I am a frequent reader of many memoirs, history, and literature; I was thirty-five years old when I returned to university in order to learn how to become a better writer. I am a disabled mother of two and married to an Afghanistan Veteran. I’ve done a vast amount of reading, listening, researching, and watching ever since I became disabled; however, I haven’t had the financial opportunities to even think of incurring the type of debt it requires to earn a degree in a dying field until two years ago.
For years I solely focused on my family and reading while remaining fiscally responsible in a throw-away culture. I stopped watching cable television around the time Glenn Beck was fired from CNN and only binge-watch a season of a show that has caught my interest on Netflix which isn’t often. I keep up with the news through a variety of sources as I am a student of History and Literature, I read everything with a critical eye. I am a minimalist and wear my clothes and shoes until they have holes in them. I am a person that falls through the cracks no matter which administrative party has been in power and never “qualify” for minimal aid for medical services or food stamps yet a meth/opioid addict who suffers from self-induced brain damage is qualified to have a monthly check. Where is that fair? I value traditions from a Southern Baptist background, yet I identify as a pagan and still love and respect the church family of my youth. Only in America can you claim to do so without being stoned in the streets. Only in America can a very ideal be accepted.
I have known what I have wanted to do since I was a little girl which is to be a children’s fantasy novelist and followed the advice of the King of Horror, Mr. Stephen King. He spoke at a New England conference in the late 90s that it is essential to read in order to avoid plagiarism. This was eight years before I became disabled which brought my own writing to a screeching halt until I was positive that I wouldn’t fall for common tropes, misinformation, and keep up with scientific breakthroughs. I try to balance my reading by varying an educational view; then a conservative side, a liberal view followed by an apolitical view. I counter horror with poetry and comedy. I am providing the previous information for those reading one of my reviews for the first time.
I don't know if I have a glitch in my audible but does this guy repeat himself a lot? If this isn't a technical screw-up on my end, then this is poor writing. It loops back around to earlier in the book to where I am relistening until new material. Interesting although the lack of editing makes the complete work less compelling.
I'm listening to some of the same zingers you hear when you watch his interviews, congressional hearings, rally introductions and etc. I figure that he used the dictation function in a Word doc and sat and talked for twelve hours.
Listening to this book has created a personal “My cup runneth over” for an opinion. I have become so incensed that I am compelled to write a review this long. It is now the 1st week of August and Alabama is at the height of its first real wave of SARS-Cov-II and I have left my home less than a handful of times since March 13th, when my classes were transitioned to an online format. My aim is to provide valid context to this review by volunteering my meager credentials.
Wth is up with the Trump family? I’m listening to Don Jr.s’ book. It’s so fucking confusing! He jumps from topic to topic without any real structure. It’s like he circles right back to some earlier topic that has nothing to do with the other, and then he goes back into his childhood in Czechoslovakia.
On another note, a lot of this book sounds like Don Jr. is on a see-saw of gratitude and glorification or ridicule and insult flinging. He points at what the problems are but doesn’t explain the steps taken to create real solutions. This book is exhausting and tedious. Examples are vague and lack any depth such as the Envelope incident or when he was accosted while he was with his children. I mean wtf happened step by step. These situations are glazed over and to me seem unbelievable. Which agencies oversee the protection of the first family, how sheltered are they in the metaphorical cocoon of vipers? (FFXIII. 2013).
Honestly, I’m so damned tired of the name-calling. It makes Don Jr. seem automatically biased. Though he does point out policies that have worked and he reveals much about the deals that were made for various real estate projects. From Don Jr.’s perspective they are a hard-working family but what if their gold standard has driven up expectations (foreign and domestic) and inflated price on everything. Is his story relevant in order to relate with the blue-collar workers(voters)? I am glad that Don Jr has addressed Big Tech in this book but this book was released pre-pandemic, the Big Tech congressional hearing was the day before yesterday. The Trump family has succeeded in exposing massive corruption in the bureaucracy, judiciary, and news media which would have otherwise remained buried if Hillary Clinton had been elected president. However, the question remains, what is being done about it now since it has been exposed?
Interesting that Newt Gingrich was considered as VP. Holy hell: that is an enormous puzzle piece in the whole effing picture! He turned down the position in order to be more useful on the outside. What a genius political move while keeping his reputation intact. Interesting…
The section on Brexit seems dismissive and this is confusing. I thought it was an important issue, but this isn’t expanded upon at all. Followed up by harsh criticism of the Republican Party. This was a frequent complaint that they heard, and they exploited it as a talking point because they had the platform, opportunity, and finances to push ahead. Experience with the American worker is how this family has come to power. Think of this like the Merchants and the Feudal System of England before the Renaissance. This is how career politicians have rotted our system by exploiting the administrative, health, penal, and education systems by taking that attitude.
I have issues with Chapter 8. It’s like a Chris Jericho flowchart. Where does this checklist have any relevance? Who is enforcing these edicts, I mean seriously where the hell is this shit taking place? Small town Alabama wouldn’t tolerate effing behavior such as this unless you’re in the big cities such as Birmingham or Atlanta.
