Miller is a pretty moderate Republican (in fact, it is often hard to see what makes him remotely conservative) and a gay man (not all that uncommon in GOP campaign worker circles). He's a true political addict and creature of the swamp, but he had the personal character and moral fortitude to separate himself from Trumpism and then become one of its strongest public critics.

The first third of the book is a political memoir, and the rest of it is a series of profiles of different GOP pols who mostly ended up siding with Trump and serving his ends. Miller is brilliant at unpacking the rationalizations, excuses, and mental mechanisms these people used to justify their actions: compartmentalization (as a gay man working for the GOP, Miller was good at this), declaring that the Left or Clinton or whoever is worse, having no other identity or social circle to fall back on besides being a Republican, being stuck in the conservative media echo-chamber, the "junior Messiah complex" in which you convince yourself that whoever would fill your role would probably be even worse so you might as well serve the administration, the "adults in the room" theorem in which you say "well I'm a responsible adult who can restrain the crazy," wanting to be "in the game" politically speaking, wanting to be important, money, and just pure ambition. A lot of this just comes down to character, intelligence, and self-understanding: can you recognize a scam when you see it? Would you tolerate this behavior coming from the Left? Are you only looking at the evidence you want to see?

What makes Miller special as a narrator is that he knows all of these people and has now broken away from most of them, but he also has indulged in almost all of these rationalizations at one point or another. He's also not really a liberal, so it's not a liberal critique that just confirms all of my personal biases. He makes a great point that people like him (and Jeb, Romney, McCain, etc) long thought that they could run an essentially sane party with an increasingly insane base and media as long as they threw the crazies a bone here and there (kind of a macro-version of the "adults in the room" theorem). In one great metaphor, they believed they could put forward a balanced diet with occasional bursts of sugar. What was really happening is that a very DC or big city-centric, well educated, often socially moderate party elite was becoming disconnected from an increasingly angry base. Trump sniffed out that disjunct and exploited it to the hilt. It was candy for dinner every night, a full-on plunge into conspiracy, magical thinking, rage politics, nihilism, and every other bad ism you can think of. Once he took over and proved he could win and "fight," the vast majority of the establishment got on board.

There is one area that I disagree with Miller. While I absolutely loathe Trump, it is not insane for conservatives to vote for him. No other Republican would have stood a chance in 2016 or 2020. They had tried the more moderate route in 08 and 12 and been crushed. What Trump brought to the table was the ability to get people who think that all politics is B.S. to actually care about politics and to show up and vote. Without tapping into that element, the GOP was screwed. Sorry to the authors of the 2013 GOP autopsy (Miller was one of them), but warmed-over centrism wasn't going to fire up the base. Plus, voting for Trump got conservatives of all kinds a bunch of legislation they wanted, a non-stop triggering of the libs, and domination of the Supreme Court that will last decades and has already had huge returns such as the Dobbs case. This is something the anti-Trump movement (everyone from the Lincoln Project to the Democratic Party) needs to grapple with in a way they haven't so far: if Trump or Trumpism is (seemingly) the only way to win, and winning has high stakes, then why should people of conservative leanings not pinch their noses and vote for him, or just embrace the stink altogether? This is a great book for the political junkie type, but I would love to hear Miller's answer to that question.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first heard of this book I thought, "No way, I'm not reading this," but then I did read it and found it hard to put down (as well as finely-written and genuinely witty). People had said it was depressing, but already knowing full well how truly horrible the GOP is, I found Miller's insights on why and how the party has transmogrified into sheer pathology piercing food for thought. Miller used to be a Republican and knows that world all too well (and he does the requisite self-flagellating & apologizing here—as well he should!). Of all the anti-Trump books out there this one is truly worth your time.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miller's authorial voice is SAVAGE, and as such might turn off some readers, but I also don't think he's wrong about his level of rage at insurrection and the attempt to destroy our democracy. This is an autopsy of the Republican rationalizations for being involved in this, and continuing to vote for it. Unfortunately, even after the midterms, this rationalization is not dead yet.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

A shallow and cynical book about an equally shallow and cynical group: Republicans who allowed Trump to take over their party. Miller merely tells us what we already know: political operatives don’t care about policy, politicians, the average American, or even winning; they only care about the thrill of the game, personal success, and advancing their careers. They can do so attached to a politician who shares their values or one who is repugnant and even works against their own self interest. It doesn’t matter, because facts and truth don’t matter. This is why a compulsive liar game show host could take over the party: he was the Golem version of Republican ops. As Miller writes, “show matters more than facts.” To them, it’s all a game. Literally. They call it “the Game.”

