Subscribe for free to the America First Report newsletter.
Progressives are high-fiving each other before they’ve read more than excerpts of Bob Woodward’s upcoming book, “Fear: Trump in the White House.” Trump supporters are dismissing the book publicly but are quietly terrified about what the book can do to their President as well as the GOP’s chances in the midterm elections.
I haven’t read the book, but many other news outlets have. What I’ve seen so far reported by them is embarrassing to the President, but not truly damaging in the long run. If their reports reflect the most damaging aspects of the book, then there’s good reason to believe it will have very little effect on the midterm elections and will be completely forgotten by 2020.
There are quotes by John Kelly, James Mattis, and other current cabinet members that paint the President as someone they need to steer in order to keep the White House going in the right direction. There are other quotes by former staffers that reflect even worse on how the Trump White House operates. These can be damaging to the administration in the near term but if everything is handled properly, they’ll have little effect when it counts.
Many of the revelations in the book are political bombshells. Therein lies the reason this book will not have a major effect on anything of substance. They’re political bombshells. That means those acutely in-tune with the world of American politics may be dramatically affected by what is revealed. Unfortunately, that accounts for a minuscule portion of the population. Maybe 1%? Maybe less.
The politically semi-aware – those who walk along party lines and either watch Fox News of MSNBC/CNN to be told what to think – will hear what they want to hear about the book. Trump’s detractors will see it as a slam dunk vindicating their perspectives while Trump supporters will see it as fake news cooked up by leftists. None of their opinions nor voting habits will be changed.
President Trump and Republicans running in the midterms can easily weather the Bob Woodward storm by simply playing it cool, denying everything, and turning the focus back to the issues. It would be easy. They could turn this whopper of story into a nothingburger in under two weeks.
However, something strange may happen. It all depends on the President’s ego and whether or not he (or his staff) can keep it in check.
How Trump may crumble
There’s a small but present chance that President Trump may go off. Despite being demonstrably unintelligent and incapable of understanding basic governmental principles, in his own mind he’s a genius. This book is going to sting his ego when he finds out many of the people he’s surrounded himself with think they need to protect him (and the nation) from his own poor decisions and weak intellect.
If the book triggers the President enough, his response could be to have a political meltdown. He could fire Kelly, Mattis, and others quoted in the book. He could change how decisions are made in the White House, exerting more control and making worse decisions as a result. If he attempts to prove his internal critics wrong, things could get very bad very quickly.
All he has to do is take his bruised ego and move it as far away from his decision making process as possible. If he does, everything will be okay in a couple of weeks. If he doesn’t we could see the administration implode.
Covid variant BA.5 is spreading. It appears milder but much more contagious and evades natural immunity. Best to boost your immune system with new Z-Dtox and Z-Stack nutraceuticals from our dear friend, the late Dr. Vladimir Zelenko.