OK I am at like chapter 2 of "A Warning" by Anonymous, and the author says they decided to be anonymous because the writers of the Federalist Papers were at the time they wrote, and I am pretty sure the author is the senior official who dressed like the 1770s at inauguration.
Might turn this into a thread of things angering me about this book, like this person wants sympathy because Team Trump didn't expect to win, and turns out forming a transition team is super hard. Like, feel pity that we tried a con to waste everyone's time and boost resumes.
Plus, if you actually didn't want to win? Maybe say no to the FOREIGN GOVERNMENT OFFERING TO RIG IT FOR YOU? Just an idea.
I just don't even buy it, there has never been a competition Trump didn't want to win. He wanted to win so much he turned traitor to do it.
This is low-key terrifying like this person is just like yep I witnessed him being completely irrational and delusional and it was scary but we stuck it out because we believed in the policies or whatever.
Oh, also the author thinks the Resistance to Trump is seeking to subvert government officials to do nefarious things to sabotage Trump. No, person, we've fought this whole time for impeachment, the method the Founders gave us. Those guys you claim to like so much.
Just describing in excruciating detail how unable to understand briefings he is. "What the fuck, this is just a bunch of words," he would say. They now only brief him on one (1) issue each day. But sure, don't testify about any of this, just Weekend at Bernie's it out.
They told Trump to do rallies all the time, even though it wasn't campaign season, to give him something fun to do so he would stop trying to spontaneously do drastic, irrational things based on something he saw on TV.
(To be continued at a later time, as it is time to go get a Christmas Tree shortly!)
OK, back to the book. Going over everything wrong with Stephen Miller (except for the white supremacy). He likes chaos and said everyone should encourage Trump's impulses more. There's a whole "pro-chaos" crowd who think presidents should be like Patton.
Trump wanted to arm all teachers. When the aides said it was a bad idea, he said ok, arm 20% of them, and then he went out and said "that's the number" like it came from somewhere.
OMG the author says it's not nefarious when Trump asks them to do illegal things, because he doesn't know they're illegal. Yeah, that sounds like it means YOU need to invoke the 25th Amendment, author person.
He wanted to call the refugees "enemy combatants," which we kind of knew from his calling them "an invasion," which has inspired at least one massacre.
LOL Trump fired Reince Priebus by tweet while he was sitting in the same motorcade. That's still absurd and scary objectively but screw that guy.
This book is basically just a repeated series of "Lucy takes the football away" stories, like the author doesn't get how delusional they sound every time they end an anecdote with like "And THEN we breathed a sigh of relief, that crisis was over."
Oh now the author says they've gained this deep wisdom that actually it's not the cabinet's job to do anything about a president like this, it's on the voters. Same thing all these other people who could have done something said. Thanks for nothing, guys.
Long section just describing the rooms in the White House and the history of the Resolute Desk. Maybe publishers needed a certain word count. Anyway, Trump swears and yells in it a lot, and that's not dignified.
Gross anecdote about how funny it is when Trump calls people and makes fun of them to their faces on speakerphone while someone sits on the couch listening. Hmm, who likes to curl up on that Oval Office couch?
Oh now there's going to be a whole explain-like-I'm-five section on "what is character?" like whoever's writing this is an authority on that subject. Ugh. This book makes me want to throw things.
Def want to see a mini-episode of The Good Place responding to this bit and being like, knowing what good character IS doesn't mean JACK if you propped up someone unfit so you could get a tax break. You lose ten thousand points!
Most of this book isn't even about him, it's about this person, and alllll their many, many, many excuses for helping him all this time.
Bad people can sometimes do good things, it would be destabilizing, what if exposing it all somehow made things worse, blah blah blah. Tell it to the judge, lady! (allegedly)
Now just going over how he doesn't, maybe can't, read anything, and can't even sit through meetings because he gets bored and wanders away, but he thinks he's a genius.
