It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump

by Stuart Stevens

The same political reality is tied to the deficit, and the two are linked in a deadly embrace of a dangerous status quo. Being against “out-of-control federal spending,” a phrase I must have used in a hundred ads, is a catechism of the Republican faith. But no one really believes in it any more than communicants believe they are actually eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ. It just makes the members of the Republican Church feel closer to their political God. In reality, the Republican Party isn’t serious about deficit reduction, because politicians know their voters don’t feel affected by the mind-boggling numbers and subsequently don’t really care. Republicans are forced by their political DNA to be in favor of lower taxes, even though the fantasy of decreasing the deficit with tax cuts becomes ever more difficult to sustain. Any pretense that the Republican Party, if only given complete control of all three chambers of power, would focus on the deficit was just one of the myths shattered in the first two years of the Trump presidency. There