While not perfect, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury – Inside the Trump White House offers value Americans need right now.

The White House is working diligently to discredit this portrait of a presidency’s first months but reporters and Washington insiders have generally agreed that, overall, Wolff got it right. Herein lies the value of this work.

The basic fact is an enormous number of Americans are perplexed by this president and his staff. So many of us really want to know what is going on.

Here’s what we know for sure:

he uses foul language while doing the work of the highest office in the land;

demonstrates sexist and racist tendencies;

taunts leaders of other nations;

hurts the USA’s standing in the eyes of the rest of the world;

attacks anyone perceived as an enemy including allies who make the mistake of getting credit he believes should be his;

both shows ignorance of, and contradicts himself on, his own policies;

creates almost daily chaos with tweets that often echo something he just saw on TV or was told by another person;

And insists he’s doing a great job.

How can this be?

Veteran New Yorkers will shrug and say this has always been Trump. Maybe they are at least partially correct.

Others will say he’s a damaged rich kid who is still overcompensating for 1) a disapproving father, 2) the pampered academics that serious money buys, and 3) the sidestepping of military service via his debilitating bone spurs. Maybe they are at least partially correct as well.

But that’s not the whole story.

The fact is, it is not all Trump’s fault.

Fire and Fury shows us that here is an aging political neophyte of dubious mental and emotional stability being pulled in competing directions by numerous conflicting voices that express opposing agendas and openly mislead this confused, undisciplined mind on a daily, maybe hourly, basis.

That scenario explains so much about the widening gyre that is the White House. Taking a look into the Trump twister via this book will not make us feel more confident about what is happening but it will offer clarity of what ails the struggling leader of the free world.

Understanding is a crucial first step to getting this divided, faltering union to recognize our desperate need to find common ground and maybe, just maybe, a path forward.

Highly recommended.

The author is about to release A Simple Rebellion, which shows us a near-future dystopia uncomfortably close to our present. https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Rebellion-Christopher-Ryan-ebook/dp/B078J9F1Y1