General Discussion

"And on countless occasions, I've heard powerful political admen and strategists boast about how they didn't worry about silly matters like 'governing.' They were hacks through and through, adrenaline junkies who were in it for the fight. No matter which role they were in, staffers began to see themselves as tacticians in this made-for-TV blood sport rather than as functionaries in a system that is aimed to produce the best policy outcomes for their fellow citizens.

"Something you didn't hear much from players in the Game was self-doubt over whether the political tactics they were employing might hurt the people they were purporting to serve. ... The human impact of one's work is not only inadvertently missing but actively mocked. ... In the quarter century from Dole to Romney, the campaign culture incentivized hiring clever assassins over ideologically true believers. ... A friend recently confided to me that he has never voted for a Republican for president in his life, despite being the mouthpiece for a Republican governor and state party! Now, I know there are disingenuous Democratic hacks for hire, too, but I would be hard pressed to believe you could find one who was secretly casting their ballot for Bush and Trump."

Stuart Stevens:

"I can't keep lying to myself to ward off the depressing reality that I had been lying to myself for decades. ... Trump isn't an aberration of the Republican Party, he is the Republican Party in distilled form. I saw the warning signs and chose what I wanted to believe: the party wasn't just a white grievance party; there was still a big tent; the other guys were worse. Mostly though, I didn't think about it. I loved to win and I won a lot. I loved the feeling that I had a big lever and could move if not the world, then a big enough hunk of it to make a difference."

Christopher Wylie says in his book about Cambridge Analytica that the Mercer family invested tens of millions in the company when they started and Wylie assumed the research would be used for Mercer's businesses, to make money. But no, it was to change the world according to his ideology, an alt-right takeover of the Republican Party. Right-wing ideologue billionaires wanting to change the world are much much more frightening than plain old billionaires who only care about money.