| TRUMP MUST GO The Top 100 Reasons To Dump Trump [and One To Keep Him] Bill Press New York: Thomas Dunne Books, September 2018 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-1-250-30647-0 | ||||
| ISBN-10 1-250-30647-7 | 373pp. | HC | $27.99 | |
From 16 June 2015, when he rode down that golden escalator in Trump Tower to declare his run for the presidency, Donald Trump has also declared himself the enemy of "the forgotten man" he pledged to help, of America's traditional values, of America's allies — indeed, of reality itself. The evidence is abundant: in his words and deeds, in his choices of cabinet members and other associates, and in his profound unfitness for the Oval Office.
If you want a bill of particulars of Trump's unfitness for the office of president and his malfeasance in that office, here it is. Bill Press begins with Trump's personal characteristics and proceeds through some especially disastrous actions (the various iterations of his Muslim ban and other punishments of immigrants) to categories such as his war on the environment.
And while our Constitution set up well-constructed bulwarks against corruption and malfeasance in federal government, it could not have prevented the situation we face today, with such widespread unworthiness among Republicans1 at the federal and state levels of government.
"It is on a supposition that our American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this Government are founded," Patrick Henry, of "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!" fame, warned us in 1788 during the debates over the Constitution. "But its defective, and imperfect construction, puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men." – Page 9 |
There's no need to go into a great deal of detail about Trump's defects here. Anyone who's been paying attention has heard about many of them daily in newspaper accounts and radio and television broadcasts. The book lays out those details in admirably thorough and well-organized fashion. But by no means is it all "old news." I learned a great deal, such as the fact that (as of September 2010) Donald Trump owned 222 different companies, all named after him (page 31); that, in a December 2017 cabinet meeting, Mike Pence praised Trump every twelve seconds for a full three minutes (page 31); or that, from 2016 through December 2017, twenty-three people have died in ICE detention facilities (page 62.)
I will mention one thing: the author's estimation of Mick Mulvaney.2
If Obama had been against the Iran nuclear deal, Trump would be for it. While driven by pique and patently idiotic, Trump's action came as no surprise. As candidate, he promised to cancel the deal. As president, he did nothing but condemn it as "insane" and something that "should have never, ever been made." What was somewhat surprising is that, even after eighteen months in the White House to think about it, he could come up with no better case for withdrawal than a string of lies. – Pages 196-197 |
Bill Press lays out those five lies. I'll only summarize them here.
Indeed, I think we still don't fully understand how much damage this withdrawal has done.
On April 25, 2018, Trump's OMB head and acting consumer financial watchdog Mick Mulvaney ripped the curtain off the way things work in Washington and especially in Trumpworld. "We had a hierarchy in my office, in Congress," the former South Carolina congressman told leaders of the American Banking Association. "If you were a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn't talk to you. If you ware a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you." That admission tells you all you need to know about Washington: it's strictly pay-for-play. And it tells you all you need to know about Mick Mulvaney: He's for sale. Naturally, then, this is the man Donald Trump has entrusted with two top jobs—director of the Office of Management and Budget and acting director of the Consumer Finance (sic) Protection Bureau. He brings to OMB and CFPB the same extreme agenda he championed in Congress as co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus: ending Social Security and Medicaid; abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency; ending federal support for student loans, medical research, and "Meals on Wheels"; cutting back on foreign aid; demanding deep spending cuts as a price for raising the debt ceiling; defunding Planned Parenthood; and shutting down the government when conservatives don't get everything they want. Take it from the man himself. Mulvaney once introduced himself to Gary Cohn as a "right-wing nut job." That he is. – Page 166 |
Spoiler: The one, singular reason to keep Trump around has a name: Mike Pence. In his Epilogue, Bill Press quite eviscerates the reputation of the former Governor of Indiana.
Like Bill Press's other books, this one is well researched. He gets a few facts wrong. There are some clumsy phrases and grammatical errors. But such mistakes are few. The book's major defect is the lack of an index, but its structure makes up for that to a considerable degree. I consider it a must-read and a keeper.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.