Michael Wolff — Fire & Fury: Inside the Trump White House
There was a shift in my life at age 8. My cultural influences, which heretofore were more Indian than Western, more Dil To Pagal Hai than Die Hard With A Vengeance, started to go west. By 18, this shift was complete, and I had marked myself down as an American pop culture nerd.
My 18th year (2008) was also the year of Barack Hussein Obama. His election, more than that of any other politician until then, Indian or firangi, first got me thinking about politics. My real obsession with politics, though, like many people my age, started with the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. There was some angel on campus who’d diligently torrent episodes every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and upload it on DC¹. I’d watch everyday.
In many ways, my introduction to politics was through American politics, and my understanding of American politics was through the lens of entertainment. I, like many others my age, viewed politics as entertainment, and politicians, especially conservative ones, as people you mocked¹.
I believe that Fire and Fury is just the sort of book that someone like me will wolf down. The book covers the first year-odd of the Trump presidency with a gossipmonger’s attention to detail. It’s not as if it doesn’t make any political points. It does make a few. Chief among them:
- There’s a war for directing (or misdirecting) Trump, who is portrayed as childish and unintelligent.
- On one side there’s the establishment Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and within the White House, Reince Priebus.
- On another, there’s New York Democrats led by Jarvanka, a portmanteau for Jared Kushner and Ivanka, moderates who are shown to be Machiavellian, often embarrassed by their president, and a little out of their depth.
- Finally, there’s the Bannonite faction of right-wingers defined often by their involvement in Breitbart. Steve Bannon himself, a sort of tragic hero of the book, is shown to see himself as being the true leader of the Trumpite movement.
2. Trump himself may not be essential to Trumpism, and may not himself have a clear idea about what Trumpism is.
But that’s not what this book is about. This isn’t a book about policy, or really, about capital P Politics. It’s about scandal, gossip, small p politics. About A plotting against B, B undermining C, C forcing D out of his office, etc, etc, etc. It really is, for that reason, the defining book on politics of the Trump era³. A reality TV book for a reality TV president.
And it is for precisely that reason that I believe it’s the sort of book for someone like me. I have the background of the American system needed to understand the book, and the vocabulary needed to agree with some of the logical leaps Michael Wolff makes on his way to his many assertions. But I have none of the panic this presidency might induce in many Americans. I can laugh at it, without panicking that the fabric of ‘my country’ is being torn or rended in any way. See this as a small p politics book, as a book about scandal, and you won’t be able to put it down. But see it as anything more, and you will be disappointed by what you might find as a lack of substance.
¹ The campus file-sharing network.
² There have been many articles about how origin stories like mine, fairly common for people my age, have resulted in a polarised political climate, not only in America, but around the world. One in which liberals resort to name-calling, and ‘conservative’ is seen as a slur. I don’t agree. Either way, that’s not the piece I’m writing.
³ Besides selling nearly a couple of million copies at the time of this writing.
