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jasonlee77's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting, sometimes funny and oftentimes very sad look at the 2016 presidential campaign from author Matt Taibbi's perspective; a journalist who was there for the whole wild ride.
While the book does primarily focus on the improbable rise of Donald J Trump, it also sheds light on just how utterly ridiculous and mindnumbingly dumb all of the candidates where during this election season.
Before reading this book, I, along with many others thought "how in the hell did Donald Trump fool enough people into getting him into the White House?" But after reading this book and seeing the play by play analysis of how it all went down in real time, it's not as hard to understand with seeing all of the bumbling idiots he was up against.
The people wanted change, they wanted a rebel who would break down the very corrupted foundations that our political system has propped up for far too long, and they believe they got it with Trump.
To say I fear for our future would be an understatement in the highest degree, but after reading INSANE CLOWN PRESIDENT, I can see, no matter how sad and pathetic that I think it is, why Trump won.
While the book does primarily focus on the improbable rise of Donald J Trump, it also sheds light on just how utterly ridiculous and mindnumbingly dumb all of the candidates where during this election season.
Before reading this book, I, along with many others thought "how in the hell did Donald Trump fool enough people into getting him into the White House?" But after reading this book and seeing the play by play analysis of how it all went down in real time, it's not as hard to understand with seeing all of the bumbling idiots he was up against.
The people wanted change, they wanted a rebel who would break down the very corrupted foundations that our political system has propped up for far too long, and they believe they got it with Trump.
To say I fear for our future would be an understatement in the highest degree, but after reading INSANE CLOWN PRESIDENT, I can see, no matter how sad and pathetic that I think it is, why Trump won.
thefriedone's review against another edition
4.0
Taibbi's trademark incisiveness and humor are on display in this solid collection of pieces covering the 2016 Trump campaign (and some on the rest of the GOP "Clown Car" and Clinton too).
I had read a few of these pieces online already in the past 18 months. A few were duds and total filler (debate drinking games, who would play each person in a 2016 Campaign: The Movie), but most of the serious pieces are pretty insightful. Taibbi didn't cherry-pick the pieces to make himself look good after the big upset. You can see how he and everyone else were 100% confident that Clinton would win right up until election night, and the bleary-eyed post-mortem captures how many of us were feeling the next morning.
Some topics covered:
- Trump's brilliant idea to turn his supporters against the media, the long-time gatekeepers to the White House
- Democrats' epic failure, both in arrogance in the general and in ignoring the popularity of Sanders
- "Dubya" as the first true dummy in chief
- The near-death of the GOP (and their embarrassing parade of awful candidates in the primary)
This will be especially fun to revisit in a few years. All of the insane stories are still fresh in my mind, but some of this stuff will be truly unbelievable looking back.
I had read a few of these pieces online already in the past 18 months. A few were duds and total filler (debate drinking games, who would play each person in a 2016 Campaign: The Movie), but most of the serious pieces are pretty insightful. Taibbi didn't cherry-pick the pieces to make himself look good after the big upset. You can see how he and everyone else were 100% confident that Clinton would win right up until election night, and the bleary-eyed post-mortem captures how many of us were feeling the next morning.
Some topics covered:
- Trump's brilliant idea to turn his supporters against the media, the long-time gatekeepers to the White House
- Democrats' epic failure, both in arrogance in the general and in ignoring the popularity of Sanders
- "Dubya" as the first true dummy in chief
- The near-death of the GOP (and their embarrassing parade of awful candidates in the primary)
This will be especially fun to revisit in a few years. All of the insane stories are still fresh in my mind, but some of this stuff will be truly unbelievable looking back.
tristansreadingmania's review against another edition
3.0
The American presidency has been ripe for the taking by a wealthy, non-political entity like Trump for some time now. It was inevitable.
In 2016, the moment of judgment had finally come. It didn’t take much doing. Child’s play, really. The system was that weak and ineffective, unable to put up any substantial fight. Now, a new paradigm has been set. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. The question was only how ridiculous, sad and vile things could get. The conditions had been present for at least 20 years, clear to anyone with eyes willing to see the perfect storm about to hit American politics like a juggernaut.
A large swath of disenfranchised, deeply resentful citizens with an axe to grind with its increasingly detached and myopic political representatives were ready for change, any change. Their education was generally poor, prospects few, if there were ever any to begin with. While they suffered, grew desperate and radicalised in grudging silence, the political, intellectual, economic and media elites vacantly looked on, safely cloistered in those upscale residential area’s on the East and West Coasts, gorging themselves on everything the good life had to offer them.
The Trump presidency isn’t an accident, neither an aberration. It’s a fitting end product of American culture and politics. To a perverse mind, a not inconsiderable amount of schadenfreude could be derived from watching this glorious dumpster fire unfold before unbelieving eyeballs of millions around the world.
This is you, America. Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. Both wings of the establishment screwed up royally. Now you're reaping the whirlwind of your willful ignorance and callousness. You’ve reached the end of civilised political discourse, things will never be the same after this. Division is total. Now you truly are the living embodiment of a reality TV freak show.
Matt Taibbi echoes my - admittedly bleak - sentiments rather well in his deceptively titled Insane Clown President. Deceptive because, while Mr. Orange does get a fair amount of coverage, this series of columns which originally appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine, reads more as an indictment of the entire system which gave rise to Trump in the first place. Absolutely everyone, apart from Bernie Sanders, has to undergo Taibbi’s scorched earth policy like a child about to be chided, a mode of writing which he executes rather well.
