Book Review: What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era by Carlos Lozada

What Were We Thinking is a work of synthesis by Washington Post book critic Carlos Lozada - and a valuable one. One of the great ironies of the Trump years were the sheer volume of books (in addition to thousands of think pieces) written about a President who made his functional illiteracy a big selling point with his base. Lozada presents a critical account of much of the writing about this time in American history, leaving one with no doubt its been a transformational era into uncharted territory. Here's a rundown:

1) Understanding the Trump Voter: After election night 2016 mainstream media outlets hit readers hard with searching stories of how Trump won and why. Most of these books were torn on whether it was economic or racial grievance that drove these voters. The answer is somewhere in between - according to the books.  These works range from soul searching memoirs from those who came of age in the heartland, famously J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and Heartland by Sarah Smarsh, told from opposing ideologies. Vance blames laziness among working class whites and has since become a radical authoritarian subservient to Trump. Smarsh focuses on the damage of tricke down politics in white rural America, a sense of inferiority of being unable to attain financial independence. Academics and journalists took jaunts into Trump country and tried to understand what was going on in works of sociological analysis. Elements of race and economic anxiety play a role. Yet all these books tend to reinforce a stereotype: either a bitter a resentful and ignorant bigot or the folksy helpless victim of bad policy and misleading propaganda. Many of these books also write of rural America as a monolith of whiteness and decline, when in fact they are becoming more diverse and becoming more reliant on immigrant labor. 

2) Resistance Literature: #Resistance became a staple of Twitter after Trump assumed power, unleashing an all hands-on deck mindset to save democracy. Timothy Snyder's slim volume On Tyranny offered grounded advice on how to oppose creeping authoritarianism based on lessons from the 20th Century. Lozada found much of the resistance genre to be insufficient, too focused on deepening the divide and dunking on Trump and his followers instead of rejecting the polarized mindset itself.

3) Conservatives and Trump: The rise of Trump led to a schism within the Conservative Movement and one that's undergone many phases. A flurry of mea culpa memoirs emerged by ex-conservatives despairing over Trump stomping on many conservative principals, leading to their divorce from the GOP. Lozada sees an insincerity at the heart of these volumes in not coming to terms with how their tactics created the climate for a Trump to rise. Then there are Trumpists writing books heaping praise on their leader as a misunderstood president who wants to save America from "the ruling classes. "Trumpist intellectuals" began to build an argument for Trump, based at the radical right Claremont Institute, branding themselves as ultra-nationalists who believe all Americans who voted for Biden should have their citizenship revoked! Lately, as told in a Vanity Fair article, these "rebels" have found allies in the Tech industry and are attempting to market their brand of reactionary-cultural politics into a viable stance that's extremely authoritarian. 

4) Immigration: Perhaps the most painful part of the Trump years were the agonizing debates on immigration, a leader taking a complicated and sensitive issue and pouring gallons of gasoline into an already raging fire. Lozada read books dealing with new approaches to border policy, memoirs written by immigrants and from those who live on the border. A recurring theme are the contradiction America's high demand for immigrant labor and the hostility of Americans towards people willing to the do work. 

5) Assault on Truth: The chaos of the current media landscape is covered in this chapter from historical explanations by academics to memoirs by journalists on the front lines. Questions are raised like. How do we live in a time when everyone lives in their own truth bubble? There's the sheer spectacle of watching government officials lying for their leader despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Orwell's 1984 is often a starting for a long list of academic studies on the decline of an objective truth. 

6) Race in the Trump Era: Lozada looks at the number of books on identity politics, whiteness, and racial identity in modern America. Discourse on racism, anti-racism, and many memoirs on racial identity in 21st Century America are all covered in this chapter. The murder of George Floyd led to a racial reckoning during the summer of 2020 - and a predictable backlash of white resentment. 

7) #MeToo and Gender Politics: Revelations and reflections on the sexual violence perpetuated by men in positions of power occupied much of the discourse during the Trump era. With multiple allegations against Trump himself and the reveal of Harvey Weinstein's many crimes against women, gender dynamics at home and in the workplace underwent substantial reassessment. From Hillary Clinton's memoir What Happened? on facing misogyny as a presidential candidate to confessional memoirs written by women about the abuse they endured in the workplace to suspenseful journalistic accounts such as She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.

8) White House Chaos, Russia, future of democracy: The last three chapters look at the plethora of accounts from insiders and journalists on the day to day chaos of Trump. Lozada admits these books make for compelling reading, but all fall into a similar trap: They seem too enthused on just reporting on the chaos without much insight into the larger significance. Books on Trump and his Russian connections also became a cottage industry of varying accounts. Books on American history and its meaning were also topped the bestseller lists.  

What We Were Thinking is a useful read on the state of the American psyche during Trump and where it might be going. Lozada shies away from pushing a thesis or agenda, more of a commentary track searching for meaning through a challenging time in history. An extensive bibliography is also included.