It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America

The thing about this book is that virtually everything in it would be pretty much known by those keeping up with Trump and his presidency. Having said that, the author clearly shows that Trump is the Founding Fathers’ worst nightmare. They were concerned that unsavory elements could get into gov, hence all the checks and balances, but they fully expected the presidency to remain unsullied. Of course, that has not happened; the US has elected a fairly significant number of marginally to poorly capable people to the presidency. But Donald Trump, given the totality of his personality and half-baked policies, may turn out to be the person who does more harm to the American democracy than any of his predecessors.The main thing that sticks out about Trump is his disturbed personality, not to mention his behavior. First of all, he is an inveterate liar. Secondly, he has an insatiable need to have his ego stroked. He has no problem cheating people, forcing them to undergo expensive litigation to be paid. And he is a bully, using his position as a CEO or president to intimidate or threaten others, not to mention his degradation of women. Furthermore, he seems to be incredibly ignorant concerning matters important to the US and is apparently indifferent.Of course, his personality directly pertains to some amazingly short-sighted decisions that he has made. Trump is obsessed with eradicating anything that Pres Obama did, regardless of benefit to the American people. He is anti-science, being against climate control and renewable energy. He disavows consumer protections. He expects foreign governments to use his properties at inflated pricing in direct violation of the Constitution. He claims to be for the little man, but stocks his cabinet with the rich, most of whom are tremendously unqualified for their jobs. If his foreign relations policies don’t get us into a war, it will be a miracle.The bottom line is that Trump is a con man. And he has certainly conned millions of voters. He is completely unqualified to be president and the sooner he leaves the presidency, the better.

The author has been a long time observer of Donald Trump so he brings to this book a rich background of facts about our president long before he was elected. He covers a multitude of subjects such as “The Wall” that Trump has been talking about for some time. If this wall is ever built, you can rest assured that the U. S. will be paying for it and not Mexico. Our State Department is woefully understaffed and Trump seems to be in no hurry to replace those who have departed. In Trump’s view, nobody would be able to conduct diplomatic activities better than himself. Our Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is putting the interests of bankers ahead of students and their families. Scott Pruitt, the fellow who is head of the EPA and the lawyer who has been trying to destroy the agency he now heads, is rolling back all the regulations intended to keep our planet’s air and water free of pollution. What about our infrastructure? Trump made a major point during his campaign about devoting great attention and money to our crumbling infrastructure, promising a comprehensive plan immediately after his inauguration. However, such a plan has not yet appeared. The Defense Department is clearly that part of the Federal Government receiving the largest increase in its budget. It seems rather ironic that our military will be defending a country that, in the long run, will no longer be as well off as it is today. Reading this relevant book was riveting but, after a couple of chapters, I found it depressing and had to put it aside for another day. I continued in this start-stop fashion until I eventually finished it. I hope that the coming mid-term elections will change the composition of our Congress so that this national self-defeating trend can be reversed.

David Cay Johnston is a working journalist who has covered Donald Trump for decades, and has written two previous books about him. In this book, he looks not at Trump's personal life and all the possible, ah, colorful details, which at this writing are much in the news, but strictly at his actions as President, and his business dealings that explain and illuminate those actions.This is very much a fact-based book, examining what Trump has actually done, and the practical effects, as well as the direct contrast between Trump's specific and oft-repeated campaign promises to help, for instance, students struggling under student loans or workers who aren't finding jobs because companies have moved those jobs overseas, or to help small businesses, and what his policies really are. Trump has appointed Betsy DeVos to head the Dept. of Education. She has no real education experience, but is deeply involved in for-profit education companies. Under Trump and DeVos, President Obama's progress toward protecting students from predatory loan practices by for-profit schools are being reversed, not improved. This is just one easily summarized example. To fully understand this example and others, Johnston's careful detailing of the actions, their background, and their effects are necessary.He lays out Trump's many conflicts of interest, and the extent to which Trump's approach to the Presidency is truly different not just from our most respected Presidents, but even from the ones we've considered incompetent or corrupt. We see how tangled, contradictory, and profoundly unhelpful his immigration actions and policies are to the American workers he has promised he will help with those immigration policies are. Again, another example, one better understood with Johnston's detail and context than in a short review.This is an important book. It is fact-based, not ideology-driven. You will learn by reading or listening to it.Highly recommended.I bought this audiobook.

I am an American who is glad to be living in a non-Trump country.This is a very depressing book, too bad most Americans are like Trump: they don't read.

Well, the title is certainly a little long, and what we call in Germany a little "unwieldy". But the book is a real pageturner. Very well written and researched. As for the content: overall not a big surprise, even though a lot of stuff did not make it into the news. Unfortunately. I feel for my friends from the US, but I also believe that the democratic system is strong enough to survive this mess. It will take a while and the damage control will take a lot of effort, but I am confident that the US of A will come out of this eventually.

I have a library of over 500 non-fiction books, mostly about politics, international affairs and current affairs. This book would have to be amongst my top five. If I think about it further, it may even move up to 3, two, or one. Do yourself a favour and just read it.

Having become increasingly perturbed by Mr Trump as President of the most powerful nation on earth and having read Mr Johnson's first book about potus Trump, I wanted see what had followed.Not disappointed. Not surprised in a holistic sense but continually surprised by the detail about this fascinating problem human being. How will it end. Not well. Thank you for the incredib,e facts and insights in this troubling work. Well done!

Very interesting, but even though I hate Trump and everything he stands for, I found myself thinking nobody can be this bad, there must be more to him and his Presidency than this.