Sunday, May 27, 2018

The List

Book:The List
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
      Table of Contents:
      • Foreward
      • Introduction
      • The List
      • Acknowledgements
      • Notes
      • Index
      • A Note on the Author

      References:

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