Why We Did It
A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell
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Narrated by:
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Josh Bloomberg
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By:
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Tim Miller
About this listen
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.
©2022 Tim Miller (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2012, he skewered "amateur" Barack Obama. In 2014, he revealed vicious infighting between the Obamas and the Clintons. Now, New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter Edward Klein turns his attention to Hillary Clinton and asks: why exactly is Hillary so unlikeable?
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Occasionally time dampers our memory - this reminds us
- By Linda S. on 10-19-15
By: Edward Klein
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Under Fire
- Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House
- By: April Ryan, Tamron Hall - foreword
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Veteran White House reporter April Ryan thought she had seen everything in her two decades as a White House correspondent. And then came the Trump administration. In Under Fire, Ryan takes us inside the confusion and chaos of the Trump White House to understand how she and other reporters adjusted to the new normal. She takes us inside the policy debates, the revolving door of personnel appointments, and what it is like when she, as a reporter asking difficult questions, finds herself in the spotlight, becoming part of the story.
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- By Deborah on 09-03-18
By: April Ryan, and others
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Rush Limbaugh
- An Army of One
- By: Zev Chafets
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
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Do you remember your first time? People tend to remember the moment they first heard The Rush Limbaugh Show on the radio. For Zev Chafets, it was in a car in Detroit, driving down Woodward Avenue. Limbaugh's braggadocio, the outrageous satire, the slaughtering of liberal sacred cows performed with the verve of a rock-n-roll DJ-it seemed fresh, funny and completely subversive.
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Enjoyed it, despite poor narration
- By David on 06-02-10
By: Zev Chafets
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Tip and the Gipper
- When Politics Worked
- By: Chris Matthews
- Narrated by: Chris Matthews
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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They were the political odd couple - the two most powerful men in the country, a pair who "couldn't be more different or more the same." For six years, Matthews was on the inside, watching the evolving relationship between President Reagan and Speaker of the House O’Neill. Drawing not only on his own remarkable knowledge but on extensive interviews with those closest to his subjects, Matthews brings this unlikely friendship to life in his unique voice.
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I didn't want it to end
- By Jim on 10-06-13
By: Chris Matthews
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The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore
- A Story of American Rage
- By: Jared Yates Sexton
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore is a firsthand account of the events that shaped the 2016 presidential election and the cultural forces that powered Donald Trump into the White House. Featuring in-the-field reports as well as deep analysis, Sexton's book is not just the story of the most unexpected and divisive election in modern political history. It is also a sobering chronicle of our democracy's political polarization - a result of our self-constructed, technologically assisted echo chambers.
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Undercover in Trump's America
- By David Larson on 09-06-17
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Collision 2012
- Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America
- By: Dan Balz
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Four years ago, a bright young presidential candidate named Barack Obama campaigned on a theme of hope and change, and made history. Today, he finds himself in another bitter, divisive presidential race but without the buzzwords. Instead, an embattled president struggles with a dysfunctionally divided Congress, a controversial healthcare bill, a decade-long war, and a stagnant economy.
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Fascinating. Couldn't stop listening.
- By Gregory E Benoit on 07-24-16
By: Dan Balz
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The Center Holds
- Obama and His Enemies
- By: Jonathan Alter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Alter
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, Jonathan Alter uses his unmatched access and deep knowledge of politics and history to produce the first full account of America at the crossroads. He pierces the bubble of the White House and of the presidential campaigns with exclusive reporting and rare historical insight. More than a campaign book, this is the epic story of an embattled president facing a historic moment he considered more pivotal than 2008.
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The Best Telling of the 2012 Campaign So Far
- By Mike on 06-11-13
By: Jonathan Alter
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Game of Thorns
- The Inside Story of Hillary Clinton's Failed Campaign and Donald Trump's Winning Strategy
- By: Doug Wead
- Narrated by: Doug Wead
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the first insider account of the precipitous fall of Hillary Clinton. How the scandals of a lifetime finally reached critical mass. How, in the last few days of the campaign, some on her staff saw the ghostly shroud of defeat creeping over them but were helpless to act, frozen by the self-denial of the group.
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President Donald Trump stopped that Clinton Machine
- By Paulette on 03-05-17
By: Doug Wead
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All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain's Political Class
- By: Tim Shipman
- Narrated by: Rupert Farley
- Length: 32 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Based on unrivalled access to all the key politicians and their advisors - including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, George Osborne, Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings, the mastermind of Vote Leave - Shipman has written a political history that reads like a thriller and offers a gripping day-by-day account of what really happened behind the scenes in Downing Street, both Leave campaigns, the Labour Party, Ukip and Britain Stronger in Europe.
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blow by blow, word by word
- By Christian R. Unger on 11-22-18
By: Tim Shipman
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The Red and the Blue
- The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism
- By: Steve Kornacki
- Narrated by: Steve Kornacki, Ron Butler
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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In The Red and the Blue, cable news star and acclaimed journalist Steve Kornacki follows the twin paths of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, two larger-than-life politicians who exploited the weakened structure of their respective parties to attain the highest offices. For Clinton, that meant contorting himself around the various factions of the Democratic party to win the presidency. Gingrich employed a scorched-earth strategy to upend the permanent Republican minority in the House, making him speaker.
