Bob Woodward: Rage

“Rage” (2020) is a book by Bob Woodward about the White House under US President Trump from about March 2018 to July 2020, more or less picking up where “Fear” (2018) left off. Back in the 1970s Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.

Sources: Like his other books, it is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with those who could provide first-hand accounts of what went on in the White House. But unlike “Fear”, Trump himself was interviewed. Trump, though, said Woodward was a “Dem operative” who did not understand him.

Topics: Russiagate, Ukrainegate, the impeachement, North Korea, the George Floyd protests, etc, but mainly Trump’s handling of the covid-19 pandemic, from January 28th to July 21st 2020, when 143,000 Americans died.

Theme: Trump as leader. We find out that in private Trump understood the pandemic and systemic racism perfectly well, certainly well enough to know how serious they are.  Likely he understands climate change just as well. But in public he acts like these things are either not real or are about to go away. So his “leadership”, such as it is, becomes mainly an exercise in public relations, in making himself look good. But he is not even good at making himself look good! At least not to half or more of the nation.

Systematic racism: After much hemming and hawing, and endless boasting about the African American unemployment rate:

WOODWARD: Do you think there is systematic or institutional racism in this country?

TRUMP: Well, I think there is everywhere. I think probably less here than most places. Or less here than many places.

WOODWARD: But is it here in a way that it has an impact on people’s lives?

TRUMP: I think it is. And it’s unfortnate. But I think it is.

But was he going to do anything about it? No. He says he has already done more for the African American than any president except Lincoln. After all, the African American unemployment rate had reached record lows – that is, until the China virus came, so unfair, totally not his fault.

Pandemic response: On his pandemic response he gives himself an A. That will go to an A+ once the vaccines come out, hopefully before the election on November 3rd. By banning some air travel from China in January, which was totally his idea (after his five top medical and national security advisers strongly recommended it), he saved 3 million lives.

Dr Fauci on Trump:

“His attention span is like a minus number.”

Dr Fauci was his leading expert on infectious diseases.

Russiagate: Dan Coats, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence from 2017 to 2019, said Trump acts like Putin, the Russian president, has something on him, but from the intelligence he saw it was not clear what it was.

Woodward in July 2020:

“Trump’s presidency was riddled with ambivialence, set on an uncertain course, swinging from combativeness to conciliation, and whipsawing from one statement or action to the opposite.”

Crazytown is still Crazytown, though not (yet?) fascism.

– Abagond, 2020.

See also:

• books – books I read in 2020
• Bob Woodward: Fear
• All the President’s Men – wherein Robert Redford plays Bob Woodward
• Donald Trump
  • Trump 2020
  • Trump on the coronavirus – written on March 20th.
• The coronavirus
• Dr Fauci
• The George Floyd protests
• Russiagate
  • The Mueller Report
• The impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump

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