MY REVIEW: The Importance Of "Regime Change"

LISTEN UP: NY Times' s journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan lay bare the secrets of America's rogue president, taking us deep inside the first year of f Donald Trump's second term in the White House. As bad as it looks, they reveal it's much worse.

A Review By Alex Ben Block

from the Audible presentation of the blockbuster book.

Award-winning New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan

Revelatory Book  Bares Secrets Of A Rogue President

This is a very important book and a must listen.

If you really care about the severe damage being inflicted by Donald Trump and MAGA on American democracy, life and our finances, as well as our right to everything from free speech to freedom of religion to a fair court hearing when accused of a crime,  this is your wake up call.

Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan isn’t about selling books, because it is already a blockbuster for the ages.

It is about whether the America that the world had admired for generations - known in Biblical terms as "a  shining city upon a hill"  - will continue as a beacon of hope for every American, even those who aren’t billionaires; and whether the US will once again be admired by the rest of the world.

This book lifts the curtain on the super-rich and arrogant pseudo leaders who use authoritarian tools more typical of Russia,, North Korea and Communist China to employ  smoke screens -  to make you crazy by dangling unpopular personal and social choices - while secretly chiseling away your right to live free and vote as you wish, to worship according to your personal beliefs,  and to love those of any nationality or sexual orientation you chose.

This book sheds light into dark corners of Trump’s  “Imperial Presidency” where he and his bought and paid for cronies believe they are above the law, beyond the reach of Congress,  able to ignore court orders;  and who insist they are not subject to the U.S. Constitution that has made America safe and fair-minded  for centuries..

President Donald Trump's official look

Trump has been proven to be untrustworthy, declaring prices of food, energy and housing are going down as they rapidly rise,  promising access to good health care while taking away medical insurance from many, who trashed global alliances that have kept us safe since WW2..

This is about the only President in American history to enrich himself,  his family and his donors while others cannot afford food for their children. This is about a grifter who takes huge payoffs for his future library, to enrich his children, to fund his bloated ballroom, and cashes in on endless merchandise and financial schemes, and puts his picture on everything from paper money to our institutions (in violation of the law), who winks at those seeking political favors after they write big checks;  and provides pardons like lollipops at a doctors office to crooks previously convicted by the justice system.

This is about a President who went before the American people to get votes promising he would lower inflation, and that there would be no more foreign wars of choice costing trillions and taking the lives of valiant American service members. .

These are racists, sexists, cold-hearted liars who lack any empathy for those who do not ante up cash to them.

This book for the first time reveals what is happening to us, actions that threaten  our nation’s future,. It shows how we are being turned from a global leader into a global pariah, ranking behind other democracies in health care affordability, life expectancy, paid family leave, funds for young children and social safety nets.

This book only covers the first year of the second Trump presidency which makes us fear even more for the future. As the New Yorker review described it, this book is a "unflinching chronicle" of a president operating with unprecedented power and almost zero internal constraints.”

It is, as New Yorker Editor David Remnick has written, an "exceptional" book and a "flabbergasting feat of political reporting.”

Let me be among the first to declare that Haberman and Swan deserve the Pulitzer Prize and other top awards.

The question now that we have their front row seat to the shredding of our government safety systems and their ICE agents right to murder at will is whether there is still time to save the America we have loved for a couple hundred years – or will a grifter steal our right to live the lives we want and milk us for everything we have on the way to sending us to an inevitable early grave?

Our only chance for change is the mid-term election in  November 2026 but even then there is cause to worry. Will Trump uses his power over the Post Office, his Justice Department, his ICE bullies and legal tricks to keep people away from the polls?

Sadly, our only hope is to follow the example of Hungary, where an over-whelming voter turnout swamped the longtime dictator and cleared a path to democracy and sanity and fair laws.

Will we still be in a world where there are media outlets that are not controlled by Trump and the gang?

Will even brilliant journalists like Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan be allowed to write about Trump’s second, third and fourth years -if he makes it that far – with as much latitude?

Even asking such questions is frightening.

Vote in the Midterm elections as if your life depends on it. This November, it does.