A secondary issue that I have is the lack of addressing addiction and the connection it shares with mental illness. He eludes to addiction when he writes about his uncle Fred Trump Jr. but cuts off abruptly and doesn’t bring the issue to the front again until he is criticizing the democratic opposition, at the end of the book.
A third concern is an important issue to me. Not once was the issue of legitimately disabled people brought up. Why? There is a difference between disabled Veterans (I can testify that this system has been improved through the VA!); that is not the avenue I am trying to highlight. What I mean are; what of people who are born deaf or blind? People, who have Lupus or Chromes Disease? A family doesn’t expect a mother to get breast/cervical cancer or a grandfather to be diagnosed with dementia, but it happens. Where does a family apply for aid, these are the types of things that a layman isn’t able to find when there are mountains of information on policy to read before coming to life-changing decisions and usually families have to hire an expensive attorney to argue the case.
One thing I do not understand about this administration is why they haven’t reviewed every branch of the alphabet soup and had the DOJ run counter investigations using metadata of the NSA’s. Japan has an efficient way of restructuring their Diet members, just a thought.
In addition, there are more draconian measures such as the Insurrection, Alien, and Sedition Acts being reenacted but heaven forbid shit actually gets done! It can be protected because the National State of Emergency has been in effect since mid-March. Government workers holding the same position for several years leave enormous room for workers to poison local level administration. For example, bad teachers take a position at the county school boards; police chiefs that make dirty deals sex trafficking by letting truckers to just pass through their local stretch of highway, for a price; all the while the communities bridges are crumbling. Local, local, local. Go through the local alphabet first not last. Voters hold your local officials accountable first not last!
There is a lot of detail about the election of 2016 yet he’s quiet on the measures being taken towards 2020. I do not see how the DOJ can’t use these books as on-record testimonies and why the authors aren’t held liable for slander and defamation. Jr. also name drops a lot. Normal average joes don’t have the security to go from job to job because their parents don’t have that type of flexibility or financial cushion that this family has. Although, I do respect that he knows the business and construction codes and laws. He relates the immigration of his predecessors and the history of massive immigration and why it’s economically bad to have open borders.
He also takes the opportunity to highlight grievances against the “squad” and other democratic congresspersons, such as Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler, Maxine Waters, Doug Jones, and other bureaucrats. While he is laying out exactly what they did to win with their work ethic and new innovations in social media.
A flaw that has been brought to the forefront since the emergence of the pandemic is that they are weak without a crowd. DJT figured it out by using Vince McMann’s tricks from the World Wrestling Entertainment industry thus this flaw has had a blaring effect on the overall morale of the campaign, the voters, and Trump himself. I know I will never be able to hear the Village People’s “Macho, Macho Man” the same way again.
The media is a problem; oh, my gods, is that supposed to be a surprise? They have been since well before the Clinton’s ever left office and the birth of the internet. Before it was never noticed because of the limit of networks, newspapers, and channels. Cable television and internet connectivity in the late 80s early 90s were responsible for many millennials’ advancement and degradation of morality. This has become a more prevalent topic among speakers such as senior fellows from the Hoover Institute, Thomas Sowell, Candice Owens, and Charlie Kirk. Don Jr. also mentions the writers Ben Schapiro, Glenn Beck, Victor Davis Hanson, Mark Levine, Andrew Klavan, and Tucker Carlson whom I have read several of their op-eds and later books. There has been unfair coverage from every prism on this family, so it isn’t a surprise that many real issues have to take place behind the left’s agenda to remove “the Great Disruptor”. Their true agenda was to carry on with the business as usual attitude while the fringes can be compared to the country of Goa from the manga One Piece. (Oda, Echiiro. 1999). Riots sparked by the death of George Floyd immediately reminded me of a scene where the king arranged for the slums outside the city to be burned by inhabitants of the slums while promising them access to their clean city. In the end, he double-crossed them. Some of the fictional and real-world parallels Oda writes and illustrates are downright eerie.
Donald Trump blocked this agenda ordered by the American people. There’s a popular sign used in the Deep South stating that diapers and politicians should be changed often for the same reason. I suggest that all fellow citizens do their civic duty our ancestors fought and died for us to have the right to do so.
I can’t predict what will happen in November of 2020; the last four years have been so exhausting to keep up with and to me watching anime, the news, and history/political lectures is a hobby. The sheer meanness from both sides needs to come to an end, my plea is for the world to just be civil to each other again. Yes, I want a debate, but I wish for it to return to where there is a modicum of decorum. Equal justice and due process; no matter what your status is!
In the spirit of fairness, I will also be reading Mary Trump’s book after this. I also have several other books on my agenda as well including books by John Bolton, John Solomon, Gregg Garrett, Peter Schweitzer, Rosemary Gibson, Peter Zehan. And many others related to politics and geopolitics. What can I say; I’m an overachieving English/History Major? I leave Shawn Hannity the responsibility to sing the President’s praises they are too numerous to list and also just published in his new book.
*shrugs* I am tired and have said my peace.
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