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Devil's Bargain

Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
Oct 23, 2017TheresaAJ rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
As this first analysis of the 2016 presidential campaign makes clear, the election of Trump wouldn't have happened (and almost didn't) without Steve Bannon's strategy, connections, and abundant dirty tricks. Although Green, a political correspondent, had a front row seat through the whole campaign, it took him (and many others) a lot of post-election time and serious digging to put the pieces together. As the author delves into the lives and beliefs of both Bannon and Trump, he illustrates how a campaign based solely on hating the Clintons created the biggest political upset in American election history. Written in a fast-paced, accessible style, Green takes the reader through over 40 years of political history, dirty tricks, and revenge motives to show how we got here in 2016. Although the book was published before Bannon's ouster from the White House, Green predicted it in his final chapter, Kali Yuga. This chapter ends with the three reasons the author believes has created disorder and confusion in the Trump administration -- 1) "Trump thought being president was about asserting dominance.; 2) Trump ran against the Republican Party, Wall Street, and Paul Ryan, but then took up their agenda.; and 3) Trump doesn't believe in nationalism or any other political philosophy -- he's fundamentally a creature of his own ego." Green's work is the only first in what I'm sure will be a long line of armchair political quarterbacks of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.