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A review by laceywebs
No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein
5.0
"This book's argument, in a nutshell, is that Trump, extreme as he is, is less an aberration than a logical conclusion - a pastiche of pretty much all the worst trends of the past half century." -Naomi Klein
I found this book to be one of the best I've read "after-the-fact" of Trump being elected, and I really liked the way the information was organized. I found the insights into "shock politics" and the presentation of the way that Trump's brand is so deeply interwoven into his candidacy and Presidency to be interesting. There were also a lot of things that I already knew about, especially in relation to his "picks" for different offices, but the way this book laid it out in relation to the themes being discussed made more connections for me as far as what the "hoped outcome" of each of those picks would be. I think the author also did a great job of presenting what went wrong, or what was lacking, or what IS still lacking from the left without beating a dead horse. I've read multiple books and articles that discuss "what we should do now", but this is the closest I've seen to a real solution in regards to an actual document creation, social platform creation, and a complete reshaping and "re-approach" to democracy as a whole.
I contemplated giving the book 4 stars because I do think there were some personal stories that were inserted that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the way the book was presented/written and also because I think the author focused MUCH more on one issue than any others (obviously as her own #1 issue... Which I think a lot of could have been saved for a book dedicated to just that issue instead of bringing that one issue to the forefront so many times on a book that wasn't singularly about that). But, overall, those things are minor compared with the benefits I got from reading the book and how much I enjoyed reading it and the insights in it. So five stars seems to fit with my overall impression of it.
Some other quotes from this book that I loved:
-"... A vote for Trump might not reflect open hatred, but there is still, at best, a troubling indifference behind the act."
-"Wrestling and reality TV both thrive on the spectacle of extreme emotion, conflict, and suffering... you know it's not real, so you don't have to care; you get to be part of the drama without having to feel any empathy... Nobody cries... for The Apprentice contestants when Trump fired or humiliated them. It's a safe place for suffering. And it was all part of preparing the ground for that Igor of all things fake, Donald Trump. Fake body parts, fake wrestling, fake-reality TV, fake news, and his whole fake business model... The Apprentice may be off the air, and Trump may have retired his WWE career, but the show is still on. Indeed, it never stops."
-"Our modern capitalist economy was born thanks to two very large subsidies: stolen Indigenous land and stolen African people. Both require the creation of intellectual theories that ranked the human lives and labor, placing white men at the top... The ability to discount darker people and darker nations in order to justify stealing their land and labor was foundational..."
-"Politics hates a vacuum; if it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear."
-"Love trumps Hate" was Clinton's final slogan. But love alone wasn't up to the job; it needed something stronger to help it out, something like justice."
-"Most of his wrath was saved for the various racist bogeymen he conjured up: the immigrants coming to rape you, the Muslims coming to blow you up, the Black activists who don't respect our men in uniform, and the Black president who messed everything up."
-"The plans that are taking shape for defeating Trumpism wherever we live go well beyond finding a progressive savior to run for office and then offering that person our blind support. Instead, communities and movements are uniting to lay out the core policies that politicians who want their support must endorse. The people's platforms are starting to lead - and the politicians will have to follow."
-"Progressive transformational change is popular - more than many of us would have dared imagine as recently as just one or two years ago... The left-wing almost-wins of the past two years are not defeats. They are the first tremors of a profound ideological realignment from which a progressive majority could well emerge."
I found this book to be one of the best I've read "after-the-fact" of Trump being elected, and I really liked the way the information was organized. I found the insights into "shock politics" and the presentation of the way that Trump's brand is so deeply interwoven into his candidacy and Presidency to be interesting. There were also a lot of things that I already knew about, especially in relation to his "picks" for different offices, but the way this book laid it out in relation to the themes being discussed made more connections for me as far as what the "hoped outcome" of each of those picks would be. I think the author also did a great job of presenting what went wrong, or what was lacking, or what IS still lacking from the left without beating a dead horse. I've read multiple books and articles that discuss "what we should do now", but this is the closest I've seen to a real solution in regards to an actual document creation, social platform creation, and a complete reshaping and "re-approach" to democracy as a whole.
I contemplated giving the book 4 stars because I do think there were some personal stories that were inserted that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the way the book was presented/written and also because I think the author focused MUCH more on one issue than any others (obviously as her own #1 issue... Which I think a lot of could have been saved for a book dedicated to just that issue instead of bringing that one issue to the forefront so many times on a book that wasn't singularly about that). But, overall, those things are minor compared with the benefits I got from reading the book and how much I enjoyed reading it and the insights in it. So five stars seems to fit with my overall impression of it.
Some other quotes from this book that I loved:
-"... A vote for Trump might not reflect open hatred, but there is still, at best, a troubling indifference behind the act."
-"Wrestling and reality TV both thrive on the spectacle of extreme emotion, conflict, and suffering... you know it's not real, so you don't have to care; you get to be part of the drama without having to feel any empathy... Nobody cries... for The Apprentice contestants when Trump fired or humiliated them. It's a safe place for suffering. And it was all part of preparing the ground for that Igor of all things fake, Donald Trump. Fake body parts, fake wrestling, fake-reality TV, fake news, and his whole fake business model... The Apprentice may be off the air, and Trump may have retired his WWE career, but the show is still on. Indeed, it never stops."
-"Our modern capitalist economy was born thanks to two very large subsidies: stolen Indigenous land and stolen African people. Both require the creation of intellectual theories that ranked the human lives and labor, placing white men at the top... The ability to discount darker people and darker nations in order to justify stealing their land and labor was foundational..."
-"Politics hates a vacuum; if it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear."
-"Love trumps Hate" was Clinton's final slogan. But love alone wasn't up to the job; it needed something stronger to help it out, something like justice."
-"Most of his wrath was saved for the various racist bogeymen he conjured up: the immigrants coming to rape you, the Muslims coming to blow you up, the Black activists who don't respect our men in uniform, and the Black president who messed everything up."
-"The plans that are taking shape for defeating Trumpism wherever we live go well beyond finding a progressive savior to run for office and then offering that person our blind support. Instead, communities and movements are uniting to lay out the core policies that politicians who want their support must endorse. The people's platforms are starting to lead - and the politicians will have to follow."
-"Progressive transformational change is popular - more than many of us would have dared imagine as recently as just one or two years ago... The left-wing almost-wins of the past two years are not defeats. They are the first tremors of a profound ideological realignment from which a progressive majority could well emerge."