Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America
By Maggie Haberman
It seems that just about every reporter who covered Donald Trump in the White House has published a revelatory book about him. So, when so much has been revealed about number 45 as president, why should you invest your time and money in another? Simple. This is by Maggie Haberman, the New York Times reporter who has been called the Trump Whisperer. That’s because probably nobody knows more about the total Trump, maybe not even Trump himself, who is notorious for possessing not even an iota of introspection. And because few if any of the books, excepting Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough, cover Trump’s early years in any meaningful depth.
While most know Haberman as a political reporter at arguably the nation’s paper of record, she didn’t start there. No, she started at the New York Post a few years after Rupert Murdoch purchased the paper for a second time (too long a story for here). There, she covered City Hall. She jumped to the Daily News, then back to the Post for the 2008 election, then to Politico, and then, finally, to the Times to cover the 2016 elections. This is to say that there are few reporters who know the New York environment in which Trump matured, the rough house politics of the place, the real estate scene, and the colorful, bigger than life personalities, that included a young brassy Donald Trump.
No person just appears from nowhere, or is formed out of nothing. And herein is the value of Haberman’s volume: everything that transpired in Trump’s life before 2016. If you grew up anywhere near the City and read the papers or watched TV, you heard about Trump, and you knew him for whom he was: a confidence man, in both senses of the word. But since most readers are probably too young or live outside the reach of the City, or have foggy memories of the past—these people will learn much about the essential Trump, the formative man, by reading at least the first half of Confidence Man. What the heck is wrong with this guy and why? Read this book (and Mary Trump’s while you are at it), for the answer.
Now, as a starter, enjoy this quote: “Among his most consistent attributes are a desire to grind down his opponents; his refusal to be shamed, or to voluntarily step away from the fight; his projection that things will somehow always work out in his favor; and his refusal to accept the way life in business or politics has traditionally been conducted.” And let’s not overlook this trait we’ve witnessed time and again: “…Trump also lives in the eternal past, constantly dragging a deep raft of old grievances—or impressions of better days lost—into the present, where he tries to force others to relive them along with him.” And there’s more, much more for curious readers. w/c
Writer / Critic 