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Simply marvelous
- By Hector Gonzalez on 10-04-18
By: Steve Kornacki
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Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
- By: Chris Matthews
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In Chris Matthews’ extraordinary biography, we see this most beloved president in the company of friends. We see and feel him close-up, having fun and giving off that restlessness of his. We watch him navigate his life from privileged, rebellious youth to gutsy American president. We witness his bravery in war and selfless rescue of his PT boat crew. We watch JFK as a young politician learning to play hardball and watch him grow into the leader who averts a nuclear war.
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What Might Have Been?
- By Mel on 12-06-11
By: Chris Matthews
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Great read and informative!
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Everything Trump Touches Dies is a hard book to review
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The Longest Con tells the fascinating story of the partisan con artists who have corrupted conservative politics in our time, creating a toxic phenomenon that culminated in the election of Donald Trump, a bumptious fraud whose checkered career and tawdry retinue, including his presidential cabinet, have featured almost every variety of scam. But long before he appeared, Trump's path to power was blazed by the motley horde of swindlers and quacks who preceded him.
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Eye Opening
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The Destructionists
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In 1994, more than 300 Republicans under the command of obstructionist and rabble-rouser Congressman Newt Gingrich stood outside the U.S. Capitol to sign the Contract with America and put bipartisanship on notice. Twenty-five years later, on January 6, 2021, a bloodthirsty mob incited by President Trump invaded the Capitol.
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Learned things
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What listeners say about Why We Did It
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- David Slayback
- 07-10-22
Funny, honest, vulnerable. Left me wanting more
Bias up front, I listen to Tim Miller on The Bulwark and other interviews where he appears (not a follower on Twitter or TikTok) and generally find him funny and refreshingly clear-eyed.
This book is more of the same, in a good way. As a former GOP operative/researcher/hatchet man, Tim knows a ton of colleagues who never broke away from Trump and wants to know why. He starts by laying out the timeline of how he did it, his path of disillusionment with "the game" and the people he worked for competing with his ability to compartmentalize and desire to keep doing the thing he'd always known. After laying out his own reasons, he moves on to categorize the different reasons why others stayed on and gives examples of each. For him, it's viscerally personal; he knows all of these people to various degrees and gives anecdotes that really flesh out the character that he ascribes to them.
The book is well-written and tightly-paced. Tim is funny in both wordplay and blunt honesty. If it weren't an audiobook, I'd include some quotes; I really need to go back and write down some of the one-liners and turns of phrase. I also found this book very moving, particularly the vignettes about being an in (and then out-of-the-closet) gay man whose work was to publicly speak against his own desires and the interactions with some of the more sympathetic characters in the book.
My only complaint (which could also be seen as a good thing) was that it left me wanting more. It starts and ends with him reconnecting with one of his erstwhile connections, and the ending in particular is both sad and abrupt. Not everyone makes it out, and no one really does unscathed. But in some ways, that ending is the honest one, and this book was nothing if not honest and vulnerable.
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- RR Stone
- 07-07-22
This year’s political must read
Tim Miller clears up a lot while colorfully describing the political players in DC. It covers what all the other books don’t. The why is painfully exposed and includes his own. Loved it.
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- Ruta I. Larson
- 07-05-22
Why Trump Is Here To Stay
This is a well-constructed and compelling book generously larded with acerbic humor. I finished it in two days. Hilarious yet terrifying.
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- Double Books
- 07-07-22
Great content and style
A good-humored romp through the under world of underlings who upheld Trump. He chooses words like a pro. Playful and fun.
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- Jay
- 08-14-22
Great listen, but still wish Tim would've read it.
Josh did a good job narrating, but hearing it in the author's voice would've been preferable here. Especially when it got to the intensive reaction parts, I feel like Tim could've conveyed more there.
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- K. Johnson
- 09-03-22
Amazing!
Best book of the year! I love catching you on television and your prose style sucked me in from beginning to end.
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- Benjamin Gerber
- 08-01-22
Searching for a soul and a conscience among GOP professionals in the age of Trump
The book is very good and important as a document of how the Republican party shifted in the past decade or two, from a political party to an outrage generating community. Miller made a career out of being a player in that game, but broke with the GOP over Trump. He does a lot of soul-searching and interviews former colleagues and friends, trying to map out how they could continue working in or with the Trump administration, when he broke with Trump. Miller does a good job identifying various motivations and career types, but still can’t distance himself from the question enough to avoid expressing spluttering rage and incredulity, when his interview subjects continue in their chosen paths, even after the January 6th riot.
The reading was very good and expressive, but it would have been even better to hear it in the author’s own voice.
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- Kathy D
- 01-22-23
Brutal and funny!
I laughed out loud so many times. Appreciate the author's attempt to gain clarity and try to explain how in the world we got here.
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- Cyndi
- 07-21-23
Great and sad at the same time
Great because it’s a brutally honest assessment of the trump years.
Sad to understand the reasoning behind people sticking around to prop up the madman.
THANK YOU MR MILLER❤️
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- John F McCauley
- 07-14-22
Hard to hear but worth the listen
Worthwhile journey through the Eyes of a former Republican into the Trump era and if there are any lessons learned by those who were part of it
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10 people found this helpful