“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” (Mark Twain)
I thought Phaedra Parks from the Real Housewives of Atlanta was savage, but the dynamics within the Trump White House, as narrated by Michael Wolff in his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, requires me to reevaluate my definition of what constitutes savagery–true savagery. Calling Wolff’s book a page turner is an understatement. The text reads like a juicy gossip column written by an intellectual. As a reader, I felt like I was simultaneously watching a reality show (not an original thought, this White House has been compared to a reality show by many, especially since Trump was–and arguably still is–a reality star), and reading a history text in real time. Perhaps a more apt description would be that the book was like reading the script of a film inspired by a true life dysfunctional story. There’s backstabbing, leaking, sucking-up, talking down, mismanaging, revolving personnel, muddying of facts in the recollections of “the Don”. None of this is new, but it doesn’t make it any less interesting to read.
Essentially the White House was, and I suppose we can presume it generally still is, a divided house. There’s the inner circle, which consists of the Trump family and “trusted” associates, and then there are the outsiders. As a result of the division and general mistrust, there are power struggles that lead to idiotic decisions–for example, the firing of Comey which Wolff asserts Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump (dubbed “Jarvanka” in the book) orchestrated to squash the investigation into Russian ties with Trump; a decision which, reportedly, was not supported by the outsider crowd.
According to Wolff’s account: people actively schemed to get their enemies fired; almost everybody leaked to promote their own interests; people quickly learned that in order to hold Donald J. Trump’s (DJT’s) attention they had to compliment him (sycophants will be sycophants I suppose); DJT reveled in the moments where there were verbal and public altercations among his staff; people either left when they saw an out or DJT tweeted them an out (Sean Spicer and Rex Tillerson respectively); and, DJT misremembered the fact that his father was involved with the Ku Klux Klan–maybe that’s why DJT couldn’t outright condemn the violence orchestrated by the “alt-right” (also known as neo-nazis, white supremicists, racists, terrorists–take your pick) in Charlottesville, Virginia.
To be quite frank, the interactions within the White House are like a modern play by play of Alan Menken’s and Stephen Schwartz’s song”Savages” from Pocahontas.The lyrics from “Savages” read: “They’re savages! Savages! Barely even human. Savages! Savages! Drive them from our shore! They’re not like you and me, which means they must be evil. We must sound the drums of war!” Governor John Ratcliffe was fictional, but the rhetoric is shockingly similar to statements made by DJT either implicitly or explicitly. And, if I’m being honest, going back to the Pocahontas film, the colonists preparing to fight the indigenous people looked a lot like the Charlottesville “alt-right” protestors. But, I digress. Back to the Trump White House. Neither the inner circle nor the outsiders trust each other, and both camps distrust DJT (for good reason). Consequently, all three actors (the inner circle, the outsiders, and DJT) are constantly sounding the drums of war with each other–and, as if DJT didn’t have enough problems just trying to get his White House in order, he’s also sounding the drums of war with establishment republicans, North Korea, China, the NFL, etc.! Good grief.
In closing, Mark Twain wrote: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” The fact that DJT is president of the United States of America is a strange truth. The fact that he has a loose relationship with truth is strange–and who are we kidding, we should’ve expected this because he’s had a loose relationship with monogamy (which is ironic considering the fact that DJT allegedly treasures loyalty). We may wish as a nation that this circus of a presidency was fictitious, but the cold hard truth of the matter is even if we wanted to, we couldn’t make this stuff up. The most peculiar truth is that DJT mentally lives in the land of fiction, and as a result DJT lives in a world of impossible possibilities. Some find it inspiring and endearing, but as for me, I find it frightening and unbecoming of the office of the presidency.