It’s especially refreshing to see a mainstream journalist performing a mea culpa like this:
“This is a horrible thing to have to say about one's own country, but this story makes it official. America is now too dumb for TV news.
It's our fault. We in the media have spent decades turning the news into a consumer business that's basically indistinguishable from selling cheeseburgers or video games. You want bigger margins, you just cram the product full of more fat and sugar and violence and wait for your obese, over-stimulated customer to come waddling forth.
The old Edward R. Murrow, eat-your-broccoli version of the news was banished long ago. Once such whiny purists were driven from editorial posts and the ad people over the last four or five decades got invited in, things changed. Then it was nothing but murders, bombs, and panda births, delivered to thickening couch potatoes in ever briefer blasts of forty, thirty, twenty seconds.
What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism. The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well, while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or an ACORN activist. Both companies offer the same service, it's just that the Fox version is a little kinkier.
When you make the news into this kind of consumer business, pretty soon audiences lose the ability to distinguish between what they think they're doing, informing themselves, and what they're actually doing, shopping.
And who shops for products he or she doesn't want? That's why the consumer news business was always destined to hit this kind of impasse. You can get by for a long time by carefully selecting the facts you know your audiences will like, and calling that news. But eventually there will be a truth that displeases your customers. What do you do then?”
Hunter S. Thompson would approve. What he would make of this madness though, one can only guess.
Recommended for those sadomasochists out there eager to relive one of the darkest times in American political and social history. The pessimist in me however thinks this ride will last for a good while yet, with no lever in sight to halt it.
In 2016, the moment of judgment had finally come. It didn’t take much doing. Child’s play, really. The system was that weak and ineffective, unable to put up any substantial fight. Now, a new paradigm has been set. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. The question was only how ridiculous, sad and vile things could get. The conditions had been present for at least 20 years, clear to anyone with eyes willing to see the perfect storm about to hit American politics like a juggernaut.
A large swath of disenfranchised, deeply resentful citizens with an axe to grind with its increasingly detached and myopic political representatives were ready for change, any change. Their education was generally poor, prospects few, if there were ever any to begin with. While they suffered, grew desperate and radicalised in grudging silence, the political, intellectual, economic and media elites vacantly looked on, safely cloistered in those upscale residential area’s on the East and West Coasts, gorging themselves on everything the good life had to offer them.
The Trump presidency isn’t an accident, neither an aberration. It’s a fitting end product of American culture and politics. To a perverse mind, a not inconsiderable amount of schadenfreude could be derived from watching this glorious dumpster fire unfold before unbelieving eyeballs of millions around the world.
This is you, America. Democrat, Republican, it doesn’t matter. Both wings of the establishment screwed up royally. Now you're reaping the whirlwind of your willful ignorance and callousness. You’ve reached the end of civilised political discourse, things will never be the same after this. Division is total. Now you truly are the living embodiment of a reality TV freak show.
Matt Taibbi echoes my - admittedly bleak - sentiments rather well in his deceptively titled Insane Clown President. Deceptive because, while Mr. Orange does get a fair amount of coverage, this series of columns which originally appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine, reads more as an indictment of the entire system which gave rise to Trump in the first place. Absolutely everyone, apart from Bernie Sanders, has to undergo Taibbi’s scorched earth policy like a child about to be chided, a mode of writing which he executes rather well.
It’s especially refreshing to see a mainstream journalist performing a mea culpa like this:
“This is a horrible thing to have to say about one's own country, but this story makes it official. America is now too dumb for TV news.
It's our fault. We in the media have spent decades turning the news into a consumer business that's basically indistinguishable from selling cheeseburgers or video games. You want bigger margins, you just cram the product full of more fat and sugar and violence and wait for your obese, over-stimulated customer to come waddling forth.
The old Edward R. Murrow, eat-your-broccoli version of the news was banished long ago. Once such whiny purists were driven from editorial posts and the ad people over the last four or five decades got invited in, things changed. Then it was nothing but murders, bombs, and panda births, delivered to thickening couch potatoes in ever briefer blasts of forty, thirty, twenty seconds.
What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism. The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well, while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or an ACORN activist. Both companies offer the same service, it's just that the Fox version is a little kinkier.
When you make the news into this kind of consumer business, pretty soon audiences lose the ability to distinguish between what they think they're doing, informing themselves, and what they're actually doing, shopping.
And who shops for products he or she doesn't want? That's why the consumer news business was always destined to hit this kind of impasse. You can get by for a long time by carefully selecting the facts you know your audiences will like, and calling that news. But eventually there will be a truth that displeases your customers. What do you do then?”
Hunter S. Thompson would approve. What he would make of this madness though, one can only guess.
Recommended for those sadomasochists out there eager to relive one of the darkest times in American political and social history. The pessimist in me however thinks this ride will last for a good while yet, with no lever in sight to halt it.
pocketvolcano's review
5.0
Reading this in 2020, it’s clear that one of the biggest mistakes made in 2016 was not taking Trump seriously. It’s sobering to look back and see how we got to where we are now.
quercus707's review against another edition
4.0
Despite the title, this wasn't primarily a hatchet job on the Chief Cheeto. It was a Fear-and-Loathing style deconstruction of the 2016 campaign, from someone who was there. Villains include the Democratic party, the Republican party, the abysmal field of candidates, and the press. If you lie awake wondering what the f@#$ just happened, this book might shed some light on that question. And Matt Taibbi is a damn fine writer - in the midst of my gloom I found myself laughing out loud at some of his fantastic and unusual metaphors or turns of phrase. An excellent read, if you can face it.