The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy

by Stuart Stevens

Overview

“This is the first must-read of the 2024 election cycle if you want to understand the stakes.” –Nicolle Wallace

Former chief Republican strategist, Lincoln Project adviser, and bestselling author of It Was All a Lie, Stuart Stevens offers an ominous warning that the GOP is dragging our country toward autocracy—and if we don’t wake up to the crisis in our system, 2024 may well be our last free and fair election.

Today’s Republican party is not a “normal” political party in the American tradition. It has become an autocratic movement masquerading as a political party. As Stuart Stevens argues in THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA, if we look away from that truth, we greatly increase the likelihood that the America we love will slip away, never to return. 
 
Whenever a democracy slides into autocracy, there are five critical elements at work: financers, propagandists, party support, legal theories to legitimize, and shock troops. THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA examines each of these driving forces on the Right and makes clear how they are working in concert to end our democracy as we know it. 
 
In the tradition of It Can’t Happen Here and On Tyranny, THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA is a blinking red distress call about the dark intentions lurking within Stevens’ old party and a rallying cry to beat back this perilous threat and save the Republic. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538765401
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	10/10/2023
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	32,262
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Stuart Stevens is the author of eight previous books, most recently, the bestselling It Was All a Lie, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, and Outside, among other publications. He has written extensively for television shows, including Northern Exposure, Commander in Chief, and K Street. For twenty-five years, he was the lead strategist and media consultant for some of the nation's toughest political campaigns.

Editorial Reviews

Stop whatever you are doing. Pour a stiff drink and read Stuart Stevens’s new book right now. On the other side of this political and civic moment, we will look around for the people who saw it coming and warned us—not hysterically, but methodically, and with evidence that the Republican Party has become one of the world’s most agitated autocratic movements. With his exquisite voice and decades of relationships and experience, Stuart walks readers through the transformation of a once (relatively) normal party to one that now poses a threat to democracy. Stuart is my friend, but I don’t recommend this because of our friendship: This is the first must-read of the 2024 election cycle if you want to understand the stakes.”
 —Nicolle Wallace, anchor of MSNBC / Deadline Whitehouse

“As a former Republican strategist and media consultant, [Stevens] knows the threat we face today from the Republican Party, which has embraced autocracy and works to damage our democracy beyond repair. His timely and heartfelt book lays out the essential elements and enablers of authoritarianism with admirable clarity. It’s essential and timely reading.”—Ruth Ben-Ghiat, MSNBC Opinion Columnist and author of Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present

“THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA is a meticulously argued clarion call to action in defense of our fragile democracy. As a political practitioner with a deep understanding of how MAGA Republican strategists, money men, and legal minds operate, Stuart is uniquely suited to suss out how the plot against our system of government is being executed. This book is a succinct, digestible assessment of the existential stakes that face us from an engaging writer. I pray we beat back this threat in the years to come so Stuart can use his skills to write about family and Ole Miss Rebels football once again.”—Tim Miller, American political consultant and author of Why We Did

“THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA is two stories in one: It’s the story of how the Republican Party came to reject democracy as a governing principle. It’s also the story of a former Republican insider and political operative confronting the painful truth that the party he once worked for has embraced authoritarianism. ‘Pain is the best teacher in politics,’ says Stuart P. Stevens. He thus concludes that ‘the only hope for the Republican Party is for it to suffer crushing defeat after crushing defeat so that it is forced to confront its failures.’”—Teri Kanefield, author of Alexander Hamilton: The Making of America

“Republican campaign legend Stuart Stevens used his skills to battle Trump as candidate and president. Now Trump is back—and so is Stevens, with this anguished and eloquent summons to stand for democracy against reactionary authoritarianism at home and abroad.”—David Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic and MSNBC contributor

“In THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA, Stuart Stevens uses his decades of working within the Republican Party to lay out in brutally honest terms how his old party is turning America into an autocracy. Every person—Democrat, Republican, and Independent—concerned about the rise of Trumpism should read this book.”—Dan Pfeiffer, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump

“Please read this book! Stuart Stevens has been everywhere and seen everything, and he shares what he has learned in concise, vivid prose. His book is urgent but not despairing. It is deadly serious but frequently funny. It offers the big picture based on numerous details and stories. I’m glad he wrote it, and glad I read it.”—James Fallows, author of Breaking News and former White House Director of Speechwriting

“The author offers useful prescriptions for acting to counter the authoritarian impulse. A rallying cry for a movement to push against Trumpism and its legion of true believers.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Using his extensive insider knowledge and experience, and drawing from scholars of authoritarianism and right-wing extremism, Stevens discusses the five building blocks of autocracy.”—Booklist Review

