Since early November, I have been trying to make sense of
just how Trump won the election and is now our president. Needless to say, my
sense of shock was magnified by the idea that there was no chance that Trump
could win. The margins in the polls were too broad, and living in a blue state,
I was more or less a spectator to the proceedings since by the laws of our
land, the few big competitive states are what matters for the presidential
elections.
So, I read this book with interest. Taibbi is a keen observer
of both human nature and the political process. The essays in this book are
mostly campaign-related reportage, so they were written in real time in the
guise of Rolling Stone’s patronage of Hunter S. Thomson’s journalism in 72.
What I’m afraid of is that I still feel at a loss. I had read a lot of the
essays here in real time on the website, and they are only sadder in
retrospect.
I bet that when the editors had the idea of this book, it
would have been more in the idea of reviewing the possibility of danger that a
Trump president would have presented and thus we would be able to find solace
in the fact that Hillary wasn’t left enough by looking at this and wiping our
brow, going “Phew!”. But that was not what happened. This book shows a preview
of the last month in the narcissism and disorganization that the Trump presidency
has been.
My thoughts are that the Trump win makes this a more marketable
book than it would have been in the case of a Trump loss, as well as a more
historically important book. When the future civilizations shift through our
wreckage, they read books like this and ask how it happened and didn’t we see
it coming. I bet it is bittersweet for Taibbi.
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