'From Palin through Trump': Former Republican insider laments his 'complicity' in GOP’s radicalization
In his new book, “Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell,” Never Trump conservative Tim Miller looks back on his years as a Republican strategist — candidly describing his reasons for turning against the Republican Party and the things that led to the GOP’s radicalization. Miller, who served as communications director for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, doesn’t exempt himself from his own scrutiny; Miller, who is openly gay, isn’t proud of the fact that in the past, he “rationalized” working with some anti-gay Republican candidates.
Miller’s candor was very much in evidence during a Tuesday, July 12 interview with journalist Walter Isaacson for Christiane Amanpour’s “Amanpour & Company.” Isaacson opened the interview by praising Miller for being so “introspective” in his “very personal” book, and Miller wasn’t shy about saying that in the past, he was part of the problem.
Miller told Isaacson, “There have been a lot of books about the Trump era, about all the craziness that happened behind the scenes…. But I felt like nobody had really grappled with the D.C. political class that went along with (former President Donald) Trump to a much greater degree than I think anyone, and certainly I, anticipated. And I felt like I really wanted to reflect on, that I came out of Republican politics or the Republican National Committee. I was communications director for Jed Bush. And I wanted to deal with why were all of my friends, why were all of my former colleagues, enabling something that was so manifestly evil — that they knew was evil, that they told me was evil in private. How did they justify it? And how did all of our behavior in the lead-up to 2016 help pave the path for Trumpism?”
Miller added that in his book, he is “looking back” at “my complicity, from basically (Sarah) Palin all the way through Trump” as well as “those who stuck around after I bailed.”
Isaacson asked Miller “what led you down that path,” to which he responded, “Competitiveness is the answer. I love the game of politics…. Despite the fact that I was a pretty moderate Republican and had more in common with a Joe Manchin or a Kyrsten Sinema type of Democrat than I do with a far-right Tea Party Republican, I put on the jersey of the red team — and I started to focus on ‘How can I help my team win?’ more than I focused on caring about the public.”
Miller lamented that he became a “hatchet man” for the Republican Party. Isaacson noted that Miller was a “gay guy” who “ended up working for homophobic candidates,” asking him how he “squared that” — to which he responded, “I compartmentalized it. I just didn’t think about it that much. I justified it and thought, ‘Well, I like this candidate more on this issue or that issue.’ But it was all BS.”
Miller went on to describe a GOP activist who knew that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election but wouldn’t admit it publicly because she would be “cast out from Trump World.”
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