FREAK OUT FRIDAY – September 18, 2020

Trump loves to compare himself to Barack Obama.  Actually he prides himself on endeavoring to undo everything that Obama accomplished, whether it involves removing all the protections that Obama put in place for the environment, terminating the DACA program, or going to court to try and do away with the Affordable Care Act in general and the abolishing of preexisting conditions in specific, while simultaneously claiming he’s doing the exact opposite.

Yet it’s worth comparing the publishing history of the two gentlemen when one wonders the following:  How many books are there by relatives of Barack Obama that called him a lying sociopath?  How many books are there by people who formerly worked for Obama and are now trashing him?   How many books are there about Obama by Bob Woodward which depart his studied journalistic impartiality and instead conclude, “When his performance as a president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion:  (he) is the wrong man for the job.”  The answer is, of course, none.  No one is arguing that Obama did everything right, but everyone understands that he had genuine reasons for all that he did, most of which applied to the betterment of the American people.

Trump, on the other hand, does everything for one reason and one reason only:  to get reelected.  He didn’t downplay the pandemic to avoid panic; he loves panic.  Embraces it, runs on it.  He did it because he didn’t want to alarm the stock market, hurt the economy, and damage his reelection desires.  Yet amazingly he is so detached from reality that he told a woman questioner during a townhall meeting several days ago that he didn’t downplay the pandemic; that he in fact “up-played” it (yeah, that’s a word) even though less than a week ago the audiotape of him specifically telling Bob Woodward that he was downplaying it unspooled on national news.

Indeed, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks for Trump books.  A week ago Tuesday gave us “Betrayal” by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former chief fixer who once stated he would take a bullet for Trump.  Apparently the only Trump book not being published by Simon & Schuster, “Disloyal” gives us Cohen’s story, a fascinating tale that provides us a genuine point of view tale told by someone who was once a key member of the Trump cult.

Certainly Cohen makes ample use of a thesaurus.  Nothing can be overdescribed.  Early on he states “Reaching for a seat, I started to cry, a flood of emotions overwhelming me:  fear, anger, dread, anxiety, relief, terror.”  There’s constant examples of him trotting out a string of adjectives; why use one or two when nine will do?  Yet one must admit it is compelling reading.  Most people who have associated themselves with Trump and are now out of the loop are obsessed with providing excuses as to why they did what they did.  Cohen takes the opposite approach.  What might be instructive is the tale of his youth where, growing up in Brooklyn, he worked as a lifeguard in a club and made the acquaintance of mobsters.  That aspect of his youth is what drew him to Trump, who conducted himself just as the professional criminals of Cohen’s fondly remembered adolescence did.

Cohen makes no excuse for his bullying behavior, for his cover-ups, for his kowtowing to Trump.  Ignoring the pleadings of his siblings, his wife and children, he checked his morality at the door and did whatever was required to cover for Trump.  Whether it involved shutting down failing businesses, paying off Stormy Daniels, or fixing an MSNBC poll of top businessmen so that Trump would finish in the top ten rather than where he was initially tracking (#178), Cohen completely bought into the Trump brand and was willing to set aside everything from common sense to his soul in order to accommodate his boss.  He attributes it to Trump’s personal magnetism but also to his own weak will.  He knew what he was doing was wrong; he just didn’t care.  Not until he outlived his usefulness and Trump showed him to the door.  Even now, despite the fact that Trump’s people tried to make sure he stayed in jail so that he couldn’t promote his book, he admits that he still loves Trump.  It really does give us an inside look at the sort of personality that inspires the same type of devotion that Jim Jones was able to command of his followers, even though it cost them their lives.

Bob Woodward’s “Rage” is a book that plays in the other direction.  Trump obviously thought that he would be able to use that magnetism of his to get Woodward to produce a book that extolled his self-proclaimed virtues.  Over the course of eighteen interviews, we see Trump trot out a host of his untruths and dissembling, which Woodward then fact checks and finds are lies in the very next sentence.  Over and over Trump says something that’s not true and Woodward immediately states the actual fact. Trump obviously believed he could convince Woodward to set his ethics aside, just as he was able to convince Cohen and countless others to do.  Naturally he underestimated Woodward, who has written about every president since Nixon.  Trump thought he could get Woodward to knuckle under and was, of course, wrong.  Instead he was stupid enough to spend hours talking to Woodward on tape, saying what he really thought and sticking his head into the noose.  Woodward consistently pulls that noose tight.  He doesn’t do it vindictively or judgmentally until the very end when he states, as I quoted above, that Trump isn’t fit for office.  Which, of course, is indisputable.  As near as we can tell, the editorial process on this book must have been done with lightning speed, because the manuscript goes up until May of this year.  

Although the details of the men who tried to work for Trump and rein him in, only to be dismissed and humiliated on Twitter, are certainly fascinating, the most interesting sequences are the Woodward/Trump chats.  Woodward keeps trying to ask him thoughtful, meaningful questions while Trump constantly attempts to stick to the public declarations and fake claims (“I’ve done more for blacks than anyone since Lincoln!”) that we have heard incessantly in his “press conferences” and rallies. Woodward keeps trying to get Trump to look inward and Trump absolutely will not do it.  He admits no fault, will not acknowledge that any of the downward spiral of his presidency is his responsibility, and blames Democratic mayors, governors, protestors, Obama and Joe Biden for everything.  He presents his ban of travel from China as his stellar (and only, really) attempt to thwart the pandemic, claiming sole credit for the decision even though half a dozen scientists and experts in the room insisted that he should do it and he had to be talked into it (his subsequent recounting was that there were twenty people in the room all opposed to it and he was the only one who advocated it.). Let’s remember something:  Canada has banned Americans from entering their country, and while we’re clocking a thousand deaths a day, in the past week they’ve had zero.  Obviously there’s more to restraining the pandemic than forbidding entry.  It boils down to leadership, and Trump has provided none.  That is the conclusion that Woodward comes to, and that indeed anyone reading the book would come to.

Except for Trump himself, who declared the book was boring.  

You know what?  We could use a little boredom these days.

PAD