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

by Stuart Stevens

Republicans across the country were also quietly but effectively taking steps to balance the electoral equation by suppressing nonwhite votes. It paid off. For the first time in twenty years, African American votes declined in 2016, with turnout dropping 7 percent from 2012.8

In Trump’s mind—and it sadly reflects the minds of many Republicans—the assumption is that any illegal voters would be Democratic voters with the associated assumption that they must be illegal Hispanic voters.

Conspiracies are a key element of the Trump Republican effort to build an alternative universe in which their lies will be truth.

Can anyone honestly define what the Republican Party stands for beyond “owning the libs”?

Donald Trump did not change the Republican Party as much as he gave the party permission to reveal its true self.