"The United States of Trump" by Bill O'Reilly
Above: "United States of Trump." - Bill O'Reilly - 295 pages.
"Traditional media hates this, but some have called Trump a true media revolutionary on the order of Gutenberg, for neutralizing the power of the curating media." Bishop
I completed reading this book today.
This is the third book that I have read in the last two years which attempts to explain the Trump election phenomenon.
The first was "Shattered - Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign," by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.
Excerpt, Bishop book review of "Shattered:" Hillary bears blame for her defeat. Her actions before the campaign hamstrung her own chances so badly that she couldn't recover. eg. setting up the private server, putting her name on the Clinton Foundation, and giving high payout speeches to Wall Street at a time of rising populism. While she had visions of power, she was unable to show voters she had a vision for the country. She couldn't cast herself as anything but a lifelong insider when so much of the country had lost faith in its institutions and yearned for a fresh approach to governance. All of this fed a narrative of dynastic privilege that was woefully out of touch with the sentiment of an increasingly restive American electorate, particularly a middle class whose economic position fell further and further behind the American rich.
The second was, "The Great Revolt," by Selena Zito and Brad Todd.
Excerpt, Bishop book review of "The Great Revolt:" This book is about a very game attempt to understand who voted for Trump. It goes far beyond the left's hackneyed dismissal of the Trump cohort as a bunch of uneducated losers... or as HRC would have said, "deplorables," or as Obama said, "bitter clingers." The book revolves around The Great Revolt Survey, a post-election survey and in-depth interviews with Trump voters who "broke rank" and voted for Trump in ten important counties that Obama had won in previous elections. The authors pigeonhole these voters into seven categories:
Red-Blooded and Blue Collared
Perot-istas
Rough Rebounders
Girl Gun Power
Rotary Reliables
King Cyrus Christians
Silent Suburban Moms
Bishop Review of "United States of Trump." Writing in "The United States of Trump," Bill O'Reilly explains the Trump phenomenon, based on his numerous firsthand encounters over thirty years, with Donald Trump, including news interviews, social events etc. O'Reilly also talks to Trump's kids, and others, about Donald Trump.
O'Reilly believes Trump's sense of patriotism is genuine and that he is not a racist. O'Reilly, in fact, paints Trump as perplexed by accusations of racism, particularly since, as the ultimate social justice warrior, he has done more to advance the living standard of minorities via his economic policies than any president in recent history. What Trump's opponents call Trump's lying O'Reilly attributes to easily discerned, unserious New York style braggadocio and exaggeration. On fulfilling his campaign promises, O'Reilly notes, Trump has more integrity than any president in recent memory.
Per O'Reilly, Trump's success in winning the presidency, and as president, making good on, or fighting hard for, his campaign promises, derives from his deep sense of patriotism, his "make it happen" management style, and his overarching self-confidence.
O'Reilly notes another critical attribute which contributes to Trump's success: his insightful understanding of the ways of media and how to use (manipulate?) media - and social media - to serve his purposes. His tweets allow him to bypass traditional media altogether. Traditional media hates this, but some have called Trump a true media revolutionary on the order of Gutenberg, for neutralizing the power of the curating media.
O'Reilly calls attention to Trump's fighting spirit. Trump doesn't recede from confrontation, rather, he seems to be attracted to it. Trump loves making principled stands in the face of overwhelming media criticism and insults from his political enemies. It is his propensity to fight and double down that endears him to his supporters, heretofore disappointed by a string of wilting, cowering, Republican milquetoast, soi disant, political "leaders."
Trump's campaign strategy to focus on the forgotten American worker was on the order of genius. He showed uncanny prescience when he, alone, among presidential pretenders from both parties, saw that large numbers of traditional, hardworking, middle-class Americans were being harmed by US high tax, low growth, economic policy and disadvantageous global trading agreements. He rallied those forgotten Americans to carry him to the presidency.
O'Reilly is quick to point out that he is not a shill for Trump. He lists numerous times in his book where he has been publicly critical of Trump.
