Journalist Michael Wolff has written a stunner in Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. I first heard about it when people on CNN and MSNBC started reading excerpts from it a couple of days ago. They’d gotten early copies. Then the news reported that trump’s attorneys had sent cease and desist letters to Wolff and his publisher, Henry Holt, to stop publication of the book.
And I thought, Huh? Really? The president of the U.S. is trying to stop the publication of a book? To trample the first amendment? It felt like Fahrenheit 451, like Nazi Germany’s legendary book burnings. It felt WRONG. BAD. Like Fascism.
The publisher ignored the cease and desist and brought the book out four days early – on January 5 instead of January 9. I ordered my ebook on the evening of January 4, but Amazon apparently couldn’t keep up with the fluctuations and it was scheduled to get to my Kindle app on January 9. I cancelled the order. Then this morning, I checked Amazon again and the book was available for download.
When I downloaded the book, it had 13 reviews. Tonight, there are over 400 reviews. Wow.
What’s fascinating about the book is that after trump won, Wolff basically parked himself on a couch in the West Wing and interviewed staffers and people who moved through the area. The white house was so chaotic that no one told him to move on or that he couldn’t be there. trump himself gave a sort of carte blanche to Wolff because, after all, trump apparently doesn’t read and so what if this guy wanted to write a book?
What Wolff depicts is what sane people have observed 24/7 in the last year – an administration in total chaos, a narcissistic president more concerned about his public image – his brand – than in governing. A man so childish that he requires handlers who struggle to mitigate every tweet he makes. Wolff describes the relationship trump has with his daughter, his son-in-law Jared, his sons Eric and Donald, and all of it is just so bizarre that if you try to fully understand it, you may end up on a shrink’s couch. How’d we get here as a country?
Then there’s trump’s relationship with Bannon, who seemed to have talked freely with Wolff at various points during his tenure in the West Wing. Perhaps sleazy Bannon had his eye on a 2020 run for the presidency. That possibility seems pretty remote now. trump fired back with tweets, of course, about the book and how when Bannon lost his job, he also lost his mind. And then there’s Sarah Sanders, trump’s liar in chief in the media, who says that the prez of course supports the first amendment, but that Fire and Fury is fiction, fantasy.
Sure, Sarah. And there’s a special place in hell for people like you. Just ask your Daddy Huckabee.
One thing you can bank on with trump and his people. If they deny something, then you know it’s true. They live in the upside world of Stranger Things. It’s where reality is not what the rest of us think it is, but is defined through some skewed lens where the most powerful person in the world lounges around in bed eating cheeseburgers from McDonald’s, watching Fox News, and playing twitter chicken with North Korean’s nuclear-armed nut case.
Wolff captures all of this brilliantly. My hope is that the book helps to bring down trump’s presidency.
Just a post script. One of the non-humanoid characteristics DJT presents is his total lack for the need to sleep. Scientific sleep disorders performed on humans conclude that EVERY person must have some degree of sleep time. That time varies from person to person, but sleep deprivation is a major issue among humans, and Trump doesn’t sleep. Another interesting quirk is his orange hair, which he dyes to keep that color, and which is definitely NOT common. That orange color covers his crown chakra, and that’s pretty significant.These seem like minor and insignificant habits, but they are not minor, especially when combined with several other very odd habits and behaviors. His tendency to hold his thumb and forefinger together when speaking, and repeating his statements not once but repeatedly, similar to a broken record that is ‘stuck’ in a groove. (Young folks won’t remember those years ago in 45 and 33/and a 3rd rpm recordings played on record players.) These habits may indicate, at least to me, that his ‘handlers’ screwed up his robotic programs. I’m observing him and his body language, and I don’t perceive symptoms of psychopath or sociopath symptoms. I’m not at all certain that he is aware that he is a product of some type of anti-Earth creation and manipulation. It will be interesting to see how these quirks continue to develop over time.
Interesting and a bit scary.
Hi Sheila. I have a different opinion of DJT that many would consider totally off-the-wall crazy. Nevertheless….I don’t think he is mentally ill. I have a strong conviction that he is absolutely aware of every move he makes and everything he does. My reasons for this conviction is based on several aspects but I won’t go into those….too much time and space! Here goes: It is my conclusion that he is NOT totally humanoid. OK…bring out the guys in the white jackets for me, and that’s not a pun.
There is a mountain of evidence in his behavior that he is on this planet and in this country with the definitive purpose of creating chaos, mayhem, loss of trust between allies, and quite possibly actual nuclear war resulting in the destruction of every country and life as we know it. I do not believe his origin is Earth. We are fighting PURE EVIL, but his controllers are numerous and extremely powerful and unfortunately beyond the reach of our current knowledge.He uses Twitter because he is indoctrinated in electronic usages for his agendas. I agree I may be nuts, but I honestly think this is true and we are in a web of a world-wide invisible enemy invasion. Can we win? Don’t know. I think we first must acknowledge that we are dealing with entities that are well-disguised and increasing their powers exponentially, with DJT at the helm. So that’s my take on it, and him, for what it’s worth.
It would explain a lot!
I’ve been devouring news of this book this week. The Republicans in Congress are beyond shameful. They have successfully thwarted the Founding Fathers, who brilliantly, psychically anticipated almost everything, except a Congress that would not act to stop a President this mentally ill. But, apparently, a significant factor in Nixon being ousted was the public’s outrage as news about Watergate came out. So, yes, I too hope this book is a key factor in propelling the citizenry to demand that the outrageously selfish and short-sighted Republicans in Congress put the health of the nation and the world before their personal status and profits. From the top customer reviews on Amazon, it looks like that’s exactly what’s happening.
Sure hope so!
Trump wanting to ban the book is a publisher’s dream to make this a best seller beyond the beyond of a publisher’s dreams. Hip hip hooooray!
Yes! You can’t buy that kind of publicity!
And TRUMP knows that