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Best enjoyed: On a long ride
Enjoyment rating (1-10) : 8
Distraction level (1-5) : 2
Thank goodness for this book. I feel so much better after reading it. Not because of the fears it confirmed for me, but because of the suspicions and fears it has laid to rest.
All that crazy alt-right stuff? That was Bannon. Trump barely gives half a crap about it, and now Bannon is persona-non-grata to the White House. The executive order banning travel? That was Bannon failing to understand government, wanting to cause hand-wringing amongst the left and make a personal splash. Which it did. We ate it up. Was it a shot across the bow to signal a strong, rigorous follow-up? No. It was exactly what it looked like: Hilarious, half-baked incompetence, from a man in a hurry.
All those unfilled positions in cabinets? That wasn't the beginning of a big, determined, "disassemble the apparatus of the state" push. That was the fallout of the Trump campaign so thoroughly expecting to lose that they had no plans in place of any kind for a transition of power, then remaining so dysfunctional that they could not assemble a plan before day one. Or for months afterward. Can you imagine Trump sitting down, perhaps with a piece of paper and a pen, and saying "Okay, let's make a plan?" You can't. There's a reason why you can't.
It's true that Trump does not read. He is barely literate. He cannot become even halfway informed about any subject on the presidential desk, and the people around him know this, and they spend all their time "managing" him. That might seem like a threat - he would be eminently exploitable - if he wasn't thoroughly unpredictable and occasionally irrational.
All his ad-libbed speeches filled with repetitions and meaningless wandering: Yes, people do know it's garbage; even the people on his own staff. But he's the one with the power, through which they grasp their own, so they keep their expressions neutral and their mouths shut. They know there's a big baby sitting in the driver's seat grasping at the levers of power. With every lever he pulls in front of the cameras, they quickly dash behind the console and disconnect the wires.
Trump wanted the title, but not the job. He wanted to glad-hand and play golf, throw fits and fire people and lob insults, and have all cameras pointed at him all the time. That's all. The rest is bean-counting crap that he'd rather avoid. During the campaign he had to reassure his wife that he would lose the election, so she would be out of the spotlight. All those photos of her looking pissed? It's not the infidelity; it's not any sort of abuse except perhaps for the standard trophy-wife neglect. She just does not want to be there. She would rather be having lunch with her friends, raising her son, or wandering around Europe, and she is furious with her husband for actually winning the election and joining them at the hip in a way that their marriage was never about.
All that stuff you think this presidency might accomplish? All that threatening stuff that you plan to strenuously resist? If it takes hard work, or coordination, or even consistency, forget it. Trump is too old and too uninterested to care. He is not even interested in facilitating the agenda of his own political party. He is their president in the most tenuous way you can imagine. Better if Trump had not been elected, of course, but the silver lining is that any other candidate ... ANY other one ... would have given the Republican congress far more power. Trump is more interested in feuding with them in the press than conspiring with them.
Trump is not just uninformed in some correctable way - he is uninformed by design. His principles are not Republican, they are whatever the most convincing guy said in the last meeting he had. And often, that is his daughter or his son-in-law, whose politics are more Democrat than Republican. That is freaking hilarious, and a nasty punch in the eye to the Republican party. Republican pundits railed against the nepotism of the Clintons, and now they watch helplessly as nepotism drives a wedge between them and their own president. Their latest move was to try and strip his son-in-law's security clearance. How much difference do you think that will make?
This presidency ... will spin its wheels and get nothing done for another three years, and when the door hits his ass on the way out, Trump will be abandoned to auditors and lawyers like a chicken bone to dogs. He's not a new normal, he's a correction. He's the shirt-ripping self-sabotaging one night stand that the nation is having, after our steady boyfriend Obama broke up with us and tried to pawn us off on his friend Hillary and we rejected her in an angry display of pique. We don't want your boring old scraps! We want fire, and fury!!
And here it is.
This book made me laugh out loud a dozen times. It was brilliant stress relief, and had plenty of food for thought. The knowledge that the incredulity and the argument for sanity extends all the way up inside the Oval Office to the man himself is strangely reassuring. Government is too established, and full of too many sane people, for one grumpy old man to tweet it apart. I really don't have to worry so much.
I highly encourage everyone to read this book. In fact, I want to include three short excerpts from it, even though it's potentially a copyright snafu. I've boldfaced the key lines.
