Book Summary and Reviews of The Conspiracy to End America by Stuart Stevens

The Conspiracy to End America by Stuart Stevens

The Conspiracy to End America

Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy

by Stuart Stevens

  • Published:
  • Oct 2023, 240 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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. 

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"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 

"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

"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

This information about The Conspiracy to End America was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Stuart Stevens

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.

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