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

by Stuart Stevens

How about cutting the defense budget? Of the so-called discretionary spending—that is, the part of the budget that is not increasing on automatic formulas—around 50 percent goes to the military budget. When’s the last time you heard a Republican talking about cutting the military? Republicans ridiculed President Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders for claiming that the United States spends more on the military than the next twelve countries combined. Well, it’s true—or mostly true, depending on the year. Sometimes it has dipped as low as only the next eight or ten countries. The next ten would include China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, the U.K., Germany, Italy, and Japan.25 Any serious attempt to balance the budget by necessity would include defense cuts, but Republicans have decided there is a direct correlation between the size of a patriotic heart and the size of the defense budget. This patriotism-equals-defense-spending is now so common with Republicans that it’s difficult to remember when it was otherwise. I made ads attacking John Kerry for supporting defense cuts. I made ads attacking Bill Clinton for reducing defense spending. One of the great modern political commercials is the Bush 1988 ad showing Michael Dukakis in a tank wearing a helmet that made him look like the Snoopy character, with a voice-over detailing the defense cuts he proposed. I didn’t make that ad—Roger Ailes’s team of ad makers did—but I loved it and thought it was brilliant. So did a lot ...