Latest book on Trump's GOP casts harsh light on party's shift and its motives
By: WABE
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Ron Elving|NPR
July 8th, 2022
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Delaware County Fairgrounds on April 23 in Delaware, Ohio.
Joe Maiorana / Joe Maiorana
The nation's readers may not be crying out for yet another book about former President Trump and his era, but many will make an exception for a book by Mark Leibovich.
That is why "Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission" will likely find a place alongside all those other tomes trashing all things Trump.
.
...If it is possible to set partisanship aside in these tribal times, the main attraction to Leibovich's work is his wicked satirical talent.
He comes at his interviewees with a skewer in one hand, a scalpel in the other and a glint in his eye. His frequent eviscerations of major figures range from subtle to scabrous.
Two pages into the new book's prologue, the author refers to "Trump's usual collection of pet rocks" mentioning as examples Rudy Giuliani and former campaign strategists Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowksi. (Elsewhere, Giuliani will be described as "the master creature of the Trump swamp.")
In the same paragraph, Leibovich refers to "Trump leg-humpers from the House" (meaning the U.S. House of Representatives) and dismisses Trump's best-known spokespersons as "C-listers bumped up temporarily to B-list status by their proximity" to the president.
Hanging out in the lobby
The framing image for "Thank You"is not the White House but the lobby of the Trump Hotel, the true citadel of the Trump administration a few blocks away down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The scene is regularly crowded with acolytes of varying status, all anticipating a chance to see Trump and be seen by him and by others waiting to see him.
Leibovich slips onstage with these characters, off to one side, usually with other reporters such as his colleagues from The New York Times,where he worked before joining The Atlanticas a staff writer.
The lobby scenes allow Leibovich to introduce (and often lampoon) various figures from the first seven years of the Trump era (which he properly dates from the candidate's storied descent down a golden escalator in Trump Tower in 2015).
But the material in "Thank You"is new, much of it from interviews done since the 2020 election.
Leibovich gives us the essence of his own interview with Trump early in his term, an apparently brief tete-a-tete in the dining room off the Oval Office, arranged by Trump aide Hope Hicks.
He also shares a moment from an interview on the Trump campaign plane in 2016, when he interrupts Trump watching TV to ask him about expressing empathy.
Trump, his face remaining "still and distant as though it were coated in plastic," says that, as president, the quality of empathy "would be one of the most important things about Trump."
Continuing the quote, Leibovich records the future president saying: "When I'm in that position, when we have horrible hurricanes, all kinds of horrible things happen, you've got to have empathy."
To which the author adds: "Trump then returned to watching himself on the small screen."
If Leibovich can be occasionally brutal in his assessments, Trump brings out the worst: "Trump has a way of wearing you down," the author observes.
"He invades your habitat, like the opossum that gets into the attic, dies, stinks and attracts derivative nuisances."
But while Trump remains an eminence throughout, the author's true subject here is Trump's stable of enablers and the transformation they have wrought on their party and themselves.
Leibovich dutifully walks us back through the major incidents of Trump's time in office — the controversy over his Inauguration Day crowd, the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the Russian interference probe, the impeachment over his "perfect phone call" to the leader of Ukraine, the street protests following the murder of George Floyd and the notorious clearing of Lafayette Square to facilitate Trump's Bible-dangling photo op.
We also see the highlights, if that is the word, of the 2020 election campaign and election night, including the notorious and spurious claim of victory.
Along the way, we meet Joe Biden, whose unique path to the nomination (fourth in the Iowa caucuses, fifth in New Hampshire) reaches a high point in his first debate with Trump.
As he is being repeatedly interrupted by the president, Biden closes his eyes and says "Will you shut up, man?" Leibovich appropriates this rhetorical question as a national cris de coeur and at least a partial explanation for Trump's defeat in 2020: He had worn people out .
