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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
shertz's review against another edition
4.0
I’m a Republican, and a very conservative one at that. In the 2016 election, I didn’t vote for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. I wrote in a Republican that I voted for in the primaries. Why didn’t I vote for Donald Trump and why is this relevant to the book review? Well, because this book sums up what I expected from our current President. I had some flashes of hope when Jim Mattis and Rex Tillerson came on board along with HR McMaster. I’ve followed their careers and expected they could rein in this president. Not so. This book is scary and after the Senate’s failure to call witnesses, even scarier. I worry if four more years of this will keep our country from not spiraling out of control.
I’m moving on from current politics and back to reading some of my favorite military books on WWII. Reading the Wall St Journal is enough for a day.
I’m moving on from current politics and back to reading some of my favorite military books on WWII. Reading the Wall St Journal is enough for a day.
niksen's review against another edition
4.0
Read because Carol Leonnig went to Bryn Mawr. I guess I moved from outrage to outrage during 2017-2020 but had a hard time taking in the overall picture. This book gave that to me. Looking forward to reading I Alone Can Fix It.
ekoozmin's review against another edition
4.0
This was a very readable book. I was amazed at how the authors were able to cobble together so many bits and pieces from various sources (50 pages of end matter notes!) and get it to flow as well as it did. There were few surprises though. By the time I read it, impeachment had come and gone. This disastrous pandemic has now arrived, making this book especially prescient.
kdonna's review against another edition
5.0
What an entirely effed up jackass our current president is. I’m going to be sure to share this book with my granddaughter when she begins studying history and politics in school.
desertjarhead505's review against another edition
4.0
This is half an examination of the character and actions of Donald Trump, and half one of how the American system of his targets fared - the rule of law, the major parties, the news media from left to right, and the public. Looking back from spring of 2021 (the book was written in 2019), the results seem mixed at best.
Trump's attempt to steal the election, and then his follow-on attempt to nullify it and for all practical purposes overthrow the government, failed. The winner of the election is now president. The political cannon fodder from Trump's following that carried out his attack on Congress failed, and an ever-increasing number are being arrested and facing long prison terms.
On the other hand, we don't know yet, as of April 2021, to what extent Trump himself will face any real consequences. His control of the Republican party seems as strong as ever, and that party has reacted to the widespread rejection of their values and actions not by reconsidering and trying to appeal to more of the electorate, but by trying to prevent as many people from voting as they can, focusing particularly on groups that seem likelier to vote for Democrats. This is an attack on democracy that's probably even more serious than the one Trump launched on January 6 of this year.
Trump's basic nature comes through loud and clear in the authors' recounting of his words and actions, both those that took place in front of cameras on on Twitter and those related by people around him who appear credible. Of course, the title comes from his self-description. Another author, journalist Douglas Brinkley, referred to Trump's 'cavernous stupidity', and that is a better fit to reality. Donald Trump appears to be the most extreme example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (the phenomenon of the people who know the least about subjects believing they are experts) that has ever set foot in the White House.
Trump did not being his political career in a healthy country, or a healthy party, and singlehandedly warp them, but he made the pre-existing damage much worse. He has been both symptom and exacerbator. His influence before, during, and so far after his presidency has been a crisis for America. His lying and bungling about the COVID-19 pandemic, which the people who know most about it say probably caused 400,000 more American deaths of the disease than would have happened if it had been managed honestly and competently, is just one facet. Our country will still be healing from the wounds and the sickness for which he will be remembered long after he's gone. I can only hope that he serves as an inoculation so that when a sociopath who actually is a genius comes along, our societal and political immune system will be more ready than it was for Trump.
Trump's attempt to steal the election, and then his follow-on attempt to nullify it and for all practical purposes overthrow the government, failed. The winner of the election is now president. The political cannon fodder from Trump's following that carried out his attack on Congress failed, and an ever-increasing number are being arrested and facing long prison terms.
On the other hand, we don't know yet, as of April 2021, to what extent Trump himself will face any real consequences. His control of the Republican party seems as strong as ever, and that party has reacted to the widespread rejection of their values and actions not by reconsidering and trying to appeal to more of the electorate, but by trying to prevent as many people from voting as they can, focusing particularly on groups that seem likelier to vote for Democrats. This is an attack on democracy that's probably even more serious than the one Trump launched on January 6 of this year.
