Everything Trump Touches Dies by Rick Wilson, 2018 Simon and Schuster.
Rick Wilson, Republican political consultant, gets barely a page into his book about the Trump “presidency” before making it fairly clear to the reader that he is not a fan.
“Donald Trump, the avatar of our worst instincts and darkest desires as a nation, sits in the Oval Office. I did what I could to stop it. I watched the stalwarts of the Republican Party and the conservative movement slip into the sewage tank of populist nationalism with barely a ripple.”
Tell-all books that savage politicians are not exactly news. Such books were a cottage industry during the Clinton Presidency, with one imprimteur, Regnary Books, existing purely for the vilification of all things Clinton. Trump, just 21 months into his reign, has already attracted his share, most recently from his fellow TV sleazeball royale, Omarosa.
And Rick Wilson, cheerfully informs his readers right up front that he is one of the lowest and scummiest life forms in the known universe, a political consultant, a vicious dirtbag even by their loathsome standards.
It turns out he is a master of political polemic and vituperation at a level worthy of Hunter S. Thompson or H.L. Mencken.
The result is an enormously entertaining book for people who loathe Trump (and we are legion). It will make Republicans who support or have supported Trump feel uneasy, because he doesn’t spare his former political allies, writing at one point, “I understand their defensive pissy rage, the anger they feel each time you remind them of the gulf between conservatism and Trumpism is the pain of their souls trying to re-enter their bodies.”
It’s an interesting day to begin such a book. With Paul Manafort, Trump campaign manager, being found guilty to eight felony charges, and Michael Cohen, Trump mouthpiece and fixer, copping pleas to a host of charges, explaining he was acting at the behest of Trump, it may be that the book coincidently marks the beginning of the final collapse of Trump, easily the worst president in American history.
On its own, it will do considerable damage. Most of the tell-alls to come up have been self-serving and tepid, written by people who envision a political or pundit career in the future, or are just attention hounds of the sort found in Trump’s reality TV genre. Wilson blows up bridges, sets fire to kittens and stomps them out with hobnail boots, and does it with an arresting command of the language.
From Trump’s viewpoint, this is a very dangerous book.
Trump fans will not be pleased. Wilson wryly notes that in his many years as a political consultant, he performed many dirty tricks and smear jobs and appealed to the basest and nastiest instincts of voters. As Wilson said of himself, he’s a dirtbag. But he noted that in the decades he performed such vile actions, actual threats from the opposition and their supporters were few and far between. And death threats were non-existent.
Since he first began criticizing Trump as a candidate, the threats, including many death threats, have been virtually non-stop from the deplorable morons who make up the Trumpenproletariat. Wilson notes Trump deliberately targeted the nastiest and most ignorant Americans, and have make them his brownshirts while his rich buddies and cohorts rape the country blind.
Trump was too low even for Wilson, and he wonders openly why Republicans don’t, like Neo from the Matrix, wonder why they didn’t take the blue pill.
“If I had been truly immoral, I could have easily spun up a scam-pac called ‘Americans Making America Great Again American Eagle Patriot Trump Brigade For Freedom Build The Wall Anti-Sharia Pac. The AMAGAAEPTBFFBTWA-S Pac would have dropped a few million fund-raising emails to the ocean of credulous boobs who click ‘Donate’ at the sign of a red hat and a sparkly eagle gif and watch the donations roll in.” Apparently the noble American citizenry have failed to impress Mister Wilson. Well, they do have Trump on their resume, so there’s that.
When political consultants walk away from you, explaining that they don’t want to get their hands dirty, then you’re doing it wrong. It’s like having Adam Lanza or John Wayne Gacy look at you and begin shouting demands to the jailers that they provide a better class of cellmate.
Rich in intelligent invective and related with a keen insider’s view of the political world that grunted, squawked and laid a Trump, it’s both an entertaining and informative read.