Best book yet on Trump
When I read Paul Heideman’s Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos in manuscript last year, I instantly recognized it as the most probing, and, likely to be, lasting, analysis of the rise of Donald Trump.
The reason is simple. Unlike many analyses of Trump and the right, Heideman takes the political economy and history of big business seriously. Not capitalism, not the working class, though Heideman, as a good democratic socialist cares a great deal about both, but big business. Like no one else thus far, Heideman sees just how fractious are the divisions with the business class and how delicate are the threads binding these factions together, and how that fractiousness and delicacy has played out in our current politics.
I’m pleased to report that Publisher’s Weekly agrees. They describe Rogue Elephant as “piercing, ingenious,” “meticulous and robustly argued” and “a vital new perspective on recent political history.”
It’s also eminently readable. You can buy it here.

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Thank you for the recommendation, Professor Robin.
Please allow me to suggest “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” by Mary L. Trump PhD.
It’s a readable, dishy account by someone who was there, the daughter of Donald’s unloved and unfavored older brother, Fred Jr.