OK this is a bit juicy, the author says all those times people reportedly called Trump a moron, it was all true, they said those things. But people are afraid now to say that kind of thing even in private because they don't know who to trust. So that's fun and not Hitleresque.
Nobody knows if he says what he says because he's just making it up because he doesn't care about reality, or if he forgets things, or if he never paid attention when told them in the first place.
Turns out Trump pretty much believes anything Lou Dobbs says.
Wow what a revelation, Trump privately complains all of the time, literally constantly, about criticism he has seen on TV, no one could have guessed this at all from his use of his social media.
More padding, running through all Trump's twitter outbursts like we didn't have to live through them. Wrap it up, author, get to the news you have to tell us.
He has no mercy for his opponents, sees this all as a war, fixates on his rivals. Yeah, WE KNOW. Hence, forming a Resistance. I am not sure there is going to be anything wise in this book at all, my friends.
There's a framing device going back to the earlier bit explaining what goodness is, and basically Trump doesn't check any of Cicero's boxes defining goodness. Due to all his frauds and cruelties.
LOL the author says the effort to repeal ACA "inexplicably collapsed" and Trump blamed everyone but himself. Like, there were no protests or anything, just for some reason it didn't happen, mysterious forces.
Big ole philosophy quote about Reason, so this author is def on the libertarian side of the GOP, IMHO.
Anyway this section is just to say that he's not courageous. We all saw that Eagle terrify him, this is not news.
Finally (thank the heavens) we must judge his temperament. Really? REALLY? Ok Trumper.
Trump's a misogynist. Who knew? Though, the author doesn't think women actually need "safe spaces" from him because lol sjws or whatever.
TV rules Trump's life, constantly obsessing over what is or is not on it.
Trump is frequently bothered by "the haters online" so good work everyone!
The author wants everyone to know that they personally were on the right side when the murder at the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally happened and they know neo-Nazis are not very fine people.
The author doesn't believe Trump is racist "in his heart of hearts," but he still encourages racists, like it's all one big ole accident certainly not something the author has culpability for nope.
This author is seriously asking us to believe Trump just didn't know any better, like why he should disavow David Duke and the rest of the Nazis. And they hoped he would learn to, and it's so sad he did not.
Many people asked the author why they were staying, knowing all this. "Because he's a mess," so they had to stay to keep it together. Like there's just noooo mechanism at all to replace an unfit president with like, an understudy, some kind of "vice" president. What an oversight.
Running through all the "there's a tweet for everything" flip-flops he's done, and advertising some company that makes actual flip-flops featuring these tweets on the footwear for your enjoyment.
The author says Trump wasn't joking when he called himself The Chosen One.
Now running through all the tax cuts and deregulation Republicans got by propping this guy up. Not sure how this is supposed to make anyone look good but ok, go off.
Going over what Republicans stand for, "classical liberalism" etc, all the things they're going to claim they totally thought they could restrain Trump with. They had no idea he had no principles, sure sure.
Trying to whitewash the party's role in all this, like hey Trump changed his party registration five times, he was once a Dem, how is it our fault he ran on our banner and we all covered for him and let him do all this? Huh?
Long "Well actually, Trump was never a Conservative." Like yeah, he's a fascist, we have been telling you that for three years.
That time the author said "finally" a while back? It was nowhere close to the final part of this book. They just can't stop lying.
He doesn't even care about the budget caps, the Tea Party's FAVORITE thing! And he spends all of our money and there's a huge deficit now.
He also doesn't care about other Tea Party stuff, like randomly slashing the federal workforce, just because!
And, he issues a crapload of executive orders, which is a thing the author admits they used to yell at Obama about. Fair's fair, good on you, author, for admitting that.
Readers, brace yourselves, but turns out Trump is actually NOT good at national security.
Alll these things Trump's done, they just coincidentally all happen to help Putin, presumably, because they are just terrible decisions he made, because he didn't understand. Uh huh, sure Jan.