And so once you understand that Miller isn’t telling you anything you don't already know – that Republicans place personal career, the thrill of the game, and monetary goals over morality, even if it means working against their own interest – then we are just left with a book relating repulsive anecdotes from a sleazy political op bragging about his wins and rationalizing why he did it. Miller's job was to read the room, dig up dirt, and tell people what they wanted to hear. That's all he's doing here, except his buyers are now never-Trumpers and liberals. He sold lies for a living, and then acted shocked when the base believed those lies. And now we're supposed to feel he is noble because he didn't pretend to believe his own lies, like his cohorts on the right? Ridiculous.

And what did I learn about “why they did it” from reading this book? Absolutely nothing. I already knew all this. Ironically, Miller wrote the book for the same reason his fellow Republicans latched onto Trump: for a quick buck, to advance his career, to sow seeds for future influencers, and because it’s part of the Game. He might claim that he has "seen the light" and avoided the Trump sewer. But there is no light. And it's all sewer.

James Carville (the liberal version of this type of thinking) wrote a blurb on the back claiming that after reading this book, he now has greater insight into why Republicans went along with Trump. That is the same type of bullshit the book supposedly reveals, while simultaneously peddling. Carville didn't learn new insights here any more than I did. It's just Carville playing the Game – writing a blurb for a frenemy who might do something for him later. There is nothing new or revelatory here. Just a cynical political op playing another angle to sell books and boost his career. I’m glad I borrowed it from the library so I didn’t give this repulsive guy any money.

[Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Russell Sanders · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had high hopes for Tim Miller’s Why We Did It. Subtitled A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell, I expected—as promised by promotional materials I’d seen—a witty examination of the Trump presidential debacle. After all, Miller, a communications expert for political campaigns, spent his time on the peripheries of the Trump campaign and subsequent presidential term. Adding to that is the fact the promos promised the unique viewpoint of a gay man working in Republican circles. And yet, Miller’s being gay doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the tales he imparts. As for the book being one I would enjoy, I was wrong. I found the book tedious and not witty much at all. Miller relies much too heavily on extended metaphors to make his points, so heavily I often got bogged down forgetting who or what he was talking about and often not even understanding his metaphors. I found my mind wandering. I love classic literature, I’ve taught literature, I’m a writer myself, so I feel like I have some small bit of intelligence, but much of Miller’s writing flew right over my head. He is prone to use words, both real and I suspect of his own invention, I have rarely encountered and have no clue of their meanings. For someone who is producing a book he, I assume, wants to sell zillions of copies of and spread his message to the world, I fear he limits his audience by trotting out the big words. Miller has made his career as a writer, and yet, this book doesn’t show it. I fully admit I’m not politically savvy. Many of the people mentioned in the book were either unknown to me or just names I knew. That made it difficult for me to follow Miller’s narrative when he chose to dub them by his supposedly witty metaphorical nicknames. I simply think this book doesn’t accomplish its purpose—that is if I even understand what Miller’s purpose is. Finally, I was annoyed by a sentence construction Miller uses two or three times on each page. It involves the word “that.” Judge Judy famously says the word “like” is a filler word, as it is, but the over-usage of “that” constitutes using a filler word that becomes extremely annoying and detracts from the message. Example: “I had just come out of the closet and felt alienated from the party that I feared was getting too extreme.” Remove “that” and what’s left is “I had just come out of the closet and felt alienated from the party I feared was getting too extreme.” Another example: “Even his biggest apologies admitted that the best way to get him to do the right thing was to prey on his insecurities.” Take away “that,” and you’re left with “Even his biggest apologies admitted the best way to get him to do the right thing was to prey on his insecurities.” These two examples (and most of the others) are far more elegant without the offending “that.” And I submit that almost every sentence constructed this way can lose the filler word and be a better sentence. In fact, as I read Miller’s book, I found myself silently skipping the filler word, and I was a much happier reader.

[Steve Peifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you wonder why formerly respectable Republicans abandoned their principles to slavishly follow Trump, this is the book you are looking for. It’s brutally honest and he spares no one, including himself.