Trump's basic nature comes through loud and clear in the authors' recounting of his words and actions, both those that took place in front of cameras on on Twitter and those related by people around him who appear credible. Of course, the title comes from his self-description. Another author, journalist Douglas Brinkley, referred to Trump's 'cavernous stupidity', and that is a better fit to reality. Donald Trump appears to be the most extreme example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (the phenomenon of the people who know the least about subjects believing they are experts) that has ever set foot in the White House.
Trump did not being his political career in a healthy country, or a healthy party, and singlehandedly warp them, but he made the pre-existing damage much worse. He has been both symptom and exacerbator. His influence before, during, and so far after his presidency has been a crisis for America. His lying and bungling about the COVID-19 pandemic, which the people who know most about it say probably caused 400,000 more American deaths of the disease than would have happened if it had been managed honestly and competently, is just one facet. Our country will still be healing from the wounds and the sickness for which he will be remembered long after he's gone. I can only hope that he serves as an inoculation so that when a sociopath who actually is a genius comes along, our societal and political immune system will be more ready than it was for Trump.
sweetsojourn's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
4.25
A chilling look at Donald Trump during his first presidency. His delusions and narcissism in itself is frightening, but the enabling of the Republican Party even more so.
claudiam280's review against another edition
4.0
If you follow the news it’s nothing new. What he brings is the suffering from the other side. I felt sorry for Rex Tillerson, Kristien Nielsen, Robert Mueller. Because you get the idea that they were suffering under Trump. They were people trying to do their jobs and they were hindered by a lunatic determined to push his narrative no matter how much it hurt everyone else in the world. But I felt anger at the end with the Mueller report that somehow he lost control of his narrative and let the big one get away. That pissed me off.
vraegan's review against another edition
5.0
This is required reading.
I will start by admitting I have done a poor job of keeping up with everything going on with the Trump administration, not only because this particular group of idiots are exhaustingly inept and to hear about them on a daily basis is soul-draining - but also because I have always felt constantly behind - like, there's so much about American politics I don't know to begin with; what does the US do in Syria anyway, what's the Attorney General's relationship to the White House SUPPOSED to be? etc. Stuff that we regrettably are not taught during the course of our required 12-year public education. And, part two of the problem, much of our news media tends to not explain or contextualize politics in-depth - probably because details bore capitalists. Sound bites win.
So I really, really needed this book. It has the details. It is clear, concise, and terrifying. I feel caught up now. I am freaked out by Trump but for reasons I can now name, which is empowering. He is not just an idiot - he is an active enemy of the American people. He is a racist con man who is deliberately "casting himself as a victim in a warped reality." The only thing his thick skull seems to actually grasp is the Nazi-model of leadership, that one person in a position of power can "create a cult of victimization to hold on to power and to justify their repressive agendas." Simply surround this person with yes-men and yes-women to enable, protect, and most importantly - to make a profit through their proximity to power.
As I think Covid has made pretty clear, this person could care less about the security or prosperity of the country. As I think Supreme Court nominations and Charlottesville and macing peaceful protestors has made pretty clear, this person could care less about your basic rights - to health, to freedom of speech, to choice, to socioeconomic mobility. God help us all if he and all his ilk aren't overthrown in November.
In short: good work, authors!
I will start by admitting I have done a poor job of keeping up with everything going on with the Trump administration, not only because this particular group of idiots are exhaustingly inept and to hear about them on a daily basis is soul-draining - but also because I have always felt constantly behind - like, there's so much about American politics I don't know to begin with; what does the US do in Syria anyway, what's the Attorney General's relationship to the White House SUPPOSED to be? etc. Stuff that we regrettably are not taught during the course of our required 12-year public education. And, part two of the problem, much of our news media tends to not explain or contextualize politics in-depth - probably because details bore capitalists. Sound bites win.
So I really, really needed this book. It has the details. It is clear, concise, and terrifying. I feel caught up now. I am freaked out by Trump but for reasons I can now name, which is empowering. He is not just an idiot - he is an active enemy of the American people. He is a racist con man who is deliberately "casting himself as a victim in a warped reality." The only thing his thick skull seems to actually grasp is the Nazi-model of leadership, that one person in a position of power can "create a cult of victimization to hold on to power and to justify their repressive agendas." Simply surround this person with yes-men and yes-women to enable, protect, and most importantly - to make a profit through their proximity to power.
As I think Covid has made pretty clear, this person could care less about the security or prosperity of the country. As I think Supreme Court nominations and Charlottesville and macing peaceful protestors has made pretty clear, this person could care less about your basic rights - to health, to freedom of speech, to choice, to socioeconomic mobility. God help us all if he and all his ilk aren't overthrown in November.
In short: good work, authors!