When briefers would be terrified by Trump, the author would tell them, relax, he'll change his mind by tomorrow. What a savvy person, so sophisticated, how thankful we must all be for this indispensable service.
The author thinks it's "knee-slappingly funny" to watch Trump try to build his wall and keep changing his mind about what to make it out of. So no, they have no idea how terrifying any of this is for regular people.
Wow. The author is angry about migrants coming to the US and asking for asylum, and being free while their cases go forward. That's the "problem" Republicans wanted him to solve, instead of building a wall.
But, also too, the author doesn't approve of the way Trump thinks of immigrants, when he calls them useless, and all the other things he's said.
And did you know that Trump wanted to completely close the border to migrants? Yes, author, we all did know that, because it was crazypants bananas and very scary.
Like who is this book even for, someone who's been in a cave for 3 years?
Turns out the other country doesn't pay for tariffs, WE pay for it, they pass the cost on to the consumer.
So trade wars are bad.
Nobody, not even Mnuchin, can get Trump to understand that trade wars are bad.
Ooh, intrigue, trade wars are not just *bad*, they are a sneaky way to RAISE TAXES, the thing the Tea Party hates the very very most, even more than no budget caps.
This is all wrecking the economy and might cause another big crash because Trump doesn't listen to anybody, and the author thinks THAT should make the GOP stand up against him. Which, fair point, they DO like money.
Years ago the GOP wrote themselves recommendations for how to grow the party and recruit people, especially people of color and women. Trump is doing the opposite of all the recommendations.
Trump's a danger to our democracy because he abuses power against his opponents. He's serious about his commands to prosecute his enemies, that's not a joke.
He complains all the time that the Justice Department hasn't gone after the Clintons. He tried to get Sessions to "unrecuse" and do it. Turns out, that's improper!
Trump abuses his power to try to undermine all three branches, and weaken institutions, and trying to break free of the checks and balances and the author wants you to know you should start caring about that, like they have just now.
He doesn't respect the professional civil service and calls them the Deep State, even though he used to say he didn't like that phrase. And! He called the *author* that when they wrote their first op-ed, even.
Civil servants are good, and not conspiring against us, and Trump can't even define who is in this "deep state."
He's so paranoid he holds a lot of meetings in secure rooms with only his appointees because he doesn't trust the professionals.
Sometimes he silences agencies questioning him by telling them they're under policy review to see if they should be reorganized or moved or disbanded.
Advisers told Trump he had to disavow the Russian attack and denounce Moscow, but he was unmoved. For no reason at all.
Oh, wait, they did eventually begin to fear he might be in Putin's pocket.
He's ignorant about many threats, and less informed than he should be about almost every threat, and he's reckless with classified information.
Oh yeah and that one time he tweeted a satellite photo that exposed how detailed our imaging is.
Trump never believed any intelligence people and constantly humiliated them and only wanted loyal ones, and pressured DOJ to investigate them for treason and high crimes.
He also berates his lawyers if they won't agree that something he wants to do is legal, and tells agencies they should fire lawyers who won't do what he wants, too.
He also hates judges, too.
He sees the pardon power as an unlimited get-out-of-jail-free card. When he sends someone out to say he's joking, that's how you know he's not joking, like when he says he can pardon himself.
But the people he hates the most are investigators.
When Trump fired Comey, the advisers were angry and confused, and his reasons kept changing. It could bring down the whole administration, they worried. (They did not worry he was actually guilty of working with Russia, because YOLO, I guess.)
Then Trump started attacking Mueller, talking about firing him, and that might topple the administration, too. The most important thing in the world is that the admin not topple, to this author.
(Oh it's toppling lady, it's toppling. This is all happening.)
And, of course, he regularly attacks the FBI, even though many of the agents rooted for him to win.
Trump doesn't understand the function of the legislature, or why they have oversight over him. But he does like having them to deflect blame onto for whatever's wrong.
