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A review by thefriedone
Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus by Matt Taibbi
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.