Few writers are better at working themselves into a righteous lather than John Nichols. Here he is, in his latest book, hauling off on right-wing think tanks:
“They use their resources and their bully pulpits to drag dysfunctional and discredited proposals — school vouchers,“self-regulation” of industry, incarceration for profit — from the far fringes of the national discourse to the center of policy debates. And now ... the Trump presidency is empowering the most dysfunctional and discredited of these privateers to initiate expansive policies of piracy and plunder.”
No need to sugarcoat it, John. We can take it straight.
Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America, Nichols’ 10th book, profiles more than 40 members of Trump’s inner circle — which, in Nichols’ estimation, is “packed with greedheads and grifters, blank-stare ideologues and partisan hacks, Koch brothers mandarins and the campaign donors who have bought their way into the Trump White House.” Nichols, associate editor of The Cap Times and national affairs writer for The Nation (he also contributes to The Progressive, where I work as managing editor), blends his gleeful prose and deep knowledge of U.S. history to create a scathing indictment of Team Trump. His methodology is not complex: Pick a Trump associate, research their pasts to find the juicy bits, and remind readers that the Founders had higher ideals. Repeat more than 40 times. Happily, the Man-Child in Chief has seen to it that Nichols has plenty of material. Some examples:
Betsy DeVos, the billionaire heiress who became Trump’s spectacularly unqualified secretary of education, once declared, in reference to the vast sums she and her family have showered on politicians, “We expect a return on our investment.” Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick as secretary of the treasury, apparently isn’t very good with paperwork or numbers. Here’s how he explained his failure to report $95 million in assets: “I think as you all can appreciate, filling out these government forms is quite complicated.”
One measure of the extreme volatility of Trump’s team is that Nichols’ just-published book is already slightly outdated. Chapter subjects Steven Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus have already been shown the door. Others will doubtless follow. But Horsemen will still serve as a historical record of some of the worst presidential picks of all time.
John Nichols will give a talk on Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse on Sept. 21 at the Goodman Center, 7 p.m.