The author also catalogs, mostly in passing, the legislative milestones of the term, the struggle to repeal Obamacare, the tax cut bill, the showdown over the Mexican wall that closed government for five weeks in 2019 and even the confirmation of three Supreme Court justices. These are scenery along the way, as Leibovich keeps his attention on the personalities.
It is not as though he does not know how much these substantive debates mattered, he clearly does.
But his particular contribution is to bring to life some of the characters who enlivened those debates.
A gallery of miniatures
Leibovich made his reputation writing profiles at The Washington Post and then at The New York Times , where he was the national political correspondent for the Sunday magazine.
He published a collection of these years ago, but "Thank You"offers fresh evidence of his forte.
He guides us through a portrait gallery of those who have mattered in Trump's remastered GOP. These are not full-length profiles but miniature character studies, or in some cases lack-of-character studies.
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, seems to have given the author repeated interviews but struggles with his questions. "Why do you keep asking about Trump?" he asks him. "Why do you keep asking about January 6th?"
In an unguarded moment, McCarthy mentions the need to "keep Trump in the party," an imperative shared expressed at times by other prominent Republicans.
The party's national chair, Ronna McDaniel, has gone to great lengths to forestall the formation of a Trump-led third party that many regard as an existential threat.
Leibovich also peers over at McCarthy's Senate counterpart, Mitch McConnell, quite often. But when he chases down the Senate GOP leader he usually winds up watching while the Kentuckian does another of his silent "Zombie walks," disappearing down a Capitol hallway without acknowledging the repeated questions.
Other senators prove more than willing to talk to Leibovich, apparently less worried about being hoist on his petard.
Chief among these is Lindsey Graham, the South Carolinian who more than anyone personifies the Republican shift in ethos and attitude toward Trump.
In 2015, Graham called Trump a kook, "crazy" and "a race-baiting xenophobic bigot" who was "unfit for office."
But he turned quickly when Trump became The Man, soon finding a place in the warmth of Trump's sun.
"When I talked to the people in Pakistan they know I'm close to the president and that I'm going to be able to report back to him," Graham tells Leibovich. "I've never had that kind of influence before. To me, it's exciting" — and also gratifying to the primary voters back home.
Graham responds to a blunt question about his conversion to "presidential confidant" by saying "If you know anything about me, it'd be odd not to do this…to try to be relevant."
Graham's willingness to engage with the author is unusual among his party colleagues. But it does not earn him much leeway with Leibovich, who uses the South Carolinian's boyhood nickname ("Stinkball") as his chapter title in "Thank You".
"Graham's Senate colleagues described him as a kind of sitcom sidekick with a knack for finding himself in sad-sack situations," Leibovich writes.
Erstwhile rivals take a knee
Others who ran against Trump in 2016 but failed to resist or to distance themselves when he seized the nomination also come in for rough treatment. Leibovich gives us the juicy quotes from each before recounting their remarkable conversions. Thus Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida, is seen flogging his Trump credentials despite his historic humiliation at the hands of candidate Trump.
"I couldn't help contemplating Rubio's sad slide into slavish devotion to someone he previously called 'the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency'," writes Leibovich, summing up how the Florida senator Trump had derided as "Liddle Markoe" on Twitter had transfigured himself as "a fully co-opted minion."
We get similar glimpses of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and even former Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, who was Trump's second secretary of state. All are said to be "in on the joke," a phrase some of Leibovich's interviewees use on the record and others only off.
Adam Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican now famous for his role on the January 6th investigation committee, puts it this way to the author:
"For all but a handful of members, if you put them on truth serum, they knew the election was fully legitimate and Donald Trump was a joke. The vast majority of people get the joke. I think Kevin McCarthy gets the joke. Lindsey gets the joke. The problem is that the joke isn't even funny anymore."
The joke as a metaphor image recurs often in "Thank You".It seems to explain the double-think practiced by so many the author expects to know better.
The point of the joke is that all know what they really think but act otherwise because it serves their own purposes to do so — and preserves the GOP from the challenge of a Trump-led third party.
