First history book on Trump's presidency rips the poor guy to shreds
From the outset of his campaign to the closing weeks of his presidency, he unleashed an unprecedented torrent of false claims and misinformation. The lies themselves are now so familiar as to have become clichés.
Today what is described as the first history book of Donald Trump's presidency hits the market.
The Presidency Of Donald Trump : A First Historical Assessment goes on sale today. Here is an excerpt from chapter 4.
Chapter 4 - The Crisis Of Truth In The Age Of Trump
How can we account for Donald Trump’s extraordinary record of lies?
From the outset of his campaign to the closing weeks of his presidency, he
unleashed an unprecedented torrent of false claims and misinformation. The
lies themselves are now so familiar as to have become clichés. He regaled
audiences at his rallies with stories of a fictitious past: as the child of a
German immigrant, who graduated first in his class at Wharton, and
benefited only from a modest inheritance, before enjoying a sustained string
of business successes, building a TV show that stayed at the top of the
ratings for a number of years, ascending to the presidency with a majority
of the popular vote, and celebrating before record-breaking inaugural
crowds.
He promised from the outset to deal with a slew of fictitious
problems: a wrecked economy (after ninety-one consecutive months of
economic expansion), a slew of “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” streaming
over borders (after a nearly decade-long decline in rates of unauthorized
immigration, and much research suggesting that the correlation between
unauthorized immigration and crime was, if anything, negative), and a
catastrophic rise in the murder rate (which was still hovering near fifty-year
lows).
And he promised his audiences a fictitious future: he would unveil
precisely how Mexico would pay for a border wall, he would share his tax
records for all to see, he would introduce a new health-care plan that had all
the benefits of Obamacare with none of its flaws, and he would make
COVID-19 disappear weeks after it had reached American shores.
Even his administration’s most obvious successes were leavened with hyperbole until they too grew into lies. His tax cut was the biggest ever, his administrationhad built “the greatest economy in the history of the world,” he enjoyed 95 percent approval from the Republican Party, and he’d been featured on more Time magazine covers than anyone else.
Few rays of truth emerged undisturbed after passing through the prism of Trump’s words.
The leading news organizations—already wrestling with challenging
market conditions amid cord cutting and the overabundance of free media
—struggled to arrive at a coherent strategy to account for a major-party
candidacy, and later a presidency, that showed such blithe disregard for
facts. Was it appropriate to grant cable news airtime to someone who
exploits it, repeatedly, to spread easily documented falsehoods? How could
news organizations preserve their putative commitment to “balance” in
covering candidates whose arguments were founded in deception? In
wrestling with the latter question during the 2016 campaign, the public
editor for the New York Times captured the pathos of a profession in crisis.
The word “lie” is “loaded” and “feels partisan,” she wrote—but sometimes,
as in Trump’s “unequivocally false” claims about Barack Obama’s birth
certificate, it was nonetheless “time to call a lie a lie.”
Journalists increasingly worried that their attempts to appear evenhanded were being
exploited in the service of false and misleading claims, but also that
observing their falsehood would play into Trump’s narrative that their
reporting was untrustworthy, “fake,” and distorted by liberal bias. His
willful defiance of convention had left them in a double bind.
The Presidency Of Donald Trump : A First Historical Assessment
edited by Julian Zelizer
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The first of many guaranteed to make the orange menace unhappy. .
The first? Where have you been?
“The first?”
The first will be the historical tome that doesn’t excoriate trump for the things we all already know. He was ill-prepared, ill-equipped, ill-mannered and is thus due a fate commensurate with his shortcomings.
None of those books were presented as history books.
Perhaps depends on who you ask. I just picked Fear for a little test:
"A harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency" —Phillip Rucker and Robert Costa, The Washington Post
“A devastating reported account of the Trump Presidency that will be consulted as a first draft of the grim history it portrays"-Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker
“You can trust that Woodward has gone to inordinate lengths to get to the best obtainable version of the truth.”—Mike Allen, Axios
"He promised from the outset to deal with a slew of fictitious
problems: a wrecked economy (after ninety-one consecutive months of
economic expansion), a slew of “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” streaming
over borders (after a nearly decade-long decline in rates of unauthorized
immigration, and much research suggesting that the correlation between
unauthorized immigration and crime was, if anything, negative), and a
catastrophic rise in the murder rate (which was still hovering near fifty-year
lows)."
I think that paragraph, combined with the make up of Trumps base, is very telling. After 91 "consecutive months of economic expansion" under President Obama, there were many who were claiming the country was headed in the wrong direction, and they appeared to mainly be white Southern conservatives and blue collar workers in some manufacturing towns and coal towns that felt they were being phased out while the rest of the economy was booming. When Trump came along, a boastful billionaire who was championing their cause and telling them everything they wanted to hear, even if it wasn't true, they jumped at the chance to empower him and punch the liberal progressive Americans, minorities and lgtbq community, all who seemed at the time to be thriving and making progress towards equality, in the nose.
Trumps faults weren't bugs, they were features, because those who voted for him weren't looking for an educated intelligent thinker to lead the country toward unity and prosperity. They were looking for a saboteur, an arsonist that was going to burn down the liberal progressive secular society they felt had left them behind. So the more partisan lies he told, the more his base loved him. So while the majority will likely always consider him the worst President in history, his true believers will always consider him their Golden calf and worship his memory like many did with JFK. I wouldn't be surprised to see commemorative plates with his face on them on some of these conservatives walls right next to their painting of Jesus. Having read the bible several times in my life, I cannot imagine a more disrespectful wall companion for the Jesus depicted in the bible, one who would have clearly whipped such a lying sack of immoral filth out of the temple when caught sheering Christian sheep, profiting off of their faith like Trump has done.
Created a bunch of crises which only HE could solve.
Once again you hit it out of the park DP!
I'm surprised there aren't a bunch of redacted sections.
LOL!
I'm not buying it or any other book about trmp...unless I see it at Walmart for 75% off
unless I see it at Walmart
I'm surprised that you shop at this multinational retail chain.
I'm not a snob and it really is the only game in town besides Kroger. I don't live in a big city
Trump almost toppled the United States of America!
Hyperbole--CHECK
Dramatic declaration--CHECK
Hilarious claim--CHECK.
Trump got impeached, that second time, for it!
And? What about some impeachment farce put on by disgruntled Democrats?
Did they remove Trump from office? No!
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Some of the other chapter titles in the book
Reckoning With The Trumpian GOP
Remade In His Image : How Trump Transformed Right - Wing Media
Militant Whiteness In The Age Of Trump
The Rhetoric And Reality Of Infrastructure During The Trump Presidency