Really pieces together investigative reporting to get to the big picture. Sometimes you can tell the writing was a little rushed, but that's what happens when you use information from 3 months before publication. And the facts speak for themselves. Follow the author on Twitter for up-to-date analysis if you don't already. ( )

Subtitle: Subtitle: How Trump Betrayed America

First, obviously things move so fast in Trump-world that many books are out-of-date before they are published. And this book is no exception. Abramson has written three books (so far) each covering an aspect of the Trump phenomenon. This one sets forth in exquisite detail all the information known as of the time of its publication in 2018 (thus predating the Mueller Report) about Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election to help Trump get elected, and of Trump's knowing acceptance of those efforts (collusion by any definition). It is valuable for that reason.

The book is organized chronologically from 1987 through 2018. I took lots of notes, which I won't reiterate here, other than to set forth a long quote. The author concludes, somewhat prophetically, in the Afterword:

"The volume and scope of Trump's deceit, along with his indefensible domestic and foreign policies, could well produce, in short order, the crashing of the American economy, multiple costly military adventures abroad, and continued degradation of American cultural and political discourse that will take many years to heal. Ironically, the chances that Trump will cause dramatic harm to the very party that elevated him to the presidency are far higher than many people suppose; we cannot expect that Trump will go quietly into the good night while he retains his power or at any time thereafter. He will pursue vengeance against anyone he perceives as having been an instrument of his accountability, whether those in his sight are Democrats or, as he might see it, disloyal Republicans.

"America will survive this period; to do so, however, it will have to finally accept the unthinkable: it elected a man capable of corporate crime, astonishing greed, and personal cruelty."

3 1/2 stars ( )

Abramson is a prominent Trump-Russia tweeter, and he cops a lot of flack. I think some of it is deserved and some of it undeserved.

From what I've seen, he has a tendency to overreach: his bias can lead him to misinterpret the record, he sometimes presents speculative or uncertain conclusions with more certainty than is warranted, and he's definitely focused on 'building a case' rather than being evenhanded. He's not the model of a disinterested truth seeker. He also presents his lazier opponents with an easy target: his tone is often a weird combination of earnest pomposity and lowest-common-denominator rabble rousing, and his self-promotion can grate.

I think he is basically sincere, though, and that he is a kind of truth seeker: one more serious, intelligent and knowledgeable than his critics are willing to admit. (Especially those who try to lump him in with various charlatans and wild conspiracy theorists.) And I think he's playing a potentially important role.

The complexity and opacity of this case makes it very difficult for even an avid reader to get their head around, and most of the major-media coverage is fairly unhelpful in this regard. Not enough of the new developments are placed in their proper context; while admittedly it is easy to go too far in this direction and let the pattern-matching(/conspiracy-theorising) parts of our brain run wild, it is still important to keep an eye on the big picture and make note of suggestive links between the scraps of information available to us.

Twitter is a terrible platform for doing this, though. Not only because a multi-tweet mega-thread is a ridiculous alternative to an essay, but because of its linear, ephemeral nature. It is very hard to tell whether someone is drawing important links or wildly speculating, when to understand the full significance of the references they are making would require sifting through tens of thousands of tweets. So I'm very glad Abramson took the time to lay out his case in book form (and to have it professionally edited and fact checked).

Anyway, the great thing about this book is that it's copiously footnoted, and the sources are generally available online. So we can bypass the question of Abramson's personal credibility, and judge the case he has built on its own merits. (Or, less time-consumingly, we can at least judge his credibility as author of this book via spot checks of the citations, as well as keeping our eyes open for logical leaps, rhetorical tricks and the like.) I'm only a little way in, but I'll update this if and when I come to a firm conclusion.