It’s also a touching and insightful portrait of a man coming to terms with his own sexuality. I didn’t expect to be so moved, but it is one of the highlights of the book.

[Sandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Miller is a gifted writer and makes the horrifying and devastating actually kind of hilarious.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy Moley! What a story this is! Life with Republicans is even worse than I thought it could be.

Tim Miller is a GOP insider who knows just how much misinformation and disinformation the political communicators throw at us. What’s worse is that they really read the comments to articles their idiocy instigates and then create new spins directed at those with the most outlandish thoughts.

Miller also analyzes the reasons why other normal Republicans went to work for Trump. None of their motives were ideological. They either were looking for money, power, or just the chance to stay in the game.

I think it’s important to read material from people on the “other side” just so you know what you’re up against. I read this, but I feel dirty.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Chapter after chapter of people who sold out their values for the sake of their careers.

[Bob Peason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Awful. The fact that our political system is guided by a load of noxious individuals with no moral compass is established in the first 60 pages. The rest is just repetition.

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Avoid - no real insights to be had. Lots of racism & self serving witty banter tho.

[Shilo Parcel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's reassuring to hear someone finally acknowledging what many of us have known for a long time. However, this guy chose to speak out after the damages had already occurred, seemingly to avoid being remembered on the wrong side of history. It's worth noting that he is a gay man who continued to support trump until it directly impacted him. It was only then that he chose to take a stand. While it's commendable that he's now speaking the truth, there is still much more that should be done beyond writing a book for personal gain.

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently read Liz Cheney’s January 6th memoir OATH & HONOR in part because I hoped it would give me some insight into the way Republicans think—that is, I hoped it would help me understand how they deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes with being in league with, if not actively in support of, true evil. How do they justify it to themselves? How do they sleep at night? Cheney’s book took pains to cast her in a heroic role, though; she bravely stood up to her comrades by naming the Trump-led terrorist attack what it was while they, to a one, queued up to defend an enemy of America. At no point in her book does Cheney wrestle with how she got here in the first place: why is she part of a party which produces racist, seditionist, conspiracy theorist, immoral loons to begin with? What does it say about her that she finds herself aligned with these types of people? And how does she justify supporting Trump throughout his quote-unquote “Presidency”—does she not, at least now, recognize that it was wrong all along? Cheney doesn’t touch on any of these questions. In fact, she barely gives any explanation of what her political beliefs are, save for a couple of references to concerns about Democratic climate policies resulting in job loss within her home state of Wyoming. I was frustrated and disappointed by how shallow the book was on this front.

Discussing these feelings later with a friend, he recommended WHY WE DID IT by Tim Miller as potentially being more in line with what I was seeking. The title alone seemed to underscore the difference between Cheney’s and Miller’s approaches: “Why WE did it” takes far more personal accountability than “Oath & Honor”, which admits to no mistakes. To get straight to the meat of it, though, Miller was a political operative who worked PR for various Republican campaigns. His story is therefore about the mindset of some of the people in Washington, D.C., and what caused them to compromise their integrity to defend Trump’s criminal enterprise. The answer is mostly a lust for power. While there is no doubt a fair bit of truth to this, it still feels to me that Miller doesn’t dig quite as deep as I was hoping he would.

He begins the book deep in his Republican campaign strategist heyday, including his work on the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign. Miller is a proud “RINO”, in that he is fully aware that he takes a more moderate position on many issues than others in his party, and his enthusiasm for McCain’s candidacy is written about in abstract, generic terms: he “spoke to one of the core reasons I became a Republican in the first place, the belief that America was a special, essential nation. That we were different. That we had a noble and necessary role to play in the world that we had to live up to.” But then, he talks about McCain’s support for a type of amnesty for undocumented Americans and the many angry calls he and other staffers had to field from irate Republicans, including one who memorably said that “illegals” should be shipped to Mexico in freight cars and if some died along the way, so be it. Throughout this first part of the book, I kept wanting to take the author by the shoulders and ask, “Why are you a part of this party at all?”

