Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell

Tim Miller

Jun 2022 · HarperAudio · Narrated by Josh Bloomberg

About this audiobook

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Former Republican political operative Tim Miller answers the question no one else has fully grappled with: Why did normal people go along with the worst of Trumpism?

As one of the strategists behind the famous 2012 RNC “autopsy,” Miller conducts his own forensic study on the pungent carcass of the party he used to love, cutting into all the hubris, ambition, idiocy, desperation, and self-deception for everyone to see. In a bracingly honest reflection on both his own past work for the Republican Party and the contortions of his former peers in the GOP establishment, Miller draws a straight line between the actions of the 2000s GOP to the Republican political class's Trumpian takeover, including the horrors of January 6th.

From ruminations on the mental jujitsu that allowed him as a gay man to justify becoming a hitman for homophobes, to astonishingly raw interviews with former colleagues who jumped on the Trump Train, Miller diagrams the flattering and delusional stories GOP operatives tell themselves so they can sleep at night. With a humorous touch he reveals Reince Priebus' neediness, Sean Spicer's desperation, Elise Stefanik and Chris Christie’s raw ambition, and his close friends’ submission to a MAGA psychosis.

Why We Did It is a vital, darkly satirical warning that all the narcissistic justifications that got us to this place still thrive within the Republican party, which means they will continue to make the same mistakes and political calculations that got us here, with disastrous consequences for the nation.

Ratings and reviews

A fascinating look into the conservative "Never Trump" reckoning, chalk full of inside perspectives of conservatives who grappled with the rise of Trump through to the January 6 insurrection.

only wish it had been read by the author. otherwise really very good

Interesting perspective.

About the author

Tim Miller is an MSNBC analyst, writer-at-large at The Bulwark, and host of the daily Bulwark Podcast. He was the communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign and the spokesman for the Republican National Committee during Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.