I was a little reluctant to post a review on my blog of this detailed Donald Trump biography by a longtime New York political journalist, fearful that it may feed into his egotistical hunger for any publicity, whether good or bad-and his litigious nature. However, a need to understand his appeal overcame that reluctance, and, given his aversion to reading, he is very unlikely to ever read or care about anything from a two-bit Canadian book reviewer.
From early childhood, learning from his father, he has always focused on personal wealth, power, and fame. There are more reasons to fear his actions detailed here than there are explanations of what is appealing to him for millions of Americans. His racism, sexual predations, misogyny, nepotism, and egotism are all laid out in detail, but much of that has been revealed before in the daily news, previous biographies and even by his own tweets, books, and statements. The constantly churning of hirings and firings in the Trump White House and the personal conflicts engendered there are emphasized. It seems to me that an analysis of what it is buried in the psyche of Americans that allows millions of his followers to overlook his obvious faults would be more interesting reading than this dry account of those faults.
This book is more revealing, in some ways, about the pervasive corrupt political and bureaucratic manoeuvring in the U.S. than about Trump. Powerful party bosses and leading politicians of all stripes with little interest in what is good for the average citizen wield enormous power is selecting candidates for various public offices.
In my opinion, a grievous omission from this tome is the lack of any mention of Trump’s capricious withdrawal of the U.S. from the multinational Paris Climate Accord, annoying many allied nations. That and Trump’s appointment of Scot Pruitt, a businessman and climate change denier, who had sued the Environmental Protection Agency forty one times, to head that agency has to have had disastrous negative effects on the climate we are all doomed to live in. Likewise, Haberman barely mentions Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the multinational agreement with Iran to limit that country’s nuclear arms development and has thus made everyone’s world more dangerous.
I am still somewhat puzzled by Trump’s appeal even after struggling though this book.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/10
Thanks, The Economist, The New Yorker.
The Passionate Reader 