This is a message to be found in the descriptions of Trump's purported acolytes and his critics as well. Leibovich serves up generous helpings of garment-rending Republicans who dared to cross The Man, including former Speaker Paul Ryan and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Florida Rep. Tom Rooney.
There are also sympathetic interludes with Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the only GOP senator who voted to impeach Trump twice, and even with Maine Sen. Susan Collins, with whom Leibovich admits sharing an affinity for the rural interior of her state.
Getting darker
Near the end of "Thank You" , Leibovich shifts the emphasis in his title. Having ridiculed Republicans for their servitude to Trump he raises the darker implications of the term submission . He speaks of the GOP paying the price for letting their party be defined by the dictates of Trump and his rally crowds.
What is the price? Is it eventual rejection by ever greater numbers of voters? That in itself might be too much to ask of a political party, but Leibovich makes clear he is talking about something else, something larger looming in the immediate future.
He strongly suggests that what was once the party of Abraham Lincoln is now willing to do and believe in anything to maintain its hold on power — whether it involves utter fealty to Donald Trump or a similar embrace of one of the figures now maneuvering to be his successor.
Leibovich quotes Liz Cheney, the Republican of Wyoming who has been the leading Republican voice on the January 6th panel, saying "We've got people entrusted with the preservation of the Republic who don't know what the rule of law is."
That, Leibovich adds, is the ultimate price of submission.
In "This Town", Leibovich expressed a kind of non-partisan revulsion at the degree to which careerism and money drive Washington.
In"Thank You",his attitude is less arch, and more than angry. He has a more singular focus. And much of it seems to stem from what transpired on January 6th.
"As more came to light about what Trump was willing and trying to do, and how close the country truly came to the precipice, Republicans seemed to become only more and more determined to forget, ignore and cover up on behalf of the former president, while simultaneously trying to rehabilitate him," he writes.
That is why "Thank You" should not be mistaken for a "fun read" — as "This Town"was often described. Leibovich's earlier work was often sharply critical and belittling, but "Thank You" is on another plane of warning and foreboding.
There are many laughs, to be sure, but with bitter aftertaste. And the message here, the final word, is anything but fun.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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Leibovich is a great writer and this book is a must have.
Never was much of a reader, but from this excerpt, i just might have to check this out, for, even though it never shows, i enjoy brutal assessments.
This is a very long article, by the same writer, that is excerpted from the book. I'm just going to post the first part of it. The actual article at the link is much longer.
www.theatlantic.com /ideas/archive/2022/07/kevin-mccarthy-lindsey-graham-trump-devotion-2024-election/661508/
The Most Pathetic Men in America
Mark Leibovich 32-40 minutes 7/7/2022
W hen he wasn’t melting down over how “very badly” he was treated or acting like a seditious lunatic, Donald Trump could be downright serene in certain Washington settings—and never more so than when he would swan in for dinner at the Trump International Hotel, a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House and the only other place where he would ever agree to eat.
Unlike the Obamas, who would sneak out for date nights at trendy restaurants, Trump was hardly discreet when he went out to dinner. For Trump, a big, applauded entrance was as essential to the experience as the shrimp cocktail, fries, and 40-ounce steak. Each night, assorted MAGA tourists and administration bootlickers would descend on the atrium bar on the small chance they’d get to glimpse Trump himself in his abundant flesh—like catching Cinderella at the castle, or Hefner at the mansion.
The hotel gave every impression of being a tight and well-managed operation, in contrast to the proprietor’s side hustle down the street. Lots of Washington reporters would hang around the establishment, too. We could always pick up dirt that Trump and his groveling legions tracked in. The place was crawling with them, these hollowed-out men and women who knew better. You might catch Rudy rushing out to smoke a cigar, red wine staining his unbuttoned tuxedo shirt (that was the night of the Mnuchin wedding, I think). Or see Trump’s favorite pillowy-haired congressmen—fresh off their Fox “hits”—greeting the various Spicers, Kellyannes, and other C-listers who were bumped temporarily up to B-list status by their White House entrée.
