I’m done. I’m done reading the nonfiction of the Trump area. I never used to read ‘current events’ because the facts become dated so quickly and the analysis appears facile mere months later. I should return to that stance having read two Trump books this year.

The Fifth Risk is a book of brief biographies of immensely intelligent, talented, and important people rendered useless by a series of incompetent and malicious appointees without the least desire of what government agencies do (Do you know that the main responsibility of the Department of Energy is making sure that nuclear materials and technology don’t fall into the wrong hands? Because no one in the Trump administration did and probably no one still does.).

In terms of Trump appointees, like Gary Cohn and Rob Porter in Woodward’s Fear, anyone who is not actively trying to destroy the Republic through Sith Lord levels of malice or Star Wars prequels levels of raw stupidity becomes a de facto hero and while I believe it, I… I… I just can’t. I can’t.

I’m reading Gore Vidal and another biography of Thomas Jefferson now because I refuse to spend any more time, for the time being, amongst such stupid, stupid people.