A defense official tried to get Trump to champion a defense bill, and he told them don't worry about it, just do whatever you need to do without the bill. And they were like, that is not how it works.
Trump also prefers to keep acting agency heads, because they have to keep currying favor with him if they want to ever be officially nominated, and they never have to answer to congress.
Trump treats subpoenas like junk mail. OK that's a pretty good line.
Oh here we go with the "behind closed doors, Republicans are secretly angry with Trump."
The admin prepared for in case Dems won the House by hiring lawyers to do a strategy of obstructing investigations. The author thinks Democrats are stupid to have done so many investigations, obviously some were just political.
And yet the next section immediately begins by saying Trump's ideas almost always are improper or criminal and get them all sued.
Trump doesn't just mix up apples and oranges, it's more like apples and refrigerators, said one adviser.
And then came Ukraine. Not even his own people believe he was trying to fight corruption, he was the corrupt one. He also abuses his powers here at home, trying to punish what he calls "Democratic states."
Trump wanted to cut aid to California even as footage of the wildfires was replaying on TV. They thought they'd stopped him, then weeks later he tweeted he was still ending aid. But, as far as the author knows no one ever acted on his tweets.
This bit is about how much Trump sucks at doing the G7. It is all very embarrassing.
The author claims that it's not clear to them why Trump has flipped our prior security strategies to now court our former enemies. Just noooo reason they can think up. Certainly not that thing those investigations he hated were about.
Just keeps going over how badly our foreign policy is messed up, the isolationism, the unpredictability, without ever mentioning that all this stuff makes perfect sense if you look at Putin's wish list.
No one can get him to stop tweeting. And yet he's been so quiet the past day or so, only retweeting, not ranting about anything. 🤔
OK, finally talking about Putin. The author admits Trump cheered the Russians on in their attack, and this is supposedly so shocking to them, but they still took the job working with him, and they still don't consider it collusion. It's just so puzzling to them.
Who can say why Trump loves and wants to be close to the guy who hacked his political opponent, it's an eternal mystery we will never solve and def shouldn't subpoena anybody about.
Trump genuinely thought that all you need for successful diplomacy is personal friendship, like his with Kim Jong Un. That part sounds real TBH. If someone likes him, then everything's fine, diplomacy-wise, as far as he's concerned.
Basically, all he cares about is trade and he doesn't get why nations with opposite ideologies can't just become trading partners, why adversaries would still oppose the West even if he offers them deals, or why allies stay allies, and he shouts at the allies on the phone.
The allies don't trust us anymore because Trump lies all the time and no one can predict what he'll do.
Oh suddenly we're back in time in ancient Greece now, to hear a bunch of stories about why we're not a direct democracy because majority rule can become mob rule, and more stuff about Reason and such.
Basically if you go for straight majority rule, next thing you know they're executing Socrates. Not sure this is actually logic but ok.
The whole point of that long digression was that we have to watch out for popular demagogues who can sway the majority to do bad things. But like, he's never been popular? So idk what that's about.
Have you ever thought how Future Historians will see this? Yes, yes I do, all the time. They'll probably know about even WORSE stuff that's classified right now.
So weird how both this author and Speaker Pelosi see the incident when Trump blew up the infrastructure deal, demanding investigations stop. Like it's just one of those erratic things, not evidence of guilt. He wanted investigations to stop because he is guilty, guys, come on.
The author thought we were just scoring political points when we called him a pathological liar, but now they know we were right. But like, truth is objective you could have found this out at any point by just checking things he said?
Ooh, an anecdote about when Kellyanne was forced to defend Trump on TV, when she said "alternative facts". Sure makes her sound pretty sympathetic, a smart good person forced to do these things.
Trump hates the press, and now half of Republicans think they're the enemy of the people, and then members of the press got sent pipe bombs.
Hmm, ok this is a fair point, Trump may not be actually popular but he does command online dogpiles that intimidate people, like a Greek demagogue.