But the guests who stood out for me most were Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy and the busybody senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham. I would sometimes see them around the lobby or steakhouse or function rooms, skipping from table to table and getting thanked for all the wonderful things they were doing to help our president . They had long been among the most supplicant super-careerists ever to play in a city known for the breed, and proved themselves to be essential lapdogs in Trump’s kennel.
McCarthy is a good bet to become the next speaker of the House in the likely event that Republicans win a majority in November. Graham remains perhaps Trump’s closest collaborator in the Senate, a frequent golf partner and nuanced handler of the presidential ego. This week, he was subpoenaed as part of an investigation into election meddling. He might now have to testify about what exactly he was trying to do when he called Georgia’s secretary of state wondering whether he really needed to count all those mail-in votes. “You know what I liked about Trump?” Graham asked last month during a speech at a Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Nashville. “Everyone was afraid of him. Including me.” Laughter!
I will admit I never loved the Trump story. This sometimes surprises people. I have been covering Washington for many years; I’ve been accused of being a “keen observer” of the capital. Surely, I must have been thrilled to have such a ridiculous piece of work at the center of it all, right?
Well, no. I never found Donald Trump to be remotely captivating as a stand-alone figure. He’d been around forever and his political act was largely derivative. His promise to “drain the swamp” was treated as some genius coinage, though in fact the platitude had been worn out for decades by both parties. Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” in 2006, just as the Reagan-Bush campaign had vowed to “Make America Great Again” in 1980.
Trump said and did obviously awful and dangerous things—racist and cruel and achingly dumb and downright evil things. But on top of that, he is a uniquely tiresome individual, easily the sorest loser, the most prodigious liar, and the most interminable victim ever to occupy the White House. He is, quite possibly, the biggest crybaby ever to toddle across history’s stage, from his inaugural-crowd hemorrhage on day one right down to his bitter, ketchup-flinging end . Seriously, what public figure in the history of the world comes close? I’m genuinely asking.
Bottom line, Trump is an extremely tedious dude to have had in our face for seven years and running. My former New York Times colleague David Brooks wrote it best: “We’ve got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.”
Better objects of our scrutiny—and far more compelling to me—are the slavishly devoted Republicans whom Trump drew to his side. It’s been said before, but can never be emphasized enough: Without the complicity of the Republican Party, Donald Trump would be just a glorified geriatric Fox-watching golfer. I’ve interviewed scores of these collaborators, trying to understand why they did what they did and how they could live with it. These were the McCarthys and the Grahams and all the other busy parasitic suck-ups who made the Trump era work for them, who humored and indulged him all the way down to the last, exhausted strains of American democracy.
The GOP’s shame, ongoing, is underscored by the handful of brave Republicans willing to speak the truth about Trump in public, before the January 6 committee and on the panel itself. The question now is whether they have any hope of wresting some admirable remnant of their party back from Trump’s abyss before he wins the Republican nomination for president in 2024 or, yes, winds up back in the White House.
And pretty much all the leg humpers were begging for unlimited pardons for absolutely no reason because they're so upright and loyal to the constitution... /s
I seem to remember the Party of Lincoln was willing to do a lot to hold onto power when Lincoln was actually the head of the party.
needed is an umbrella policy, cause, party reigns
It always amazed me at the people that would ruin their own reputations and careers just to be close to donald.
If you are going to lie tell a whopper!
But, I am sure the book is a great look at the TDS driven mind; and how it twists everything into Trump.
From the looks of it Trump did far more than that. He carved his way into the author's ear and reached the brain. Then switched to a rusty spoon to shape a nice commode to take a never ending dump on.
I am sure TDS sufferers will waste their money on this book as they will be able to see themselves in the author's "satire". All the while Trump will be living rent free in their minds; and growing larger by the page. Better stock up on food TDS sufferers- you will be eating for two.
Amazes me those willing to dismiss what he is and has done.
Turning a blind eye.