Political books during the Obama era were, in general, mildly interesting. Bob Woodward’s “Obama’s Wars” laid out in deliberate detail the process that led to the then-president’s surge in Afghanistan. Others provided character sketches of the cool-tempered president or delved into legislative relations. In the Trump era, things are different. Seemingly every tell-all book contains fireworks, and “A Very Stable Genius” by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig brings its own set of attention-grabbing–and frequently unsettling–goods.
“A Very Stable Genius” leaves no doubt that Donald Trump is unfit for the office. It depicts constant upheaval among his staff and a petulant and (my apologies) unstable president who nearly always makes uniformed and unwise decisions. The scenes concerning national security are particularly frightening, as with one well publicized blow-up at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and another dangerous brush with destruction when he comes extremely close to withdrawing from NATO. The authors’ portrayal of Trump’s White House is uniformly disturbing, and the picture they paint deserves to be shared with every swing voter in America.
But it is precisely this dark narrative that is the book’s greatest shortcoming. The authors clearly did heavy reportorial lifting in their preparations from this book, but their frequent explicit editorializing against Trump will alienate the center-right readers the country most needs to hear their message. They clearly detest their subject and make no effort to hide their disgust. In this, the book fails its readers and an electorate that might otherwise be inclined to listen to two accomplished investigative reporters.
The book is also frustratingly short on policy. There is literally nothing about Trump’s signature legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or his assaults on the regulatory state. Rucker and Leonnig barely go into the substance of Trump’s foreign policy, focusing instead on some (genuinely disturbing) episodes that cropped up during the course of his ill-fated efforts as commander-in-chief. By contrast, they cover the Mueller investigation in exhaustive–and exhausting–detail. Combined with their cliche-ridden journalese, this heavy focus on process and legal entanglements makes for a read that is not always stimulating.
Rucker and Leonig have done Americans a service by exposing the extreme dysfunction of the Trump administration. The same message, however, was conveyed more compellingly in Bob Woodward’s “Fear” and even Michael Wolff’s colorful “Fire and Fury.” In the final analysis, “A Very Stable Genius” is a missed opportunity and a frankly disappointing work.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
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