Ray's Reviews > Siege: Trump Under Fire

What a contrast that was with Woodward’s book. Instead of high-level leaks and national security, Wolff’s Siege is just pure gossip.

And that makes for an entertaining read. The guy does know how to write.

There’s Karen Pence drama, Giuliani’s drinking, and behind-the-scenes family scuffles at Fox News.

For the most part, this book is comfort food for the resistance. The president is always portrayed as a total idiot, and there’s a certain reassuring satisfaction in having that confirmed. Apparently, absolutely everyone around him thinks he is the absolute worst.

Even when criticizing the left and quoting Bannon (and there is so much Bannon), the overarching theme is still that the president is dumb as shit.

Another overarching theme is how all the people in his circle are constantly trying to steer and manipulate the highest office in the land, with endless distractions and strategies and theorizing what makes that infamous reality show host tick.

And the reason they work so hard is, of course, so that they can save their careers. That’s about it when it comes to making the government go round.

It gets very disturbing to hear about how all these people seem to be in it only for themselves. Very seldomly do any of his inept kids or cohorts worry about what’s best for the country and for the world. More often they totally admit how unethical and often illegal the whole operation is, and yet they must try their best to win. Because it’s their team, or something.

This goes most for Bannon, who is basically the co-writer of this book. He goes on and on and on about how stupid and insane his chosen president is, but that’s okay because he’s fighting the so-called establishment. But after all those thousands of words, Bannon never truly tries to explain exactly how his “movement” would make citizens lives better in any way. He fights hard to win, and the question of why is never addressed.

The furthest Bannon seems to be able to think is that he’s against third world immigrants, and he’s against China. Oh, and the bad thing about democrats is that they only care about people in the margins. (Again, it is not addressed what people at all his party cares about.) The conclusion is that the new far right is only against things, and for nothing.

What horrible people.

Then the book ends on an anti-climatic note, due to the disappointment of the Mueller Report as we all know. Wolff certainly assumes the inevitability of the coming downfall, there’s no question as far as this author and all his sources are concerned. I most definitely do hope so myself. But without a proper ending for the book, as much as it’s worth reading as a Fire and Fury sequel, it simply doesn’t feel like it has a proper ending.

No doubt there will be at least a third in the trilogy, and many will want to read and analyze the historical trainwreck of it all. For this reader, however, I am left wondering why it is I keep coming back to these shitty Tr*mp books.