More telling still, he describes an incident where McCain, during a television interview in Iowa, says that gay couples should be allowed to have a private wedding ceremony. During a commercial break, an aide ran up to warn him that it sounded like he was supporting marriage equality, so when the program returned to the air, McCain took pains to clarify that gay couples should not be permitted to be legally married, just that they should be able to have an imitation marriage. At the time, Miller—who is gay, by the way—didn’t think about his personal feelings but was instead upset that McCain had made the “gaffe” in the first place, as “Iowa is a conservative place, and in order to win the caucus there, that’s not really a tenable position.” Once again, I was left wondering why, if “conservative” necessarily equates to anti-gay, Miller (or McCain, for that matter) was aligned with these slimeballs to begin with. To his credit, Miller does now have a greater appreciation for how fucked up the situation was:

“The point is that my internalized contortions on this are a case study in how a person can convince themselves to make allowances for actions by the politicians they work for even if they are directly harmful to them. In my case, it was even worse—I was actively rooting for my candidate to be more skilled at taking positions that would deny me the most fulfilling and important parts of my current life—my now husband and child. If it’s that easy to jettison something that directly impacts you, imagine how little willpower it takes to not worry yourself with matters that are going to only impact others. Or even more ephemerally, to block out things that may or may not impact others at some later date. Like, say, ‘mean tweets’ or pretending an election was stolen to humor the President for a little while.”

Nevertheless, for a long stretch of the book, it seemed to me that Miller’s answer to why he and others like him engaged in this was simply because of the adrenaline rush that comes from being involved, if only tangentially, in national politics. He describes the thrill of knowing your invisible hand is guiding the national conversation as being akin to getting a “like” on Facebook times a million. That answer doesn’t really address why he would be in league with people whose political values were so contrary to what he knew in his heart was right. Later, he does try to give a more nuanced take on why some remained committed to Republicanism in spite of recognizing the danger of its fealty to Trump: “Shedding an ingrained identity that others use to define you takes courage, even if that identity is toxic and self-destructive . . . Throw on top of that the fact that . . . they still opposed tax hikes and abortion and you can see why people were reluctant to cut bait.” He also describes many who supported Trump who “live in liberal bubbles and find their neighbors’ excesses grating. They are sick of being told what they should and shouldn’t say and do. They are embittered that the media is always being unfair to them. They are tired of diversity requirements that mean they lose out on jobs to ‘people of color’. They blanche at DEI packets being handed out at their kids’ schools. They find the left-wing sanctimony in the prestige-TV shows they watch grating as fuck.” A great many of those who doubled down in favor of Trump are motivated by anger above all else, Miller states. He cites one person who “cut through the clutter with this searing admission: ‘Woke culture has created no other land for you but to support him [Trump] on the one or two things you like, and then you have to countenance all the rest of the bullshit.’”

While I do appreciate Miller trying to answer the question more directly than Liz did, it’s hard not to be irritated with how goddamn stupid the answers are. You decided to sacrifice the country because you opposed “tax hikes”? You’re embittered that the media is unfair to you, while simultaneously whining about diversity initiatives? I appreciate the honesty, I guess, but ultimately all of this comes down to Republicans choosing to go along with what they know to be wrong because they don’t like being told they are wrong. It feels like I’m never going to get a satisfactory answer to why people are Republicans because the answers they have are not satisfactory. It’s not that they were persuaded by any philosophical positions of the party, but that they are linked by their resentments and imagined aggrievances.

So, while Miller does come closer than Cheney does—a lot closer in some ways (“I was making all the same mistakes that had gotten me and the party in trouble in the first place. I was compartmentalizing my bad actions and only focusing on the positives. I was not acting with the integrity I was demanding of others. I wasn’t taking the ramifications of my work seriously, but rather was cashing checks and acting as if it was all part of some big game devoid of real-world consequences.”)—I think ultimately what I’m looking for is a complete apology. Not “January 6 was wrong, but everything else the Republican party does is right”; not “a lot of what the Republican party stands for is wrong, but it’s understandable that people would be part of it because they feel strongly about abortion”. One particularly revealing section of the book discusses failed attempts to make a right-wing news site which delivers both sensationalist gruel to the base as well as legitimate journalism: “The concept . . . was fundamentally flawed from the start, in the same way that the ‘conservative Atlantic’ and ‘conservative New York Times’ concepts were. They were based on the faulty notion that you could offer race-baiting MAGA propaganda heroin to draw people in and pair it with thoughtful policy-oriented scholarship, serious investigative journalism, or joyful middle of the road memes as the vegetables and then hope that the China White and the nutritious greens could live together on the same plate in harmony.” In this description, Miller, wittingly or unwittingly, admits that “conservative” equates to “race-baiting MAGA propaganda”. Miller seems aware that this is the true nature of “conservatism”, yet remains unwilling to disclaim it fully. (Also, I can’t help but note the euphemistic nature of the phrase “race-baiting”, which really means “racist-baiting”, which in turn really just means “racist”.)

