Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

Of course I read it.  Every one of my friends who was interested in politics was talking about it so I wanted to find out what the fuss is about.  Plus Trump said I can’t read it.  So I bought it.  I don’t regret it.  It was a fun read.  If you love gossip (and I expect that’s most people) I highly recommend you get it too.

I had the feeling I was standing beside a water cooler for hours exchanging petty gossip about everyone in the White House.  I know the media made this book sound like it’s Bannon vs. Trump but it isn’t.  In fact, part of the fun of reading the book is figuring out who is doing the bad mouthing in the paragraphs I happen to be reading.  It’s actually pretty easy to at least narrow down the list of “suspected” gossipers.  If the person or people are being portrayed in a negative light, they’re not the ones doing the gossiping for these particular paragraphs.  The gossiping is being done by the people/factions who all of a sudden (and I do mean all of a sudden because the end-of-the-world evil doers become the world’s saviors in paragraphs) become the good guys.  So figuring out who’s doing the talking is part of the fun.

The other part is just having a catalogue of all the palace intrigue in the White House.  Trump (and especially Melania’s) despair when Trump won, Ivanka’s ruthless ambition, the entire White House lying and seeking only to enrich themselves, the endless, toxic back-stabbing, the burning down of every norm of self-government that has not been explicitly set down in law—all this is catalogued for us in a little over 300 pages.

But what does Fire and Fury really tell us?  That Trump is a liar who surrounds himself with back-stabbing sycophants?  We knew that already.  That our pugs would make a better president than he? Again, old news.

Here’s what this very entertaining book does not answer: how did we get here? I write this as half of Puerto Rico is without power, as our government is three weeks from yet another shutdown, and as our very ability for self-government is being questioned around the world.  And yet, the GOP continues to cover up for a completely incompetent man, family and their hangers-on who are supposedly running the country (but who are simply looting it).  How did this happen? How did we come so close to being a full-fledged banana republic in less than a year?  Fire and Fury doesn’t talk about that.  It doesn’t even mention the question.

So sure, read Fire and Fury for the gossip.  It’s a fun read.  You’ll enjoy it.  But to get a sense of what’s really going on, turn to a book that asks the right questions.  Books like How the Right Lost Its Mind or Trumpocracy.

Product Name: Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

Product Description: Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff

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