The Best Book on the Trump Phenomenon



Everybody rushed in after the fact to be first with the goods on how Trump pulled off the biggest electoral upset in modern presidential history. I was already ahead of them though. I had been covering the political briar patch with a steady diary approach for four presidential election cycles, both terms of W, the meteoric rise and weird re-election of Barack Obama, and of course the first flutterings of the Republican country club riot over replacing him. I had three blogs to draw from over that time, and a couple+ books out of it, including one demonstrating that I had Obama figured out long before even his fiercest beltway critics caught on. Here’s another relevant book.

I recognized the unique potential of Trump to win the whole thing early, in June of 2014. I could prove it. Why has it taken me this long to do my own book about the most spectacular politician of all our lifetimes? Two reasons. I didn’t realize I had produced so much material about Trump, the blog in which I did most of it having been essentially shut down by technical problems(?) in early 2017. Out of sight, out of mind.

There’s also the matter of my 24-48 Rule regarding Trump himself. It was hilarious but odd to me during the campaign and afterwards that so many smart observers raced to react instantly to whatever Trump did or said and then explain to us with great confidence what it all meant. They were always wrong. The ground is now littered with the careers of those who were smarter than Trump, better persons than Trump, and insider shrewd in every area where he was a bumbling loudmouth newcomer. I learned quickly not to offer explanations right away but give even the most provocative Trump events a full day (24 hrs) or two (48 hrs) to marinate and start exhibiting their unfailingly Machiavellian consequences. Contrary to Facebook conventions, I know, but patience has served well there since the inauguration in particular.

Some things, like the big picture of Trump and what he was doing with the arc of his political life, required more than 24-48 hours of course. So I gave them 24 months from when he started running in earnest. Now I’ve concluded that the blog diaries represent a revealing slice of what the hell was going on in 2016 and 2017. They’re very different from all those other books, which are full of a lot of writing and quotes and bullet points and blaring headlines. Maybe right about a lot of things but very much after the fact.

 In Rē Trump is an account from when it was all actually going down. My book is full of pictures and rock videos (not all Stones, either) and prizefights and partially dressed women and jokes at everyone’s expense, including my own AND Trump’s. There’s actual writing too, as well as reference to things you might not expect, like the antikythera device, the works of P.G. Wodehouse, bad words, the nature of reality, Ted Knight’s greatest role, the Inland Taipan, the Brutalist School of modern architecture, and a big chunk of horselaugh observations about the politics of Y2000. Availability and price? Right now and for free. There’s no way to get this into print or even to Kindle with so much electronic content. It is absolutely an Internet book and an Internet experience. So I give it away with no regrets in hopes some of you might enjoy it. (Warning: Keep an eye on the dates of posts; the order is a function of search algorithms, not chronology. More fun that way.) Here’s how you access it.

 IN RĒ TRUMP

  Part 6 — From the Deerhound Blog (June 3, 2017 <-- July 25, 2013)

 From IP Rules:

  Part 5 (Jan 27, 2016 <-- > Feb 16, 2015)

  Part 4 (May 6, 2016 <-- > Jan 27, 2016)

  Part 3 (Nov 12, 2016 <-- > May 13, 2016)

  Part 2 (Mar 17, 2016 <-- > Dec 31, 2016)

  Part 1 (Dec 13, 2016 <-- > Mar 24, 2015)

  REMEMBER TO USE THE "SMALL BACK BUTTON" TO TOGGLE BETWEEN THE BLOG ENTRY AND THE LINKED POSTS. [Back to The Trump Odyssey.]