There are times Miller seems to get it, as when he states bluntly that Donald Trump is a snake who has made no attempts to hide that fact and asks in dismay, “Why was he getting through to them [his Republican compatriots]? Why wasn’t I?” Or when he quotes never-Trumper Ben Howe, who says, “Some people just need a tap on the shoulder to change. Others need a slap in the face. Me? I’ve often needed a piano dropped on my head. The piano fell years ago, but I suppose I’m still crawling out from under the wreckage in some ways. I’m better than I have been. And I intend to be better than I am.” I suppose it’s the case that Miller, too, is better than he was, insomuch as he has unequivocally divorced himself from at least the current iteration of the Republican party. But I’m still frustrated because the scope seems too small: he seems to recognize the prevalence of bigotry and anti-intellectualism among the right, but doesn’t quite get to the point of tackling the question of why a party has consolidated around those anti-humanist sentiments or why “RINOs” like him would put themselves in league with those types.

WHY WE DID IT is without a doubt an intriguing document, a look inside the mind of a person starting to come to grips with their role in an egregious horror. It doesn’t go all the way, though, and like Cheney’s book it still has a tinge of self-satisfaction, of the feeling that by stepping off the carousel when he did Miller thinks himself deserving of some plaudits. It takes some responsibility, but not as fully as it ought.

[AC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the second common of Richard Ben Cramer as Carville gushed, but the last third is nonetheless illuminating. Why did they do it. In the final analysis, it is a cult, Miller thinks. And he shows this through his characters and not simply by stating it.

[Dan Connors · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2012 Barack Obama was re-elected to the presidency over a moderate (by today's standards) Republican candidate. After that election, the Republican party conducted what they called an "autopsy" to look at where their brand had lost popularity with normal Americans and what could be done about it. Tim Miller, who took part in that autopsy, lays out some of the recommendations that they came up with including paying more attention to the need of marginalized groups and people of color, while avoiding racist and sexist content that turned people off. Needless to say, the recommendations of that autopsy went unheeded and by 2016 the party went full MAGA, emphasizing white grievance as its path back to power. What happened? How did the "adults" in the room who had formed the backbone of the party for generations give way to the extremist, conspiracy-minded candidates that dominate today? Why We Did It is the story of how it happened.


Tim Miller is a former Republican operative who worked on many Republican political campaigns including Mitt Romney's 2012 run and Jeb Bush's 2016 run. He broke with the Republican party in 2016 over its nomination of Donald Trump and became dismayed at how so many friends and former colleagues rationalized their support of a man many saw as unfit for the presidency. In this book he describes his own journey and interviews several others who are still wrapped up in the MAGA story.


Many people treat their work and personal lives separately, compartmentalizing the ugly parts of their work into a series of rationalizations that allow them to sleep at night. Miller, who is gay, had to compartmentalize his sexual identity while working for a party that routinely bashed gay and lesbian people. His political leanings were admittedly "squishy", as he calls them, but he felt most at home with Republican politicians and campaign workers. Miller had no trouble latching up with moderate Republicans until the party went full MAGA, and now he spends his time lamenting on what went wrong.


The Republican autopsy of 2012 went against many of the sacred cows that the party had built up. Rather than moderate their positions to gain votes, Donald Trump arrived on the scene to make that adjustment seem unnecessary. He supercharged white grievance with coded messages against Mexicans, Muslims, Blacks, Gays, and any other out group that he could use to enrage his base. It worked. This book isn't so much about Trump or his failings, but more about how the people who knew better went along with it anyway. We all have to make similar accommodations to unpleasantness and unfairness in our everyday lives given the imperfect world that surrounds us. The fascinating question that we all have to confront is- how much moral hazard are we willing to go along with to get what we want?



So here is a list of some of the types of enablers that Miller encountered. He names names like Reince Priebus, Lindsay Graham, and Elise Stefanik, but the stories of the mental gymnastics involved are bigger than any one group of people.


