Greetings, Dear Reader. It is early afternoon in New Hometown, Florida on Thursday, August 12, 2021. It is, typically, a hot, muggy day on the Florida Gulf Coast. The current temperature is 88˚F (31˚C) under mostly cloudy skies. With humidity at 54% and the wind blowing from the east-northeast at 4 MPH (7 KM/H), the heat index is 101˚F (38˚C). Today’s forecast calls for scattered rain showers and a high of 93˚F (34˚C). Tonight, skies will be partly cloudy. The low will be 75˚F (24˚C). The Air Quality Index (AQI) is 33 or Good.

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My Trump-themed To Be Read (TBR) stack is about to get a bit taller.

On Wednesday, I ordered yet another book – my fourth overall – about the bizarre, bewildering, and toxic Presidency of Donald J. Trump. The title? A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America.

Originally published on January 21, 2020 in hardcover, E-book, and audiobook and in an updated paperback edition on February 23, 2021, this book by Washington Post White House Bureau chief Philip Rucker and investigative reporter Carol Leonnig (I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year) looks at Trump’s troubled and often unhinged Administration as it lurched from one political controversy to another…shielded from failure by Trump’s enablers in Washington’s corridors of power, the seething Make America Great Again “base” of mostly-white, Christian, and Republican supporters, and, of course, right-wing media outlets such as Breitbart News, Fox News Channel,

From the Publisher                 

The instant #1 bestseller, now updated with new reporting.

“This taut and terrifying book is among the most closely observed accounts of Donald J. Trump’s shambolic tenure in office to date.”
– Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Washington Post national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker, both Pulitzer Prize winners, provide the definitive insider narrative of Donald Trump’s presidency

“I alone can fix it.” So proclaimed Donald J. Trump on July 21, 2016, accepting the Republican presidential nomination and promising to restore what he described as a fallen nation. Yet as he undertook the actual work of the commander in chief, it became nearly impossible to see beyond the daily chaos of scandal, investigation, and constant bluster. In fact, there were patterns to his behavior and that of his associates. The universal value of the Trump administration was loyalty—not to the country, but to the president himself—and Trump’s North Star was always the perpetuation of his own power. 

With deep and unmatched sources throughout Washington, D.C., Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reveal the forty-fifth president up close. Here, for the first time, certain officials who felt honor-bound not to divulge what they witnessed in positions of trust tell the truth for the benefit of history.

A peerless and gripping narrative, A Very Stable Genius not only reveals President Trump at his most unvarnished but shows how he tested the strength of America’s democracy and its common heart as a nation.

But…but….Why?

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I am not a Donald Trump fan. Never was. Never will be. So why am I spending money on yet another book about someone I profess to dislike?

Well, when I was in college back in the tail end of the Eighties I majored in journalism/mass communications. I also had a minor in history, if the term “minor” can be applied to students at a community college who take a lot of courses in one subject that is not their declared major.

My favorite branch of history, of course, is military history; specifically, World War II and conflicts that took place after 1945. I also like to read about wars that took place before the Second World War, but if you were to visit me and look at the books I have in my bookcases, you’ll note that books about the Spanish Armada, the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War, and World War I are heavily outnumbered by those about World War II.

Domestic politics is, obviously, not a favorite topic of mine, but the Trump Presidency was so malignantly toxic and harmful to our democracy that I feel compelled to learn more about the inner workings of the Trump White House and its ability to survive politically  and retain the support of the MAGA fandom after public scandals and revelations that might have undone another President.

Also, since I wrote a short comedy film about the effects of the MAGA phenomenon on a small American family unit in New York City and I’m now working on its sequel, I need to delve deeply into the events that led to the January 6 Stop the Steal assault on the U.S. Capitol so I can inject facts into my screenplay and not, you know, make assertions that are not true.

When I started putting together this Trumpian TBR stack, I didn’t think I’d need A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America. After all, I am still not a political junkie, nor do I plan to write a documentary. But since I am enjoying I Alone Can Fix It, and because I need to refer to pre-2020 events in the narrative I am working on, I figured, hell, why not. I’ll get A Very Stable Genius in paperback.

I will not be receiving the book for a while; Amazon decided to send it to the house via the U.S. Postal Service rather than through their Amazon Prime delivery service. My copy of A Very Stable Genius shipped late yesterday and it’s now somewhere in Tennessee. It’s supposed to arrive by August 20, so I’m thinking that it will be in my hands on Monday or Tuesday; Amazon always gives its USPS shipments a larger “window” to avoid customer queries of “Why is my package not here yet?”

Well, that’s all the news I have for you today, Dear Reader, so I’ll just close here. Stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.   

Source: Penguin Random House webpage for A Very Stable Genius