A compelling case against a second Trump presidency
The author uses Donald J. Trump's words and deeds to make clear why the former president should never hold the office—or any elected office—again.
Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party
By Jonathan Karl
Grade: 97
In March of 2016, having only recently received the Republican nomination for president, Donald J. Trump, speaking to students at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, said he was going to deviate from his script and spend a few minutes talking about success.
“You’ll find, when you become very successful, the people that you will like the best are the people that are less successful than you, because when you go to a table you can tell them all of these wonderful stories, and they’ll sit back and listen. Always be around unsuccessful people, because everybody will respect you.”
This jaw-dropping passage is but one of the many nuggets of gold that Johnathan Karl shares in Tired of Winning, which is one of the best books I’ve read on the Trump presidency. But where the book has no equal is in making the case for why Donald J. Trump should never again be president of the United States. (Full disclosure: I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment.)
Throughout the book, the author shares documented, harrowing stories of disasters averted by attentive cabinet members tirelessly working to protect the country from president most considered to have the temperament of a spoiled child. Unlike other books on the topic, including Team of Vipers, which mainly dealt with the personnel dysfunction rife inside the Trump White House, Tired of Winning, without hyperbole, makes the case clear that another Trump presidency would not only be worse than than the first one, but would potentially place the Democracy at risk.
Yeoman’s work in detailing the Trump White House’s dysfunction
Karl’s reporting buttresses what many Republican pundits now say with frequency: The former presidency has moved from nutty and conspiratorial to dangerous, a fact that was on full display in March of this year, when he spoke at CPAC in Maryland.
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.”
This cannot be simply reduced to dramatic rhetoric, when you consider that when Karl spoke to Trump confidant Steve Bannon days later. The controversial spokesman referred to Trump’s speech as his “Come Retribution” speech, which is a reference to a Confederate Secret Service plot to capture and kill president Abraham Lincoln.
“Bannon’s repeated use of the phrase caught my attention,” wrote Karl. “Trump’s speech was not an overt call for the assassination of his political opponents, but it did advocate their destruction by other means.”
Too many ‘wow’ moments to count
I began this book like I do all others: with a pen, a highlighter, and hundreds of Sticky notes on hand. But after only two hours of reading, I realized a unique challenge: I was highlighting or writing in the margins or Sticky noting damn near every page. The former reporter in me was downright gleeful at the depressing but compelling quotes and conversations unearthed by Karl.
For example, in one private conversation, when Karl pressed Pres. Trump about his 2020 election denial claims, the former invoked the word “Italygate,” a reference to an absurd, debunked theory that Italian spy satellites took control of voting machines and flipped thousands of votes from Trump to Biden.
See? Nutty and dangerous.
There are innumerable examples such as this spread throughout the book.
Then, it hit me, this is scary stuff, when you consider that this man is again running for president. I mean, do we really want to re-elect a man that John Kelly, the retired U.S. Marine Corps general who served as White House chief of staff for Pres. Trump, compared working with to “French-kissing a chainsaw?” Or who showed utter contempt for his daily intelligence briefings, once telling Secretary of Defense John Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, and other national security officials that “I know more about nuclear weapons than anybody. I know more about nukes than all of you people”?
My answer: hayell no.
The strongest case against another term for Donald J. Trump
One of my favorite writers, Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch, often makes the case that the people who steadfastly support Trump often do so because they live in a conservative news vacuum, unaware of the litany of reasons why the former president doesn’t deserve a second term. Whether that is true or not, the list of reasons is long, serious, well-known and growing. (See: His handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, his fawning over Putin and Kim Jung Un, his refusal to concede the 2020 election, and his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.)
Karl, who has to hope that his book does not become a vox clamantis in deserto, has done his part in making the case against Trump 2.0, especially when you consider that he frequently uses Trump’s own words and deeds to make his appeal.
“Trump has mounted his comeback with behavior even more outrageous than what the world witnessed when he was president. Whatever guardrails may have existed before are gone-he no longer has people of stature around him who are willing to defy his demands and to protect the nation from his most destructive instincts.
“But it's more than that. It's not just that people like James Mattis and Bill Barr and Pat Cipollone are gone. It's that his destructive instincts are even more destructive than they were in January 2021. While he is beginning to be held to account by the criminal justice system for what he did, so far, Trump has gotten away with it.
“… As this book documents, Trump is more detached from reality than ever and more willing to trash the norms and customs that our system of government needs to survive as a working democracy. …By the time he announced his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump was speaking of the January 6 rioters as heroes, even playing video of the riot at his first campaign rally.
“… He may lose yet another presidential election, but the damage he has done and his assault on decency and democracy will haunt our politics long after he is gone.”
In chapter and chapter, Karl supports his arguments with detailed accounts, interviews, and firsthand observations, making Tired of Winning an accurate, informative read imbued with a sense of urgency that emphasizes the stakes involved in a potential second Trump presidency.
Anyone interested in the 2024 election should read this book.