1- Messiahs. These were the people who saw themselves as counterweights to Trump's craziness. They worked in the administration hoping to temper some of Trump's worst excesses, and had some success in that. But they never publicly opposed Trump, and their presence only made Trump look more normal.


2- Demonizers. Democrats and Liberals are bad, evil, and out to destroy America. For those who take these beliefs to heart, any behavior, no matter how reprehensible, is justified.


3- LOL nothing matters Republicans. Fatalistic and cynical, these people went about their business believing that everybody is screwed already and nothing they do will change that. Politics is meaningless, so what the hell?


4- Tribalist Trolls. Tribal identity is everything with these people. Anything your tribe does is inherently good, and anything competing tribes do is inherently bad.


5- Strivers. Blind ambition was nothing new during the Trump years, but those who wanted to reach higher office, fame, and power knew they had to cater to the MAGA crowd, Fox News, and the Trump administration.


6- Compartmentalizers. These folks went about their business with blinders on, avoiding the news and tucking bad Trump thoughts deep down in a box in the corner of their brain.


Miller goes into great detail about people that he knew who fell into these strategies and more to get through the Trump years with a clear conscience. Many of the rationales above could apply to any party at any time, including Democrats, but the author focuses on his own disturbing experiences with the Republican party of 2020, which seems to have thrown out many of its previous principles to accommodate a new way of doing things.


I've always hoped that government employees kept the notion of public service as primary, and that politicians in a democracy would remain accountable to the people who vote them in. I'm not so sure this is true anymore. Books like this confirm my suspicions that the entire system has been corrupted by money, extremism, religious dogma, power, fame, and bucketloads of money.


Miller talks about "The Game", an inside joke among political types everywhere that nothing matters except winning. Here is a quote that stuck with me:


"Something you didn't hear much from players in the Game was self-doubt over whether the political tactics they were employing might hurt the people they were purporting to serve. So, the practitioners of politics could easily dismiss moralistic or technical concerns by throwing down their trump card: "It's all part of the Game."

- Policy doesn't actually add up? Who cares, part of the Game

- Attack on your opponent not in good faith? Part of the Game: make them defend it.

- Getting an endorsement from someone popular but repugnant? Game

- Raising money from people you suspect to be corrupt? Game.

- Spam emailing supporters with hysterical messages about how their five dollars are needed to prevent the evildoers from stealing everything that mattered to them? That's how the Game is played."


Normally I don't like books about politics or politicians as they are depressingly predictable and rarely insightful. This one seemed different, as it spills open the culture of winning at any price that consumes our media and political worlds.


I strongly believe that any healthy society needs to look at both the conservative and liberal sides of things. It's basic Yin and Yang, and any nation that drifts too far to the left or right risks losing its grip with reality. Liberals are supposed to point out unfairness while putting forth new ideas, while conservatives are supposed to defend the status quo and reinforce rules and order. In today's America, money, religion, conservative media, and racism have supercharged those on the right to believe that they are under siege and that the other side is pure evil. The left has its issues too, but they pale in comparison.


For those who follow politics this book will have juicy stories about recognizable names and how hypocritical and shameless they were. After the events of January 6th, where for a brief few moments it looked like we were all coming back together to renounce this kind of insanity. But by February, things were back to the way they were and America could be facing something even worse in future election cycles.


But in my mind the best value of this book goes beyond the Republican mess of 2020. It exposes a culture that's devoid of values, and if we ever want to return to the noble intentions of the Founding Fathers and the many great people who followed, we need to see this ugliness for exactly what it is and call it out whenever we can.

[Evelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book a bit tedious and hard to get through, and at times I found it boring and pointless. I kept reading chapter after chapter to get an answer to the question Why We Did It, but I don’t think I ever got that answer. I Definitely was expecting so much more out of this book. In my opinion it really only came down to power and recognition as to why everyone jumped on the Trump train. Everyone was willing to degrade themselves for Trump and at the same time destroy our nation.

It’s obvious before even reading this book that people jumped on the Trump train for power and money. But this book never clearly explained the Why even with everything Trump said and did. Why did they continue to support him? Why didn’t they stop him at the early stages of his presidency when they knew what he was capable of doing. That is what I was hoping this book would explain. Why they put themselves first and above the Country? Why did they continue to turn a blind eye?

