Fear & Rage
Literature | Movies | Training
25 January 2021
As the Trump presidency came to an end I decided to finally start reading about it. I have found that following politics too closely as it unfolds gets me emotionally involved and stressed, so I've found it's better to look at from a distance. Bob Woodward is an author I've really enjoyed over the years, beginning with Maestro, his book on Alan Greenspan, in the late 90's. Woodward is also somewhat famous for his role in exposing the Watergate scandal that let to the resignation of president Nixon. His latest books follow the inner workings of a White House run by a president like none we've hitherto had.
Book 'n Beers
Of the two books I have to say that Fear is the better of the two because Woodward was not granted any interviews with Trump during the writing of it. For Rage Woodward had nearly twenty interviews with Trump and they are often quoted verbatim interspersed with snarky commentary from Woodward. It seemed more like heckling than really telling the story of what was happening inside the White House. Fear does not suffer from this deficiency and gives an excellent third person account of the first two years. The way the people around Trump manipulated him, stealing papers off his desk, only giving him onesided information, and such is appalling and more befitting erstwhile eunuchs in some ancient satrapy. That Trump gathered such people around him was no doubt the root of many policy failures. Most saddening for me was to read about how Trump's determination to get the US out of Afghanistan was repeatedly undermined and just never happened. I wonder if this will be America's hundred year war.
Woodward's books tend to be light on policy but heavy on people, and this pair was no exception. Relationships between the president and his advisors play a leading role, but Woodward also does a great job of elucidating the interplay between the advisors themselves. How Trump would often pit them against eachother and act with childish vindictiveness when he felt wronged. How some teamed up to ensure Trump never got documents in front him for policies they disagreed with. How Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner had open roles that allowed them to get involved in nearly everything when they felt like it.
Probably the weirdest thing about Woodward's books is that I always come away liking the subjects of them, even when Woodward doesn't. At the end of Rage he even goes so far as to say that Trump was the wrong man for the job! This amity probably appears because going so deeply into the day to day workings of an individual you feel closer to them and can see something of their humanity. Trump may be a larger than life character in American history, but at the end of the day he's still just a guy like the rest of us. It reminds me of when I met Thomas Wilson, who played Biff, a decade ago. During his act he singled me out for ridicule saying I had an Eddie Munster haircut and probably still had a laserdisc collection, but afterward he was kind when he talked with us in person and we took a picture together. Trump on Twitter fired people from his cabinet like Tillerson and Mattis with no warning often belittling them and then would call them up later to talk.
Regardless of your politics, Woodward's books on Trump are both worth a read because the detailed reporting is simply unparalleled. It will be a sad day when a president comes along and there's no Bob Woodward to write about them. He's done 9 so far which was 20% until Biden got started last week.