I liked most, in the book, how O'Reilly contrasted Presidents Obama and Trump. O'Reilly's comparison of the two presidents brings into sharp relief the schizophrenia of the American electorate.
"The visions," O'Reilly says, "of Presidents Trump and Obama could not be farther apart. Same thing with their demeanors. It is somewhat amazing that a country could elect these two polar opposites as leaders in the span of four years."
O'Reilly describes how Trump has been fanatical in pushing four things: Improving the economy, stopping illegal immigration, defeating Islamic terrorism, and preventing foreign nations from exploiting America financially.
In contrast, President Obama's passion was using the federal government to directly improve the economic circumstance of the "have nots" by providing subsidized health care access and redistributing wealth through a variety of entitlement programs.
Implicit in this comparison is that if you prefer Obama to Trump, you prefer dirigiste, expanded, high taxing central government to redistribute diminishing American wealth, and not Trump's restoration of robust economic growth facilitated by lower taxes and a smaller, less intrusive, less redistributionist central government.
If all you do is select one or the other presidential candidates based on personality, mannerisms or whether you would like to join him/her for the proverbial beer, you are ignoring what is the critical issue of our time... that is, which way should the country go... and, the two directions proposed by the two parties are so radically different that the future impact on your and your progeny's life, by choosing one or the other, will be considerable. You should think twice before you vote for a candidate whose program... direction for the country... doesn't reflect your values just because his/her opponent may have personal qualities you dislike, or you wouldn't like to have a beer with him/her.
Why the unprecedented anger and vitriol towards Trump from his opponents? In addition to resenting Trump's successes on making good on his campaign promises, and reversing many Obama redistributionist policies (Paris Accords, TPP, NAFTA, Individual Mandate for Affordable Care Act, yada) O'Reilly says resistance to Trump by his enemies boils down to social policy, where the left advances "wokeism," with Trump favoring traditional values.
I've read three or four of O'Reilly's "killing..." books. Like the "killing" books, this one is short... long on easily read, economical, descriptive narrative and short on deep, turgid analysis. O'Reilly's books are what they are: the executive summary, as it were, of historical writing. Like his "killing" books, this one is a quick read... full of firsthand insights on the Trump phenomenon with a genuine intent to explain who Trump is and what is in his head.
Reading O'Reilly's take on Donald Trump confirmed a lot of my own biases. For some time, I have considered Trump a unique, one-of-a-kind, force of nature, serendipitously appearing, like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, to waylay, if not altogether stop, the flood of cultural and economic decline in America. I don't mind taking that idea a bit further to consider Trump as a providential deus ex machina suddenly and unexpectedly emerging out of the heavens to save the nation from collapse.
Before Trump's 2016 election, I "published" my own endorsement for Trump arguing that, under Trump, the country would do better economically; that unlike a previous, long line of weak, flaccid Republican "leaders," Trump would fight to implement his agenda. Under Trump, I felt, that the essential elements enshrined in the founding documents, individual liberty, rule of law, property rights, would more likely be preserved than under his opponent.
So far, not only have I not been disappointed, but I have been pleasantly surprised by Trump's effectiveness in carrying out his campaign promises and fulfilling my predictions.
Wrap-up...
"The United States of Trump" is a good complement to the other post-election books I read.
O'Reilly spent only a little bit of copy writing about the weaknesses of Trump's opponent. "Shattered" filled in this gap nicely showing how a flawed candidate, Hillary Clinton, ran an inept campaign.
Little mention was made in O'Reilly's book about the true nature of the Trump voter. "The Great Revolt" showed the Trump voters to be far more diverse and positively engaged in the American experience than Hillary Clinton would have us believe when she called them deplorables.
Incidentally, O'Reilly believed that labeling half of the Trump supporting electorate as a "basket of deplorables" was the biggest campaign mistake Hillary Clinton made.
Anyway, the three post 2016 election books I have read complement each other nicely. Each goes far in its own way to explain the unlikely, and welcome (providential?), rise of Donald Trump.