Now is the time for the delicate dance of talking about Trump's racism without breaking the taboo against actually calling anyone racist.
When Trump started out, everyone thought he was a joke, but now, he's a tragedy. Makes you think. About all the people who could have exposed him this whole time.
LOL, calling out Mulvaney for sucking up to Trump and making excuses for him, like the previous strategy of trying to talk him out of bad ideas was totes working.
Basically, everyone working in the White House right now is a den of vipers constantly backstabbing each other. No word on if they use secret twitter accounts to trash each other but hey why wouldn't they. I am just saying. We should look.
Going over why authoritarians prefer staff and supporters like this, ignorant, committed to him personally, willing to do things they know are wrong. They want to be close to power and they don't care how they get there.
You can tell who the Trump apologists are because they smile and nod no matter what he's saying. Hot tip there.
Calling out Republicans in congress who've become sycophants, asking them to remember their oaths, and how the Founders were against this cult of personality sort of thing.
Everyone who's helped Trump is part of this and hasn't done enough, including the author themselves, they admit.
Oh now going off about how "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is a real thing and we all have fever dreams about removing him for years, and other disgraceful thoughts.
Aren't we just as bad as Trump, if we want him "prematurely" ousted, eh? Who is the logic-doer now?
The aides talked about the 25th Amendment back when Trump wanted to fire Mueller, but then they decided it'd be irresponsible to speculate about it. It would've been perceived as a coup and millions wouldn't accept it, maybe even Trump, mass civic unrest, maybe war. Sure, sure.
Oh, and now the author chides us that we shouldn't ask for the 25th either. And we should not relish impeachment. This is all supposed to be painful and if you're enjoying it and hope he's found guilty, you're unAmerican.
All those ways to remove Trump during his term are undesirable inherently, and cause a danger of unrest, the only thing we should do is have another election. Because he'd totes abide by one of THOSE, unlike any other mechanism. 🤷♀️
Going over all the scary stuff Trump's said about how he might not leave office peacefully, which is somehow not a reason to speed up trying to remove him.
We've been so lucky not to have had a major international crisis with Trump at the helm, but luck can't last forever, which is somehow again, not a reason to speed up removing him, let's roll the dice for a year.
Oh here we go, the warning is that Democrats shouldn't nominate someone far-left, because Republicans are weighing character versus ideology and they'll pick ideology again. Sure, let's take advice from this self-acknowledged enabler of a demagogue.
Did you know that there are other people besides a president on the ballot? Yes! There are downballot votes and they determine whether a president's held in check. NOW you tell us!
Finally, the epilogue. Telling the story of the Flight 93 passengers who stormed the hijackers on 9/11. After the attacks we were all so united. The author asks what if Bush had called the attacks a hoax and did everything else Trump's done about the Russian attacks.
LOL now saying sure, you could blame Trump for the divisiveness caused by Trump calling the attacks a hoax, but isn't it really our fault for having gotten so uncivil about it? (No, not it is not. We did not bring this on ourselves, this guy did this to us.)
Americans were happy under President Monroe when there was single party rule, the author claims. Division's all the fault of having a two-party system, can't we all just get along? And forget about which party got a foreign nation to hack which party and then called it a hoax?
Returning again to the theme that Trump definitely won legitimately and reflected the national mood at the time, so this is really all our own fault, we deserve this.
It's just so amazing that someone could so blithely admit to doing such terrible things but then continue to chastise the entire nation for letting them do it. This isn't a mea culpa it's the opposite, this is everyone's fault, somehow.
Now that you've been instructed on what goodness, government, and your duties as a citizen are, by this person who helped a demagogue take power, you can finally get your act together and stop letting this person do all these crimes. You're welcome.
We all have to morally repair our nation, because the whole thing's broken, it wasn't just one crime gang doing a bunch of crimes. Ok. Welp, that is the end of the book!