There were a few chapters that I found interesting and learned new information but most were boring and just dribbled on without providing any new information or answering the title of the book.

This is just another book by a Republican who knew how disastrous for the country a Trump presidency would be, but went along and did nothing until all the damage was done in order to “clear their name” and make money. Miller noted he didn’t vote for trump and was an early never-Trumper, yet he continued to work with those who did support him which ultimately furthered Trump’s power and resulting damage to this country. Why didn’t he speak out in 2016 or earlier? Why wait until the damage was done?

The first half of the book was boring and tedious. Another “former” republican who saw the light. Unfortunately he did nothing to help stop the carnage of the Trump presidency and only told his story after the fact to make money (hint, save your money and borrow the book from your local library as I did). The second half improves from a readers standpoint, but in my opinion, never really answers the question of Why We Did It.

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this awhile ago and avoided writing a review for it bc I resented it too much and then I forgot. So here is my several week old review now that I'm not as annoyed at it anymore. I did not like this book. I picked it up bc I heard an interview with Miller and thought it was an interesting perspective, but either I misunderstood his perspective or the interview just focused really tightly on the only part I would be interested in.

I thought the portion that was an actual conversation with his former friend and how she stayed in was what this whole book was going to be like, and it was definitely the best and most interesting part of the book.

The lack of empathy and lack of attempts to actually understand anyone, including the people he considers his own party is, honestly, astounding and incredibly immature. The way he belittles people (making fun of their looks and making derogatory statements about things unrelated to their beliefs) just make him a bully. I don't feel like he learned anything or cares about anyone other than the people he actually knows and every time he called politics 'a game' I wanted to punch him.

I just am not the audience for this book. It felt like he was looking for people to just absolve him of his past by trying to make excuses for his actions, but without any actual growth. He had some arbitrary moral line that was a little more left than a handful of people, but he just stepped over that line, turned around, and with the same consideration as he'd had previously (none) used the same finger to point and laugh.

He used to feel better and more intelligent than democrats and now he feels better and more intelligent than republicans who stayed and worked for Trump and he just does whatever he thinks will make him accepted by the people on whichever side of the line he's nominally on.

[Carrie Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book markets itself as a tell-all account of the downfall of the Republican Party in the trump era, promising schadenfreude galore. In reality it is a really despicable attempt at a face-saving mea culpa from an actor just as slippery and reptilian as those he seeks to criticize. He clearly changes his strategy based on what serves him, and currently trump-bashing is what’s on order to get the next job.

I hate how he cheekily describes how “oops, we did some shit in our own interest and broke the country! Sorrryyyy!” Dismissive and disrespectful of the base voters he looks down on as much as any democrats did. But he made money and got power for it, even while claiming to hate Trump more than literally any other human on the planet (eye roll). That hyperbole is sick. And he still went to work for Trump staffers, and anyway, the problem isn’t specifically with one individual (Trump) but with a system based on greed. Yuckety yuck.

In a section about “feeding meat to the (crocodile) base”:

“They are mad about nation building in Iraq? We’ve got a bloody slab of ground zero mosque mania coming right up! They’re pissed their community is turning into a putrescent ghost town? Ha, we’ve got a build the wall t-bone well done with a side of A1.”

Alternating self-aggrandizing and whiny self-deprecating stories, this felt like drivel written to get a pat on the head for “coming clean” and expecting forgiveness for his sins after confession (and of course, a book deal and more jobs). It’s just a dirt-dishing memoir, and it’s gross.

I finally put it down after reading about 75%, because it was making me a worse person.

[Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, confirmed what I already knew: Republicans are the worst. I was very excited when I learnt about this book's existence, I mean when do you ever get a confessional from the inside? An admittance of guilt, that it's not simply Trump but that there was a path paved for someone like him by all involved? An acknowledgement that much of the support that he gets is simply about power, influence and sticking it to the left rather than honestly believing in the things he stands for (up to you to decide if that is better or worse). I was pumped to get that inside view but, boy, was this a chore to read.