Comments

Post a Comment

Readers also liked…

A Near-Perfect Microcosm of “The Swamp”

Image
Ontogeny recapitulates philogeny. There’s an intensely contemporary reason for taking a close look at Scientology. The Swamp is so huge it seems like the Borg. But what are the stripped down essentials of the Borg? Here’s a look at a laboratory example, a microcosm if you will. In the interests of full disclosure, I did encounter Scientology back in the weird year of 1968. I was in Boston, got scooped in to a “Dianetics” exercise, and got speedily thrown out for having too much “charge” to participate. The one in charge was blond, bland to the point of creepy, and I almost (but not quite) succeeded in making him lose his temper. In further interests of disclosure, I spent years on Facebook, debating Trump-haters. They did lose their tempers. But they also exhibited the exact same repetition of Talking Points the lefties (and Scientologists) employ. Exact. Same. Words. How I made the cult connection. Overview Like it says. Troublemaker. Destroy Utterly  Horror Show Squared More ... More
Read more

A Reclamation Project Begun

Image
As you work your way through the links here, don’t be shy. Get ‘Click Happy.’ Even on pics. FIGHTING BACK ONE FILE AT A TIME … How bad has it gotten? I uploaded this video from the old Instapunk at YouTube an hour ago. It has already been removed for violating YT Community Standards.  There’s a pdf version, just published, of the post from Instapunk.com the video above was created for. Nobody censored it 15 years ago. Back then, it was unquestioningly covered as freedom of expression. Here’s my pdf file of ‘ The Goosestep Enigma ’.  This was by no means the most controversial post or graphic included in Instapunk’s 2,000+++ posts over the years. Now I’m going back in time to make pdf versions of the key parts of that website, meaning the most comical, controversial, reflective, insightful, and graphically provocative. But why reinvent the wheel. It’s all still there, isn’t it? The sad fact is that the truly huge resource called Instapunk.com is facing a ticking clock. The original site
Read more

Guess I’m the last one who’s fighting back with nunchucks…

Image
YEAH. THE VP DEBATE You have no idea. This is all an apotheosis for me. The Joke meme has captured me. Like, you know, I know there will be Democrats out there and vociferating about how good Walz did in appropriate ethnic accents. Defending Kamala was always a loser. Bathos is hell.  And they think this POS is on their side. They do. Actually this is called projection. Here’s the real basis of Tim Walz. A banjo-banging would-be wise man who claimed Minnesota children were “above average.” Keep watching, rolling over to the next vid too. Keillor is a Walz… uh huh. Older, fatter, meltier… 2028 My very first blog, Gloves Off, contained a spirited defense of the ones we used to call Ladies. All gone now except for the ones still motoring onward with walkers and cute hair with no cosmetic surgery. They were mostly mothers. Not all. I have memories none of you can match — my own mother, Addie and Adelaide, Mildred Conklin, Gwendolyn Fennessy, Emma Jones, Rosa Riggs, Joy Coleman, Sis Hine, I
Read more

Don’t like Trump? Get over it.

Image
Another has-been life ruined beyond repair. Trump Curse writ large. Rosie O’Donnell still can’t get over the fact that Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 by blowing off Megyn Kelly’s gotcha question about his mean tweets to women, using her as the completely understandable punchline.   Millions of men, and even some women, said to themselves, “I would do that too.” She’s a sad case. But this latest outburst got me to thinking. Maybe I’ve been unfair to The Donald myself over the years. With my wife and others, I’ve taken the position that I admire Trump as a President and would-be savior of the Republic. I’ve also said I wouldn’t have him in my house for dinner. Or, less pompously, that I have never had any desire to meet him in person. I have fought strenuously for his political life and fortunes. No one can deny that. But I also fought for George W and Mitt Romney (as I had done for McCain, whom I genuinely despised) when they were running. Didn’t want to meet them eit
Read more

About those White Dudes for Harris

Image
The Boss White Dude Bradley Whitford When I first heard the name “White Dudes for Harris” I thought immediately of Bradley Whitford. It was the role of his lifetime. Playing White House power behind the scenes Josh Lyman, who bullied his secretary to make things happen for the righteous presidency of Jeb “Martin Sheen” Josiah Bartlet, a little guy with MS who was in every way a precursor of Obama but for being physically small and weak and gloriously intelligent like no one else who could talk Christian while being the smartest meanest man in the room.  Bradley Whitford himself went to Wesleyan University, one of the ‘Little Three,’ who always knew they were smarter than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Are we cool enough yet or what? I always despised the smug self-hagiography of the West Wing. The longest running political propaganda as soap opera entertainment in the history of American television. Bradley got himself Emmies and Golden Globes pushing his own inane political agendas.  T
Read more