Book: One Nation After Trump

Littr8
Join to follow...
Follow/Unfollow Writer: Littr8
By following, you’ll receive notifications when this author publishes new articles.
Don't wait! Sign up to follow this writer.
WriterShelf is a privacy-oriented writing platform. Unleash the power of your voice. It's free!
Sign up. Join WriterShelf now! Already a member. Login to WriterShelf.
Cover to cover
620   0  
·
2017/10/24
·
2 mins read


I guess I was looking for something harder-edged.  

Actually, that's a pretty safe bet. The best politico-econo-philosophy books I've read in recent years have all been more confrontational.

I liked John Dean's book on the mind of conservatives, Conservatives without Conscience, where he identifies personality types that respond to authoritarianism.

I'm an avid listener of the Professional Left, a podcast that argues that there's a generation of right-wing Republicans that are so far off the reservation that they are no longer fit as dialog partners. Just look at Roy Moore in Alabama. His goal in life is to set up a theocracy where the rule of law is tanked in favor of the rule of scripture. It's the American Taliban made flesh!

So reading One Nation After Trump, A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported, was a little frustrating.

E.J. Dionne, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann do a pretty good job of recounting the many, many outrages and worse of the Trump administration.

It feels like a survey course for a tuned-in High School student.  Not a treatise on speeding Trump and his ilk to the ash-heap of history.

I kept thinking, boy, I wish they'd talked to to David Dayen for the economic inequality part.  And Michelle Alexander and Ibram X. Kendi when talking about racism. And Frank Schaeffer for the corrupting influence of fundamentalism. And Naomi Klein for the importance of creating specific plans to put in place when opportunities arise.  I mean, the right has been creating libraries model legislation via ALEC for years.

At least Ari Berman gets one mention, though not his book Give us the Ballot.

But I guess these guys have day jobs and need to keep their TV options open. Though I expected more from Ornstein and Mann.


WriterShelf™ is a unique multiple pen name blogging and forum platform. Protect relationships and your privacy. Take your writing in new directions. ** Join WriterShelf**
WriterShelf™ is an open writing platform. The views, information and opinions in this article are those of the author.


Article info

Categories:
Tags:
Date:
Published: 2017/10/24 - Updated: 2020/05/28
Total: 302 words


Share this article:
About the Author

Got a suggestion for a good read? Leave it in the comments!




Join the discussion now!
Don't wait! Sign up to join the discussion.
WriterShelf is a privacy-oriented writing platform. Unleash the power of your voice. It's free!
Sign up. Join WriterShelf now! Already a member. Login to WriterShelf.