Miller's voice is a choice, his attempts at humor are grating and did not resonate with me. His defense for why it took him so long to switch sides but then in return talking in the worst way about his comrades that didn't jump the ship is a bit disgusting, he truly puts himself on some kind of pedestal for getting out, for finally seeing the truth that all of us knew about for years, maybe even decades. But what did I expect? That someone in his line of work and his predisposition would not be a scumbag who now applauds himself for realizing what any normal person saw eons ago? I mean, he admits that his addiction and fascination with gambling brought him to politics because he found a comparable thrill there.... Speaks for itself. He often uses the excuse (and so do the people that he interviews) that on the inside you are surrounded so much by like minded people, that you cannot see where, why and how your morals and values are flushed down the drain, which is hard to wrap my head around: that the people closest can't see the forest for all the trees but more so that the moral compass on the inside seems to be that off. Yet it also makes sense.

The first half of the book is set up of his own voluntary and passionate journey into the lion's den and then how he over years (!) realizes the wrongs of his position and methods, the self harm it causes since he is indeed a gay Republican who continuously supports candidates and policies that directly hurt him; and finally how he jumped what he thought was a sinking ship. The second half he chapter by chapter looks at different people that didn't make this jump and tries to portray why they stayed.

Here's a summary of the most named reasons:
-There was a good guy needed on the inside, followed by bragging about how much worse it could have been without them stopping Trump from doing even more harm. They are still the good guy, even if they would join Trump again for a 2nd term.
- The desire to have a seat at the table that has the power and the influence even if that meant making the deal with the devil. And then depending on the person minding that devil more or less, because after all values and rights vs wrongs don't matter much anymore.
- Not wanting to ruin their career/ their options since Trump was obviously the future of the party.
- A general round up of wanting the money, the power and the influence coming from this chosen path.
- Denial that Trump is all that bad, incl. full or at least half belief in their own lies (disturbing how these people never step out of their own news bubbles knowing they helped fabricating them).
- Little to no self-examination. As long as you tell yourself you're not a racist it's fine to support racist policies for some "bigger picture". Justifying doing terrible things as "part of the game/ no harm no foul/ it's just politics".
- The joy those felt who pushed extremism and conspiracies when finally someone listened to them and used their theories to be in power. No matter if he truly supports their causes... The realization that listening to the more extreme branches of Republican voters and potential voters is what brings the success (devastating statement about this country and the world, but true), so listening to the mob is what's imperative now if you want to win.
- The full kool-aid drinking people. The person cult around Trump is real, I will never get it but people are obsessed with him (that maybe most of all likens him to Hitler for me...)
- And finally shockingly often the desire to get one over the left, the hate towards the "woke-agenda" despite often agreeing with what it represents/ tries to accomplish but resenting the righteousness, elitism and judgement that liberals use to enforce it. It was shocking to hear how much of a driving force the hate towards the left, the desire to beat the enemy at all costs, seems to be. Not just among party members but equally among voters. Issues and personal convictions are often completely neglected to satisfy this need to crush the left. Going with that, there is a strong belief that their people are the 'good ones', even when they're storming the capitol.
- Then there must be those who truly are that racist and hateful and self centered that they don't even deny that what they want from this is the white, male, conservative supremacy, their ideal world order. But I don't think Miller had access to those kind of confessionals.

Well, that's the highlights, you can read the whole text to get more details but I am not sure it's necessary. It's sad to see and hear all this from the other side. While certain things he presents are simply part of the awful American campaign system and happen equally on the left and the right, but following Miller along on his campaign reveals a very nasty just Republican side that maybe hits that much harder because they always brag to have Christian values on their side while then acting the least Christian possible. But mostly, we all knew that. The hipocrisy has been covering this party for decades. It was interesting to follow his descriptions of the down spiral steps that were happening, little moral decline after little moral decline all in the desire to win. No surprise that opened the door for a Trump personality. That's how democracies die: not with a bang but with a million tiny little steps that each don't seem that significant in the moment.

My main take-aways are how much the hate to win over the left pushes all this craziness and how much it ties to the fear of "losing" the traditional world orders that makes life so easy for them. But didn't I already know that? Miller himself calls the state of things a conspiracy driven cult and while, again, not news it checks out. This was definitely a confirmation read in that Republicans vote, act and support against their own interest. But the biggest point was about the universal support for the lie of Trump never losing his 2020 election, that it was fraud: if you openly spoke up against it, you were out because

"The Authoritarian playbook has no chapter on defeat."

If you wanted to stay in the game, you had to support the lie. Some maybe truly believed or convinced themselves to sleep better with themselves, but it seems most support it to keep the game going. Such a sad world these people are creating for all of us to live in!