From the Publisher

10/06/2023

Former chief Republican strategist and Lincoln Project adviser Stevens offers his take on the current state of the Republican Party. His book concentrates on five issues centered around Trump pushing the party to becoming an autocracy: Fox News, populist congressional members, wealthy supporters (Peter Thiel in particular), constitutional lawyers, and those who participated in the insurrection at the capital on January 6, 2021. The book is heavily focused on the 2020 election and the political partisanship that preceded and followed it. Throughout, the book paints a less than favorable picture of the rank-and-file Republican voter's intellect and understanding of politics. Remaining true to the Lincoln Project's disdain for Trumpism, Stevens demeans anyone, from the financially poor to the richest, who voted for or supported Trump. Unfortunately, the book repeatedly and seemingly seeks to vilify discontented voters and candidates seeking election that do not align with the author's views. VERDICT Some readers may find that Stevens, like many others who attack a political party, does more harm than good by encouraging more division in an already divided and disconnected country. Limited general interest for this book.—James Rhoades

Library Journal

2023-08-03
A former Republican strategist decries a party that has gone off the rails and plunged into totalitarianism.

According to Lincoln Project senior adviser Stevens, the author of It Was All a Lie, five ingredients fuel “an autocratic movement masquerading as a political party.” These five, in order, are propaganda and its makers; a party willing to be twisted; piles of money and willing suppliers of it; legal theorists willing to distort the law; and a body of shock troops. No one surveying the political landscape would doubt that these five threads are broadly present in the Republican mix. On the first count, the author argues that Fox News did not create the current Republican Party—it was the other way around, with Fox propagandizing in the interest of the authoritarians, among its chief cheerleaders the now-departed Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs. The GOP also enabled Trump by responding to his false claims of election fraud by “humoring him” rather than insisting that he honor constitutional norms. It does no good to “imagine that there is a possibility for the Republican Party to become a ‘normal’ American political party once again”—not with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Josh Hawley roaming the land. Oceans of money are behind this authoritarian impulse, since the doctrinaire insistence on doing away with regulations is music to a capitalist’s ears. The Koch brothers’ political staffers alone, Stevens notes, number “three and a half times more employees than the Republican National Committee.” Crank lawyers and judges are busily eroding legal norms, and then there are the perpetrators and supporters of the events of Jan. 6—who, Stevens suggests without undue alarmism, will be back in even greater numbers come the next election. It all makes for a civil libertarian’s nightmare, but the author offers useful prescriptions for acting to counter the authoritarian impulse.

A rallying cry for a movement to push against Trumpism and its legion of true believers.

Kirkus Reviews

[Stevens] knows the threat we face today from the Republican Party, which has embraced autocracy and works to damage our democracy beyond repair. His timely and heartfelt book lays out the essential elements and enablers of authoritarianism with admirable clarity. It’s essential and timely reading.”

RUTH BEN-GHIAT

Every person—Democrat, Republican, and Independent—concerned about the rise of Trumpism should read this book.”

DAN PFEIFFER

In THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA, Stuart Stevens uses his decades of working within the Republican Party to lay out in brutally honest terms how his old party is turning America into an autocracy. Every person—Democrat, Republican, and Independent—concerned about the rise of Trumpism should read this book.

Dan Pfeiffer

THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA is a meticulously argued clarion call to action in defense of our fragile democracy. As a political practitioner with a deep understanding of how MAGA Republican strategists, money men, and legal minds operate, Stuart is uniquely suited to suss out how the plot against our system of government is being executed. This book is a succinct, digestible assessment of the existential stakes that face us from an engaging writer. I pray we beat back this threat in the years to come so Stuart can use his skills to write about family and Ole Miss Rebels football once again.

American political consultant and author of Why We Tim Miller

As a former Republican strategist and media consultant, [Stevens] knows the threat we face today from the Republican Party, which has embraced autocracy and works to damage our democracy beyond repair. His timely and heartfelt book lays out the essential elements and enablers of authoritarianism with admirable clarity. It’s essential and timely reading.

MSNBC Opinion Columnist and author of Strongmen Ruth Ben-Giat

Republican campaign legend Stuart Stevens used his skills to battle Trump as candidate and president. Now Trump is back—and so is Stevens, with this anguished and eloquent summons to stand for democracy against reactionary authoritarianism at home and abroad.

senior editor at The Atlantic and MSNBC contributo David Frum

THE CONSPIRACY TO END AMERICA is two stories in one: It’s the story of how the Republican Party came to reject democracy as a governing principle. It’s also the story of a former Republican insider and political operative confronting the painful truth that the party he once worked for has embraced authoritarianism. ‘Pain is the best teacher in politics,’ says Stuart P. Stevens. He thus concludes that ‘the only hope for the Republican Party is for it to suffer crushing defeat after crushing defeat so that it is forced to confront its failures.’

author of Alexander Hamilton: The Making of Am Teri Kanefield

Please read this book! Stuart Stevens has been everywhere and seen everything, and he shares what he has learned in concise, vivid prose. His book is urgent but not despairing. It is deadly serious but frequently funny. It offers the big picture based on numerous details and stories. I’m glad he wrote it, and glad I read it.

author of Breaking News and former White House Dir James Fallows