I had been curious about Masha Gessen’s work for some time, so I decided to pick up this book on everyone’s ‘favorite’ subject… in 2021, you’d think I would be sick of all the Trump-centric discussion, but I managed to avoid the nitty gritty of politics, at least in the earlier years. I appreciated Gessen’s overview of Trump’s actions and how they feed into an overall autocratic sense of Trumpism, or what the author calls an ‘autocratic attempt’ based on a Hungarian scholar. Occasionally the book tends to get repetitive, and sometimes Gessen ends a chapter early, where I felt that they should elaborate on the topic at hand. Despite these shortcomings, it is an informative book about ‘Trumpism’ and what factors lead to its success and domination in mainstream politics.

Gessen masterfully covers topics such as the language of politics, the role of government institutions (and how they ‘won’t save us’ from an autocratic attempt via the executive branch), the role of journalism and the media’s treatment of Trump, and lastly, who is ‘us’ in the American project. Certain events highlighted in this book were a bit surprising, but not at all uncharacteristic for the Trump era—gold curtains in the White House, cabinet members using taxpayer dollars to fund elaborate dinners and expensive dining sets, etc. What I found most helpful was Gessen’s treatment of the ‘Us vs. Other’ discussion, pushed to the extreme by Trump and his supporters. They argue that the circle of ‘Us’ has grown much narrower in American public discourse, with even journalism and the Democratic establishment playing a role in normalizing Trump’s rhetoric. I also appreciated the historical precedents that Gessen highlights from Germany and USSR/Russia.

I do wish that Gessen had offered up more concrete examples or solutions to the problems they have identified, or perhaps elaborated more on the rise to these specific issues, but they do a good job of highlighting some of the worst facets of Trumpism. I don’t intend to read many books about Trump, so this one felt ‘enough’ for me. I may look into Gessen’s work on Russia next, where they are perhaps more in their element, as I did not feel I could get an understanding of their viewpoint specifically as much as I would have liked in this book.