The Limits of Admirable

Political consultant Stuart Stevens was on MSNBC a couple days ago. Back in 2020, Stevens wrote a book, It Was All a Lie, about his time as a major Republican political consultant in the past.  The subtitle was, “How the Republican Party became Trump,” and the book laid out in detail how the Republican Party machinery had a foundation of lying, which has brought it to being the cult of Trump today.  As the New York Times review of the book stated, “In his bare-knuckles account, Stevens confesses to the reader that the entire apparatus of his Republican Party is built on a pack of lies... This reckoning inspired Stevens to publish this blistering, tell-all history... Although this book will be a hard read for any committed conservatives, they would do well to ponder it."
 
Ever since then, when left the party, and has been an analyst I've liked what Stevens has to say about today's GOP, openly and brutally.  What I don't like is when he blames today's GOP, as he did again in his MSNBC appearance, on starting when they accepted Trump and says, too, how before, when he was a consultant for the party, the GOP was based on the principle that "character counts" -- all of which conveniently ignores the whole point of what he wrote in It Was All A Lie," because a party whose foundation was “all a lie” – let me repeat, in case that’s not clear, ALL a lie -- is not the definition of character.  And further, given that it came immediately right before Trump ran to lead the party, that is where today's GOP started.  Trump may have taken control of the party, which subsequently “became” him, but that foundation of lying is what opened the door for Trump, allowing him to walk right through and be accepted.
 
When you are a party whose “entire apparatus” is “built on a pack of lies, you’ve helped create a party whose base is willing to believe what is literally a totally anonymous “Q” voice as its main (or even sole) source of information.  A party whose base is literally insane – something I mean clinically, not hyperbolically – because it’s able to believe that a dead JFK, Jr. will not only come back to life, but will then run with Trump on a presidential ticket.  And believe that news host Anderson Cooper eats babies.  And believe that Joe Biden now is a clone.  That actual craziness doesn’t suddenly pop out of the blue.  That requires being weened on getting told all lies for years.  And accepting lies as truth, to the degree that they can’t tell the difference.  And will accept an anonymous QAnon source and will accept a Trump, who made over 30,000 documented lies during his time in office.  And will believe, despite losing 60 court cases and despite all 50 states certifying the results, and despite a total lack of admissible evidence to the contrary, that the presidential election was stolen, just because they were told the Big Lie over and over and over that it was.
 
That’s what’s really weird about Stuart Stevens – in many way, he’s incredibly admirable in his total openness about the past when he consulted for the GOP being based on lying, to the extent that he wrote a book about it and even titled it that way. It Was All a Lie.  But when he's interviewed about today's politics and has to deal with it in person, face-to-face, he oddly gets very reticent about it.

Here's an even better example of what I mean. A few years back, when the book had just been published, he was a guest on Al Franken's podcast. It was an excellent interview about today's GOP, and Stevens was outspoken in his blunt assessment of the Republican Party.  But I remember Franken very politely nailing him on this same point of Stevens' own part in setting it all up.. And when Stevens tried to dance around it, not taking any responsibility, Franken put his politeness off to the side ever-so-slightly, and he said something in a light-hearted but pointed voice along the lines of, "But wait, just look at the first lines of your own book!!!" And then he read them:  "I have no one to blame but myself.  I believed. That's where it all started to go wrong." And then, as I recall, an incredulous Franken added -- "You wrote that!"

Stevens mumbled something, and Franken politely let him off the hook, but his point was made.
 
My friend Michael Shoob is an astute observer of politics.  Needless-to-day, that means I usually agree with him.  Though not always, but even when I don't, his reasoning and insight is sharp.  Among many other things, he made a terrific documentary in 2004, Bush’s Brain, about Karl Rove, based on the New York Times bestselling book by James C. Moore and Wayne Slater.  (It's available here on DVD at Netflix.)  And he took my point about Stevens and brought it to another level, writing to me that –
 
“Every time I see or hear Stevens interviewed, I find myself admiring the fact that he has the guts to speak out against the current GOP when so many do not. But, then I can't help remembering (as I do with Nicole Wallace and others) that he was part of the legacy of lies, deception and cruelty perpetrated by Rove and Lee Atwater and others long before Donald Trump came along. Did they light the match? I think so.”
 
Not shockingly, I agree with everything Michael said  -- including about Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt and some others, being GOP operatives when the fire was burning.  I've written about that here in the past, as well.  In their favor, they absolutely deserve great praise for being outspoken in their blunt criticism of today's GOP.  And no, they weren't at the dark end of the worst GOP operatives when they were there, nor do they always have to beat their breasts and regularly add that they were a part of what got us here.  But -- I do think that just mentioning their part in the lie-machinery and then moving on is unacceptable.   Saying on occasion, as they do, that “when I was in that Administration,” isn’t the same thing – they’re weren’t just in the Administration (the secretaries, doorman and guy who brought coffee were in the Administration) they were important parts of the apparatus, they were spokespeople and top consultants pushing the agenda that Stuart Stevens writes “was all a lie.”  And they should periodically address it to put their current efforts in context.  Wallace comes closest, but she always stops short of acknowledging how it helped lead to Trump.  Doing so doesn’t detract what an admirable job they’re doing now, it gives it strong perspective and substance.  Otherwise, it's just whitewashing their part enabling it all. There's a balance where it managed properly.

After all, Robert Byrd had a horrible past in the Ku Klux Klan, as a local leader, but later become a strong advocate for Civil Rights – and what Byrd said about his past was, "I apologized a thousand times...and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."
 
I want to be very clear:  I love what Stuart Stevens, Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson and others say about today’s Republican Party.  They are strong, impressive, important, almost noble voices in their outrage, and I have great respect for them.  But they shouldn’t try to bury their part in the past’s “It was all a lie” apparatus that enabled the worst operatives in the GOP and prepared the base to accept a Trump.  Saying offhandedly, periodically, "I was there," isn't enough.  They should follow the Byrd Rule and not mind apologizing over and over again.  Because it’s not just part of the GOP’s horrific past, but a past which has bled to the present.