Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was ready for "It Was All a Lie" to be a stew of self-recrimination and self-aggrandizement, with Stuart Stevens, a GOP operative, joining the growing ranks of conservatives sorry for their role in creating the contemporary American right (Charlie Sykes, Frank Schaeffer, Terry Heaton, among others). But there's surprisingly little of that here. This isn't a book of anecdotes although there are a few. This is an analysis that aims to show how Trump is not an outlier but the logical culmination of decades of Republican groundwork. As such, it's a thoughtful, cogent read with a historian's eye for making connections. Stevens also gets the prophecy/current events award for the following sentence: "Republicans are allowing Trump to equate conservatism with conspiracy, and the long-term success is predicated on stupidity becoming an airborne viral plague that will sweep the country like the walking dead." Stevens doesn't really address Christian nationalism, so that's one difference between this and Kristin De Mez’s similarly-themed Jesus and John Wayne. This is less a book about how people rationalize Trump and more about the incremental strategic moves made over decades that set the table for his presidency.