Carlos Lozada

This is the book I have been looking for since November 2016. I wanted to find something that would explain to me how we elected 45 and how we were going to survive him. Fortunately for me, Carlos Lozada read a LOT of books (150 of them!) and summarizes their themes and messages through 10 topically-related chapters that discuss books written about the "white working class" voter, the chaos inside the White House, radical leftist resistance and conservative apologies, the death of truth and show more so much more about the turned-upside down world we have inhabited for the past four years.

Intellectually this is a good book, but the chapters in which Lozada allows himself a personal connection are stunning. The most devastating chapters were the ones written about #MeToo and immigration. Neither were new phenomena, but they were both exacerbated and impacted by Trump's election. You can feel Lozada's pain and growth as he realizes what women endured at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, et al, and how Trump's infamous "Access Hollywood" tape and the Brett Kavanaugh hearings made that pain so much more devastating. And as a former immigrant himself, Lozada's insights into the current crisis enrich the books he recommends.

Ultimately Lozada believes that the best books of the past four years don't view Trump as an isolated aberration but as the product of American history and politics. What We Were Thinking was released before the November 2020 election, but if he were writing an epilogue today I'm sure the author would warn readers that a Biden presidency doesn't mean all of our problems are solved. The factors that created a Trump presidency are still there and we have to examine and deal with them in order to prevent Trump 2024 or someone (god help us) even worse. show less

Those who like to read and write book reviews will appreciate Carlos Lozada, the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction reviewer‘s attempt to explain the Trump Era through the synthesis and analysis of 150 recent books. To complete this enormous task, Lozada divides the books into sub-categories that include and move beyond the books on White House dysfunction, which he refers to as the Chaos Chronicles.

Lozada first examines political movements and thought- the resistance show more books of liberals and progressives, books that analyze the motivations of Trump supporters in the Heartland, and both the critical and sycophantic literature written by conservatives. He also examines the literature on specific issues: immigration, systemic racism, feminism, Russian interference and concludes by reviewing books that place Trumpism in a broader historical context.

Lozada’s writing is clear and lucid. His analysis is thought-provoking. It provides an excellent background for those trying to grapple with what happened and where to go from here. He also provides an appendix of the 12 best books that he recommends for further reading. show less

Criticizing and sorting thematically 150 books about the Trump presidency
I don't usually read books on current political debates, but this appealed to me as it involves literary criticism, and summarizes many books I thought about buying. Each chapter considers books on similar topics involved in the political debates. Understanding the white working class includes Hillbilly Elegy but recommends Jennifer Silva's We're Still Here. In writing about the hysterical fears of the resistance, he show more recommends Timothy Snyder On Tyranny, and Yuval Levin A Time to Build. There are chapters on the conservative reaction to Trump, from syncophants to Never Trumpers, on immigration as a theme of the presidency, on racism, feminism, chaos in the White House, the Russian gambit, and the theme of Trump the democracy killer.
Lozada remains a calm voice, and tries not to side with the various critics, but to be fair, if trenchant, about all the viewpoints. His last chapter contains recommend reading culled from his project. I don't know if I will go on to read anything more about this topic, however, since the 2020 election was yesterday, votes are still being counted, to decide a choice between Trump chaos and Biden socialism show less

I’ve said before that I do not allow Trump into my sacred reading life. But this book felt like an appropriate bookend to his administration.

Book critic at the Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize-winner Carlos Lozada analyzes, reviews, and compares the slew of Trump-adjacent books that flooded the literary scene over the last five years. In each chapter (Trump tell-alls, Heartlandia memoirs, #MeToo manifestos, democracy dossiers, etc), Lozada tells us which books are worth reading and why, show more thankfully doing the dirty work for those of us with tall TBRs.

I hope Lozada hunkers down for another volume of this project in a couple of years: “A Brief Intellectual History of the Post-Trump Era.” show less