( Click for excerpts )
Enjoyment rating (1-10) : 8
Distraction level (1-5) : 2
Thank goodness for this book. I feel so much better after reading it. Not because of the fears it confirmed for me, but because of the suspicions and fears it has laid to rest.
All that crazy alt-right stuff? That was Bannon. Trump barely gives half a crap about it, and now Bannon is persona-non-grata to the White House. The executive order banning travel? That was Bannon failing to understand government, wanting to cause hand-wringing amongst the left and make a personal splash. Which it did. We ate it up. Was it a shot across the bow to signal a strong, rigorous follow-up? No. It was exactly what it looked like: Hilarious, half-baked incompetence, from a man in a hurry.
All those unfilled positions in cabinets? That wasn't the beginning of a big, determined, "disassemble the apparatus of the state" push. That was the fallout of the Trump campaign so thoroughly expecting to lose that they had no plans in place of any kind for a transition of power, then remaining so dysfunctional that they could not assemble a plan before day one. Or for months afterward. Can you imagine Trump sitting down, perhaps with a piece of paper and a pen, and saying "Okay, let's make a plan?" You can't. There's a reason why you can't.
It's true that Trump does not read. He is barely literate. He cannot become even halfway informed about any subject on the presidential desk, and the people around him know this, and they spend all their time "managing" him. That might seem like a threat - he would be eminently exploitable - if he wasn't thoroughly unpredictable and occasionally irrational.
All his ad-libbed speeches filled with repetitions and meaningless wandering: Yes, people do know it's garbage; even the people on his own staff. But he's the one with the power, through which they grasp their own, so they keep their expressions neutral and their mouths shut. They know there's a big baby sitting in the driver's seat grasping at the levers of power. With every lever he pulls in front of the cameras, they quickly dash behind the console and disconnect the wires.
Trump wanted the title, but not the job. He wanted to glad-hand and play golf, throw fits and fire people and lob insults, and have all cameras pointed at him all the time. That's all. The rest is bean-counting crap that he'd rather avoid. During the campaign he had to reassure his wife that he would lose the election, so she would be out of the spotlight. All those photos of her looking pissed? It's not the infidelity; it's not any sort of abuse except perhaps for the standard trophy-wife neglect. She just does not want to be there. She would rather be having lunch with her friends, raising her son, or wandering around Europe, and she is furious with her husband for actually winning the election and joining them at the hip in a way that their marriage was never about.
All that stuff you think this presidency might accomplish? All that threatening stuff that you plan to strenuously resist? If it takes hard work, or coordination, or even consistency, forget it. Trump is too old and too uninterested to care. He is not even interested in facilitating the agenda of his own political party. He is their president in the most tenuous way you can imagine. Better if Trump had not been elected, of course, but the silver lining is that any other candidate ... ANY other one ... would have given the Republican congress far more power. Trump is more interested in feuding with them in the press than conspiring with them.
Trump is not just uninformed in some correctable way - he is uninformed by design. His principles are not Republican, they are whatever the most convincing guy said in the last meeting he had. And often, that is his daughter or his son-in-law, whose politics are more Democrat than Republican. That is freaking hilarious, and a nasty punch in the eye to the Republican party. Republican pundits railed against the nepotism of the Clintons, and now they watch helplessly as nepotism drives a wedge between them and their own president. Their latest move was to try and strip his son-in-law's security clearance. How much difference do you think that will make?
This presidency ... will spin its wheels and get nothing done for another three years, and when the door hits his ass on the way out, Trump will be abandoned to auditors and lawyers like a chicken bone to dogs. He's not a new normal, he's a correction. He's the shirt-ripping self-sabotaging one night stand that the nation is having, after our steady boyfriend Obama broke up with us and tried to pawn us off on his friend Hillary and we rejected her in an angry display of pique. We don't want your boring old scraps! We want fire, and fury!!
And here it is.
This book made me laugh out loud a dozen times. It was brilliant stress relief, and had plenty of food for thought. The knowledge that the incredulity and the argument for sanity extends all the way up inside the Oval Office to the man himself is strangely reassuring. Government is too established, and full of too many sane people, for one grumpy old man to tweet it apart. I really don't have to worry so much.
I highly encourage everyone to read this book. In fact, I want to include three short excerpts from it, even though it's potentially a copyright snafu. I've boldfaced the key lines.
( Click for excerpts )
