A must-read for politics junkies, with plenty of lessons on how not to run a campaign.
A probing history of the 2020 presidential race.
Building on Shattered, their excellent account of Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign, Allen and Parnes attribute much of the success of the Biden campaign to a combination of fortuitous events. In some ways, Biden was a weaker candidate than Clinton, as his age, demeanor, and tendency to make faux pas statements weighed against him. Though the race was tighter than any Democratic campaigner would have liked, Biden’s opponent was Donald Trump, whose character flaws and scandal-plagued administration far surpassed any of Biden’s shortcomings. For instance, though Trump was advised countless times to attempt to show empathy for the victims of the pandemic, which he repeatedly called a hoax, he refused to do so for fear of appearing weak. Trump also believed that “there were millions of Trumpsters out there who just hadn’t voted for him yet.” He may have had a point, but Biden still beat him by 7 million votes. Biden’s good fortune also owed to the failings of those who faced him in the primary, and, as the authors clearly show, it was the result of significant effort on the parts of Black organizers and voters, particularly Stacey Abrams, who emerges here as a superbly effective political savant who withheld her endorsement of Biden until it was clear that he would be the candidate. Other news in these pages: Though Barack Obama proclaimed Biden as his brother, the authors write that he “had worried that his friend would embarrass himself on the campaign trail” and didn’t call to congratulate him until the networks finally declared the election on Nov. 7. In the end, in 2020, Biden “caught every imaginable break.” As one staffer noted, “if President Trump had just acknowledged there was a virus, even midway in August or September, acknowledged this is a fucked-up situation, and pivoted, we would have gotten crushed.”
A must-read for politics junkies, with plenty of lessons on how not to run a campaign.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-57422-4
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
A solid work of investigation that, while treading well-covered ground, offers plenty of surprises.
An account of the last gasps of the Trump administration, completing a trilogy begun with Fear (2018) and Rage (2020).
One of Woodward and fellow Washington Post reporter Costa’s most memorable revelations comes right away: Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calling his counterpart in Beijing to assure him that even after Jan. 6 and what Milley saw as an unmistakable attempt at a coup d’état, he would keep Trump from picking a war with China. This depiction has earned much attention on the talking-heads news channels, but more significant is its follow-up: Milley did so because he was concerned that Trump “might still be looking for what Milley called a ‘Reichstag moment.’ ” Milley emerges as a stalwart protector of the Constitution who constantly courted Trump’s ire and yet somehow survived without being fired. No less concerned about Trump’s erratic behavior was Paul Ryan, the former Speaker of the House, who studied the psychiatric literature for a big takeaway: “Do not humiliate Trump in public. Humiliating a narcissist risked real danger, a frantic lashing out if he felt threatened or criticized.” Losing the 2020 election was one such humiliation, and Woodward and Costa closely track the trajectory of Trump’s reaction, from depression to howling rage to the stubborn belief that the election was rigged. There are a few other modest revelations in the book, including the fact that Trump loyalist William Barr warned him that the electorate didn’t like him. “They just think you’re a fucking asshole,” Barr told his boss. That was true enough, and the civil war that the authors recount among various offices in the White House and government reveals that Trump’s people were only ever tentatively his. All the same, the authors note, having drawn on scores of “deep background” interviews, Trump still has his base, still intends vengeance by way of a comeback, and still constitutes the peril of their title.
A solid work of investigation that, while treading well-covered ground, offers plenty of surprises.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982182-91-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
Informative but largely unsurprising.
Out of the White House, Trump rages.
McGraw, a national political correspondent at Politico, makes her book debut with a close look at Trump’s life as ex-president, much of the time spent at Mar-a-Lago, his “decadent, sprawling, gilded mansion on the sea.” Trump bought the estate in 1985, converting it 10 years later into a posh club and resort, where “membership costs hundreds of thousands of dollars up front, plus annual fees of $14,000.” Drawing on interviews with politicians and aides, source notes from her reporting, and published articles, McGraw reveals Trump denying his presidential loss and plotting ways to burnish his political clout. He constantly whipped up conspiracy theories. Frustrated after being banned from Twitter, he founded Trump Media LLC to give him an internet presence in Truth Social, and he encouraged Republicans to grovel for his backing in upcoming races. “Believing—or at least peddling—Trump’s falsehoods about the election,” McGraw writes, was “a litmus test for a Trump endorsement.” Republicans who had voted for his impeachment were targeted for defeat. The much-publicized FBI raid of his premises in the summer of 2022 proved a fundraising boon. “More than ever,” writes the author, “he would become his own rallying cry. I am suffering for you would become his gospel.” McGraw chronicles Trump’s fury over books warning against the perils of another Trump presidency, as he kept close tabs on who was—and wasn’t—defending him. He dubbed the Jan. 6 committee the “Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs.” He refused to take the blame for Republicans’ poor showing in the midterms, “the worst performance by an out of power party in decades.” McGraw ends with his victory in the Iowa caucuses, auguring the dismaying prospect of another Trump presidency, fueled by his desire for apocalyptic revenge.
Informative but largely unsurprising.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593729632
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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