Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House – Review
This is Omarosa Manigault Newman’s autobiographical account of her time with Trump and his organizations from her time on his show “The Apprentice” through her time as a high-level aide to President Trump.
As I never watched “The Apprentice” (reality TV is not “my thing”) and although I had heard her name mentioned frequently in the news during the Trump campaign and presidency, I really didn’t know anything about her.
After she was fired from her position in the white house and Trump changed his high praise of her to severe criticism and started calling her pejorative names my antennas went up. This is one of Trump’s tactics to conceal the truth. What truths were so important that Trump felt is so necessary to go out of his way to cover them up? I had to get the book and find out.
One criticism of Omarosa was stating that she was just lying to get back at Trump for firing her. If she really believed the things she stated in the book then why did she work for him all those years and support him and the things he did until she got fired? I thought; “good point”.
I watched her during a couple of interviews preceding the release of her book. She seemed sincere and articulate. Yet, I still could not reconcile how someone could be so blind to what was so obvious to myself and many others.
Omaraso narrates the book. She is an excellent narrator. Her speech is clear, articulate, and she is very skillful in imitating the voices of Trump and others when quoting them. I get the impression that her story is a factual representation of events, clearly from her point of view, but I never got the impression the facts were distorted or exaggerated for a personal agenda. (I get that impression with Trump almost every time I hear him speak, but with Trump, the word “facts” has no meaning).
One of the questions I frequently ask myself is “How can so many otherwise seemingly intelligent people believe the constant lies and bullshit, ignore the blatant racism, xenophobia, and misogyny of Trump? How can intelligent people vote for a person who is uninformed, unprepared, and rejects the council of experts? How can a black woman in the middle of all this be unaware of it?
This book gives a look at an explanation of how it happened for at least one person. A word used in explaining it was “cult”. I still have a hard time understanding it when I see it, but this is a real phenomenon. A weakness of human behavior. This book provides a window through which to glimpse how one person became a Trump “Believer/Follower”, and how long and difficult it was to escape the “spell”.
I give the book 5/5 stars.
Arnold Solof
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