Happy yet sad
My position is that I’m happy yet sad that I read their wonderful book. It’s a well-written journalistic collaboration by a couple of well-credentialed authors from the Washington Post.
I would like to say that I enjoyed reading this book but the subject matter makes that impossible. Since the history of President Trump’s last year is known this book isn’t a page turner. We know how it came out. The book covers what was taking place in the real world of his administration.
At 592 pages the book also isn’t a quick read especially if you read at my retired person pace. Not to worry though, footnotes start at page 529 so you only have to read 528 pages unless you’re really into footnotes.
The authors do a fantastic job of taking the everyday chaos of the Trump Administration at any given point in time of his last year in office and provide an accurate and clear narrative of the conversations and related events that were taking place behind the scenes of the headlines at the time. That’s a mouthful of sentence to say that they did a good job of making sense of it all. Not an easy task. There were a lot of moving parts around any given event.
There really aren’t any heroes in this book. General Milley probably comes the closest but he was just doing his job. One point that really stands out is how much of a character television is in the book, mainly due to how often conversations with Trump were either gatherings around a TV or responding to something on TV. That may be another sign of the times.
That’s probably enough for a book review.
I’m glad I read it.
“I laughed. I cried. It became a part of me.” (Selma Diamond)
We came real close to losing our democracy. Reading this book just made me sad about how people at the highest level of our government conducted themselves on a daily basis.
My additional takeaways will be what I learned or had reinforced after reading the book. The bar for looking good in dealing with Trump was very low. The man likes to be applauded when he enters a room. No kidding. I’ve read this in other places as well.
The bar for being known for doing the right thing for the country in regards to stopping him from committing some disreputable or heinous act was also incredible low. As in there was a guy who would play soothing background music when they knew that Trump was getting too worked up. Unfortunately he wasn’t around all of the time. The years the sycophants around him spent enabling him really can’t be undone by an act or two of conscience and/or fear.
General Milley stands out as being a man of honorable intentions around a host of duplicitous dishonorable men and women whose personal integrity was nonexistent that spent their time telling their Emperor what he wanted to hear. Abandoning ship when it’s sinking is prudent NOT heroic.
Sad.