A couple of years back I predicted more books will be written about Trump’s Presidency than those existing for any of his predecessors.
To date the number is approaching 4000, that’s roughly 1000 p.a. which in one sense is quite extraordinary. On the other hand it’s explicable given Trump’s mind-blowingly unsuitability on every count for the role.
Furthermore, they’ll keep coming as post-Presidency, exposure of his financial problems, corruption, psychopathy and insanity come to light, plus almost certain prosecutions for diverse criminal actions, not the least being treason and sedition. But most of all will be a genre of “How was this possible?” books.
I was given one such book by a daughter at Christmas.
Titled “Liar’s Circus” it was written by American journalist Carl Hoffman and I strongly recommend it. Its salient thesis is to explain the major Trump mystery, namely his appeal to so many people.
Hoffman got in thick with the most fanatical Trump fans, namely those attending his rallies, they habitually turning up many days before and camping out near the entrance to ensure seats close to the great one.
While Hoffman’s accounts of these people (all middle-aged male nutters in one way or another) is fascinating, it’s his wider observations which make this such a good read.
Hoffman wrote ostensibly sympathetically of the disruption to the typical Trumpian’s life by fast changing events which had destroyed their previous simple but settled existences.
The small farms no longer economic in an age of mass production, the loss of traditional mining and factory jobs to either low-cost foreign labour or technology, the fast-fading small towns, the Latino migration flood and so many other changes.
Those things are easy to observe and note. What made Hoffman’s book special is while explaining Trump’s supporters’ motives (he didn’t just confine it to Hilary’s aptly described “deplorables”), he did not excuse them.
He makes a great point lost on our own no-hoper classes and their ever rationalising defenders, with their cries of colonialism, racism, poverty etc. specifically, he argues that everyone, once born and regardless of their circumstances, unless retarded, can see plainly that to live successful lives requires some personal effort.
Taking full advantage of free education, being ambitious to enjoy a full life, making sacrifices for the long term pay-off; all obvious actions totally lacking in the no-hoper sector in our varyingly soft western societies. Thus, at the cost to the majority, governments insist on doing for these failures what they make no effort to do for themselves.
Trump’s salient message to them that their plight was not their fault but something inflicted on them by various enemies of society struck a deep chord of religious-like faith that he alone would smite their enemies. The parallels with the rise of Hitler in the 1920s are plain.
Right now Trump is arguably the most unhappiest human on earth as deserted by the fleeing rats he surveys the self-inflected wreckage of his life and the Republican Party, which lap-dog held its nose and looked the other way.
He better get used to it as it’s going to get much worse, hopefully reaching its ultimate culmination of the sound of the clang of a prison cell door.
Trump is a disgrace, not just to the high office he held but most of all to the human race.
He is ignorant, an appalling liar, psychopathic, egotistic and without any redeeming features.
On election day last year I wrote on this blog, having first predicted his loss, “One thing’s certain and that is Trump will cry fraud and refuse to go”.
A fitting denouement for his legacy is not so much the clanging of a prison door but execution for treason, which would be wonderfully ironic given his resurrection of capital punishment for Federal offences.