Basic Information : Synopsis : Thoughts : Evaluation : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References
Basic Information:
Author: Amy Siskind
Edition: epub from the Fresno
County Public Library
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
ISBN: 1635572711 (ISBN13:
9781635572711)
Start Date: May 25, 2018
Read Date: Did not finish
528 pages
Genre: History, Politics,
Trump
Language Warning: None
Rated Overall: 3 out of 5
History: 4 out of 5
Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):
The Forward is by Sarah
Kendzior who admires what Amy Suskind has created-a bullet point list
of what happens each week during the Trump Presidency during the
first year. She says this is a rough draft, I think because she
intends to continue this list until his Presidency ends. The points
are short-a sentence or two, at most a short paragraph. In its
current iteration, Suskind says this is a rough draft, she only takes
on the first year of President Trump’s tenure.
Thoughts:
My wife checked out this book
and I read enough to realize that I could read the whole book and be
entertained and/or sickened by what I read. Or I could stop at some
point and say that I am not going to gain any new insight by reading
more. I chose the later, stopping around the beginning of February
2017.
There is no way which you will
remember each point. And after awhile the events all begin to merge
into a horrific blob of what is happening to the United States under
President Trump. None of what Suskind portrays is pretty and Suskind
slants her portrayal to the negative interpretation, not that
President Trump needs any help in that.
The only parts of the book I
thought was noteworthy was the Forward and Introduction.
Forwards
Sarah Kendzior puts forward
the theory that the lies and misstatements the Trump Administration
puts forward are purposeful. They know that are lying and know that
we know they are lying, but they do not care. It is a show of power.
The idea is that eventually truth will no longer be valued when we
are too exhausted to look for it.
To me, this is a viable
interpretation. Are there other interpretation? Maybe Trump is not
smart enough to know truth from lies? Maybe he is like child who has
not come of age? Or has dementia? Or some other mental sickness which
skews truth? Kendzior interpretation is that President Trump is evil
and manipulative. Probably not too far from reality.
Kendzior thinks that compared
to President Nixon, President Trump is so much worse. She apparently
is measuring it against some sort of corruption scale where she
thinks President Trump is using the office for personal gain. This is
not her book, but Siskind must buy into this thinking. While it would
not surprise me, there is not the tax money to President Trump’s
pockets documentation. Most of it would fall under influence, such as
people staying at his hotels. This of course, is another whole issue.
Historically, demagogues
thrive in times of economic desperation,
… She goes on and talks about how President Trump has shown himself
to prey on the vulnerable and even cheering others misfortune as an
avenue to enrich himself.
Kendzior comes back to the
concern about truth in this day. She says that Without
documentation--without a reliable and shared sense of what
happened--demanding accountability is tremendously difficult.
The question in my mind, is The
List the document
to make it happen? Will there be agreement on what Siskind has
compiled? Particularly since there is a sense of one-sidedness in it.
Yes The List
is a good rallying document for the opposition to President Trump,
but is it complete? How badly is it slanted?
But the real interesting
aspect of Kendzior’s piece is her defence of truth. She says that
if truth did not matter to President Trump, why would he go so far to
suppress it? But Kendzior implicitly is saying that there is a shared
reality which we should know and share. The question I have is how do
we know this truth which we all are to share? Is it a temporary set
of items and facts which will get reinterpreted in 10 years? Or truth
which lasts longer? I think most of The
List qualifies as
the former. Hence one of the reasons why I did not feel a strong need
to finish the book.
Evaluation:
The List
is not so much a book, but a
blog
dumped out into a book form. This is not to say it is boring or
unsuited to read, just do no go into this book with the understanding
of high or systematic telling of history. Also its thinking is not
set up to be fair and impartial. Instead the idea is to record how
far away President Trump is away from the author’s worldview. My
confession, I read only about a tenth of the chronology before
realizing that I knew what the book was going to say and that I
probably would not be getting much more out of it.
The Forward and Introduction
lays out the author’s agenda. The basis for the book is the
President Trump is a liar and manipulator. Consequently he will bend
and create his own history of his Presidency. The author’s
objective is to document what happens during the Trump Presidency. In
Siskind’s case, she is leaning towards documenting the history she
is documenting leans toward the outrageous, potentially illegal, and
fanatical. Siskind does reference her sources for each entry back in
the notes chapter.
If you are a President Trump
supporter, you will hate the book; a Trump hater, you will love it,
Either way, your blood pressure will go up.
Good Quotes:
-
First Line: On the morning of Saturday, November 18, 2016, I found myself driving up to Val-Kill, the home of Eleanor Roosevelt.
-
Last Line: Puttin offered Comey political asylum in Russia, continuing to publicly insert himself into U.S.
-
Lies are not merely false statements but signals of power. Forward by Sarah Kendzior
-
Foreward
-
Introduction
-
The List
-
Acknowledgements
-
Notes
-
Index
-
A Note on the Author
References:
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