Summary
One of the most talked-about books of the year is part of an important ongoing conversation, but is less concerned with accuracy than it is the bigger picture narrative.
It’s been almost 12 months since 20 January 2017, and we have collectively learned that truth can be a flexible concept. In fact, only two days into the 45th President of the United States’ administration, the term “alternative facts” was introduced into the popular vernacular. So, while there is currently a microscopic examination of the players happening in the global media, it’s entirely possible that we may never have an objective version of the Truth with a capital ‘T’ – and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!
Journalist Michael Wolff acknowledges this much in his introduction to this highly controversial book:
“Those conflicts, and that looseness with the truth, if not with reality itself, are an elemental thread of the book. Sometimes I have let the players offer their versions, in turn allowing the reader to judge them. In other instances I have, through a consistency in accounts and through sources I have come to trust, settled on a version of events I believe to be true.”
Which is where we must take our first grain of salt in reading this account of 45’s first year in the White House. Wolff has said that he has compiled his narrative account from over 200 interviews with insiders and other sources. Yet this thinly referenced tome comes with nary a footnote or substantive evidence to back up some of the more notable claims in the book. We’ve all by now heard about the cheeseburgers, Steve Bannon’s thoughts on Jared Kushner’s liaisons with the Russians, and Mrs. 45’s election night tears. It fits with the narrative of a chaotic government that is playing out a real-life version of Mel Brooks’ The Producers.
This is the thing: it’s all actually quite believable. The public behaviour and statements of the US President support at least some of Wolff’s central premise. That is, the administration was unprepared to win office and has struggled to focus its leader on even the most basic of executive actions. Yet Wolff rarely gives us anything that we couldn’t already surmise from the already intensive coverage on news and talk shows. There is, of course, some value in compiling all of this information in this format, especially as every day seems to serve up a new volley of controversies and ‘what have they done now?’ moments. Then we loop back to the problem of sourcing and academic rigour, which is still the fundamental flaw with Wolff’s argument. The truth may be fundamentally heading in the right direction, but Wolff is more concerned with the big picture than the finer details.
Even more troubling is the absence of basic editing in some cases. In the rush to get this out, there are some glaring typos and a lot of simple repetition that could have done with a good edit. (This is said in full awareness of the fact that there are more than a few typos and grammatical crimes in this here review, but we’re not being released in chain stores across the world). A fun drinking game is to take a swig every time Wolff uses one of his favourite phrases, which seem to be “zero-sum” and “joie de guerre” from their multiple uses. You’ll be tipsy in no time.
Yet FIRE AND FURY remains an important book, and not just because it is one of the most discussed releases of the year already. It’s an insight into an administration that might just be one of the most closely examined in the nation’s history. Indeed, this is the third book I’ve read in as many months that attempts to understand it. It doesn’t have the weight of Joshua Green’s excellent Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency, one of the few other texts Wolff quickly mentions, but it does paint a thorough narrative of what Trump’s White House might look like behind closed doors. How accurate it is, we may never know.
The fact that this book has made the world put the question of competency on the agenda is important. Trump’s personal and official reactions to the publication of the book have raised some crucial First Amendment debates that are worth revisiting “on all sides.” It has also reminded us that as responsible citizens of any democracy, we must continue to question everything, no matter how official the source may be. It’s here that the book gives us its most fundamental lesson: in contemporary politics and news, reliable facts are a commodity even rarer than oil.
