Trump is F*cking Crazy

September 15, 2017
A veteran liberal journalist excoriates Donald Trump in a collection of commentaries from the Resistance, his web series hosted by GQ.Beginning with the 2016 presidential campaign and concluding in late June 2017, these pieces pound away at a series of complaints--some profoundly serious--about Trump, complaints ranging from what Olbermann (Pitchforks and Torches: The Worst of the Worst, from Beck, Bill, and Bush to Palin and Other Posturing Republicans, 2010, etc.) sees as Trump's habitual lying, the Russian involvement in the election, the attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, the last-minute involvement of the FBI in the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the firing of James Comey, and the contortions exhibited by Trump officials who defend him through everything. The author pretty much exhausts the thesaurus in his name-calling, and he argues that Trump is a modern Nero; Napoleon; a latter-day Nixon. The author also has harsh things to say about the media (looking for opportunities to call Trump "presidential"), Republicans, and Trump supporters of all stripes (Kellyanne Conway is "Kellyanne Con Job"). Olbermann is fond of some rhetorical devices: an ancient one, anaphora (the repetition of key words or phrases at the beginning of a sentence or paragraph: "Who else but a jackass..."), as well as a more recent one (The. Placement. Of. A. Period. At. The. End. Of. Each. Word.). Olbermann is also not above self-promotion of his own--he mentions the number of visitors to his site and credits himself for a few other good things--but for the most part, his focus is on the man he despises and on the minions who support him. The pieces are generally short and sharply focused on something quite recent at the time of composition--Trump's post-election talk to the CIA, the testimony of Sally Yates--and the prose is consistently aggressive and often abrasive. Unrelenting invective for Trump haters, who will love it; Trump lovers won't read it.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 2, 2017
Even those who agree with the title of this collection of over 100 short essays—originally scripts from Olbermann’s GQ web video series—won’t find reading it productive or therapeutic. Opponents of President Trump aren’t likely to have forgotten why they oppose him, making the value of entries such as “176 Reasons Donald Trump Shouldn’t Be President,” written before the election, questionable. A February 2017 entry, “The Arrest of Michael Thomas Flynn,” exemplifies the dated nature of most of the essays, the subject having been overtaken by subsequent events. In it, Olbermann states that the then-not-yet-former National Security Advisor Flynn should be arrested right away based on “suspicion” of violating the federal ban on private citizens negotiating with foreign powers, an approach that may be red meat to partisans but will not persuade anyone else. Moreover, Olbermann’s inability to refrain from taking potshots at personal bêtes noires, such as Tom Brokaw, distracts from the book’s urgent subject. Given the ongoing turmoil in the Trump administration, Olbermann’s choice to rehash old news, rather than apply his intellect to a cogent analysis of the Trump phenomenon, is disappointing.